5221

Yeah, we thought the same thing. Sayid is Jacob and he battles Locke/Smokey.

So because the island is underwater in '04 and Juliette says it works then it seems the Incident produced a new timeline.

So will the universe course correct the '04 and '07 timeline?

5222

For me… flash-cognitive-dissonance since those scenes were so obviously shot at HNL.

5223

Carlton and Damon were on Jimmy Kimmel tonight and of course dropped some spoilers for the audience who hadn’t seen the premier yet. When they said that new Locke was the smoke monster there was a rather loud reaction from the dumb people in the audience who didn’t figure that out last season.

5224

Well, I guess I was one of those dumb people. I didn’t know until he actually turned into it. Was I supposed to deduce from his Man In Black appearance that black clothing = smoke monster? I guess I missed whatever clues you picked up on. By the way, you’re an asshole.

5225

If you’re calling me an asshole because I spoiled something I’d say you’re at fault here. I posted at 2am EST, so if you hadn’t already seen the episode you probably should have stayed out of the thread. But whatever. The man in black/smoke monster reveal took me a couple viewings of the finale to figure out but the cues are one of the more obvious things of the show’s mysteries. The smoke monster telling Ben that he has to do whatever Locke says is the setup. Once you get to the season 5 finale and see that the man in black wants to kill Jacob but can’t do it himself then it becomes pretty clear. The smoke monster has been shown to take human form (Ben’s daughter) and takes the form of Locke specifically to manipulate Ben into doing what he wants to but can’t.

I thought the premiere was awesome. Most of the big reveals were interesting but fairly predictable though. I think the vast majority of viewers would agree that they thought the bomb would move everyone in 1977 to the present but not stop the plane crash. The alternate timeline is most likely a consequence of the bomb being detonated. The one big thing I’m puzzling over is Locke/man in black’s comment to Richard. “It’s nice to see you without your chains on” makes no sense to me whatsoever.

5226

“No more flashbacks, or flash forwards, just straightforward story.”

Yeah, bull - flash sideways to a bifurcated time stream. Either the time streams need to merge or one of them comes to an end. Or the producers need to hide in a deep dark hatch on an uncharted island somewhere…

With that caveat - and the note that the opener wasn’t about answering questions so much as strewing more questions like psychic caltrops to puncture the wheels of the unwary - I enjoyed yet again the deepening of the mystery for the moment since at least some answers came along with it.

5227

Since I said I figured it out when I saw him turn into it, I thought that implied that I’d watched the premiere. There was no real way of knowing for sure that he was the smoke monster in the last season just from that little scene in the cave when it takes the form of his daughter; it merely could have been under his control.

5228

I figured out that Focke= Smoke Monster last season but you couldn’t be 100% sure until now.

I think the Richard “chains” comment has to do with how Richard was Jacob’s lackey.

I am a little disappointed so far. I hope the LAX stuff gets wrapped up quickly or more interesting. Also having the cliffhanger be something introduced in this episode rather than addressing the new timeline was disappointing.

I am happy we finally met the real Others.

5229

Probably the chains Flocke means were the ones Alpert wore on the Black Rock. Did they ever say what kind of slave ship it was? Or was it a ship of criminals bound for Down Under?

5230

That was my other idea but I couldn’t remember what Black Rock was called. I remember a Richard as a convict theory.

So whatever happened to the other Lost survivors that didn’t get starring roles? Where the fuck are they?

5231

Oh, they all got killed in the flaming arrow attack last season.

5232

That was my take as well. Seeing as how Richard said “I’m this way because of Jacob”, I think Focke was not so subtly telling him that he’s about to start aging again.

5233

They are flash-back-and-to-the-lefts.

I suspect we will see the alternate timeline slowly trying to correct itself, disappearing people like Desmond and Jack’s father through the course of the season.

5234

Remind me someone, did Ben succeed in killing Penny last season?

5235

No.

Happy ending there, I think.

5236

It was a happy ending before. But now, Desmond and Penny didn’t go through what they went through. Instead, Desmond probably successfully sailed around the world? Or at least, he wasn’t stuck on the island pressing the button since there was no button to press.

On a different topic: I’m sooooooo glad they finally showed us the other Others. That’s been bothering me since Season 1. They clearly showed a different set of people who walked past Mr. Eko. But then later they tried to play it off as if the Others were all Ben’s people. But then they never explained that. And they never explained the stewardess disappearing. I totally thought that in later seasons they were completely going to ignore that, so I’m so happy that they didn’t ignore that after all.

My first hint tonight that they weren’t going to ignore it after all was that in the recap show tonight, they summarized all previous seasons, and they actually showed that scene. And the recap episodes always have a purpose for reminding us about certain parts of the earlier seasons. Those of you who missed the recap episode missed a good one. It was narrated by the actor who does Ben, and it really reminded me about a lot of things that I’d forgotten.

Anyway, great season opener. Absolutely superb. I can’t believe even in the last season they’re giving us things to wonder about even as they give us more answers. Brilliant.

5237

Also, in the opening few minutes of the premiere, an awful lot of screen time is given to the stewardess in the alternate timeline or whateverthefuckitwas. My spidey sense was tingling that we just might be seeing her some more later, as they wanted to make sure the audience could recognize her easily even without the recap.

5238

She’s with the Sayeed others. She even says they were on the plane with her.

5239

Uh, yeah, that’s kinda what I was talking about. All the additional screentime given in the alternate timeline to make her easily recognizable when she shows up among the other Others.

5240

So, I watched it.

I’m rather glad because the plot at the moment is extremely simple, and, especially, it is coherent with what I had written a year ago when the series closed.

After the finale a year ago I wrote:

If I have to guess the anti-Jacob is also the smoke monster, who is also evil-Locke. Jacob enjoys messing with people, while anti-Jacob is the one who prefers being left alone and would like as well to get rid of Jacob and enjoy a quiet life.
I think this is going to be a theme important to keep in mind. It’s Jacob who messes with people, who calls the boat the first time and who gets the losties on the airplane the second time.

The anti-Jacob instead is the one who now wants to “go home”. Whatever it means.

We also know that anti-Jacob killing Jacob means that the island isn’t anymore in the balance of power. But. It’s also possible that Sayid is now possessed by Jacob the same way Locke is now anti-Jacob.

It’s also interesting because the way things went had the result of solving the time paradox they created last season. Me again a year ago:

But before they save themselves, they all have to die. Those in the past in order to complete the plan and let their copies live. Those in the future because they are orphans of a timeline (the island blew up, so Locke and Ben can’t be on it, timeline-wise those scenes happen BEFORE what we’re seeing in the past).

There’s a problem, though. Sun has a picture of them in the Dharma initiative, and there’s also a sixth season to fill. So this hints that, if the future is their future as that picture hints, they won’t succeed in blowing up the island.
My theory at that time (before the season end) was that the entire timeline would be erased, because that future (Lock revived returning to the island with Sun & Ben) was strictly dependent on the past going the way it did.

So, either that timeline was “true” (hence losties not succeeding exploding the bomb) or it was going to be erased, so that, in order to trigger the “better world” (what we now see as side-flashes) all of them had to be erased from existence. Meaning that in order to have themselves in the future have a better life, they had to sacrifice all they lived till that point. Also meaning that the whole TV series would be basically erased because they were successful in preventing the whole thing.

We now know things didn’t go that way. The bomb did explode and the (arguably) better future was triggered, but the “copies” of the losties weren’t “erased” and now persist in another timeline that goes to overlap exactly with the old 2007 version. Where anti-Jacob kills Jacob and now probably wants to take over the island in order to take off and return to Mars.

The big question in this series is about how the alternate timeline (2004) is going to fit in the context. Either it is there simply thematically to prove a point (that the new life isn’t that better) or it will have to collide again in some way (Widmore maybe?).

Theories?

This is probably going to be a theme.

But a counterpoint is a dialogue in last season, where they referred to the exact opposite situation (the life they lead after the crash):

“It was not all misery.”
“Enough of it was.”