-I don't know why ABC ran that one hour recap special with the writers. They should've just had Hurley summarize the ENTIRE series in 2 minutes; just like he did to his mom! I (heart) Shih-Tzus!

-Glad that the brooding "emo Hurley" from last season seems to be gone. Old Hurley is a riot. He'll attack you with a Hot Pocket.

-Hurley seeing dead people opens up all sorts of future cameos. Libby will probably show up. Any chance that Mr. Eko will, as well?!!

-Cheech watching "Expose"!! It's such a kick, to me, to think: "hey, that's CHEECH! And he's in one of my favorite shows!!"

-Sayid got to kick some ass again! "He has a secret life, where he does ninja moves and kills people".

-Please, somebody give Sawyer a shirt. Preferrably Juliet.

-The lady at the butcher shop who Ben spoke to.... where have we seen her before? I didn't recognize her, but I'm thinking she was an "Other". Right?

-The lady Ben was reporting to at the end.... was that the same old broad Desmond spoke to, in England, two seasons ago? In Desmond's "Slaughterhouse 5" episode; right after he saw Charlie performing on the street.

-Faraday, being cognizant of what's going on, is finding ways to continue his mission, linearly. Seeing him talking to Desmond and also as a Dharma miner--- reminds me of Hawkeye tumbling through time and sending messages to the other modern Avengers in "West Coast Avengers", circa 1987 (how he used Firebird's grandfather's bible to send a message to Hank Pym).

-Pleased that Neil Frogurt was wiped away fairly quick. They played him up in last year's "Missing Pieces" webisodes. I didn't like the character, then, and I was less than excited when he started getting screentime. Thankful for the flaming arrows!

-I don't think we've seen the last of "Jones" and the other guys who captured Sawyer and Juliet. Probably minor roles, but I have a feeling they'll be back.

-Going back to Ben's old theory about the island having a "Magic Box that anything can come out of". I'm thinking the island doesn't CREATE things, rather that it PULLS things from somewhere in time. Ties in with the Smoke Monster, somehow (remember when Eko saw all the past and future events in Smoky?)

-Oh, after the focus on Dr. Candel/Dr. Chang's baby... I'm still pretty sure the baby will end up being Miles.

With all the time travel conundrums, I'm beginning to think that the Oceanic 815 "crash site" that was discovered last season... was NOT faked or set up by neither Charles Widmore nor Ben Linus. Someone will screw up or misinterpret the "time travel rules" and two separate versions of Oceanic 815 will result.

I'm guessing a few things will change and a second Oceanic 815-- with a slightly different cast of people aboard-- will come to be. This "new" version of the flight will end up at the bottom of the ocean, full of corpses, to be discovered in Season 4. Basically, they'd end up with two separate alternate realities, with the split point being the original Oceanic 815 flight departing from Australia in September 2004.

I wouldn't be surprised if the final episode of Season 6 ended with the "new" Oceanic 815 leaving Sydney; bringing everything full circle.

It'd also add a little validity to the psychic's warning to Claire in season 1. Maybe he was another time-displacement victim who knew about the pending crash?

Maybe Smoky, with all of its past/present display, is something like a custodian of the timelines. He's trying to set things back by removing people who didn't belong. Which would explain why Smoky took the injured pilot in the second episode. Wasn't Frank Luputus supposed to be on the flight?! There ya' go..the pilot Smoky ate was the guy who wasn't supposed to be there.

Or maybe Smoky is actually a future incarnation of Locke? So when Locke went face-to-face with Smoky in Season 1, he saw "magic" and was forever changed, due to some weird time travel backlash of seeing himself.

I assume by "Smoky" you mean "Smokey." I was very confused for a minute there.

Anyway...

LOST!

I'm on my way over to Lostapedia right now (I'm sure that's not what it's called, but you know what i'm talking about) to get my timelines in order here and then I shall contribute to this conversation. I have a large problem with remember what happened last season. Fortunately, on ABC they air last week's episode with little tidbits on the bottom of the screen (like Pop-Up Losteo!) to keep me in line, but I usually miss the first half of it due to the boyfriend.

For now, though, I'd like to say that I'm happy we are all on the same page as far as time and place goes. I would have loved for Sawyer and crew to have run into the folks that built the giant statue with four toes before they were flashed off to the 70s though. I'm interested to find out what "when" Locke and the non-other-non-815 survivors are, and whether they and Ben are going to find the 815 crew again.

From what I gather... they're on an ISLAND.

Hmm... with our main castaways back in the 70's and becoming significant to the Dharma Initiative and the conflict with the "Hostiles"... I'm guessing that "the List" somehow ties in.

Like, perhaps Ben and the 2004 Others (or maybe just "Jacob") know the names of Jack, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer and pals, along with the fact that they'll arrive via a plane crash. So they have to find names and either eliminate anomalies or patch up the timestream by acquiring certain people.

Which also makes me wonder if "Jacob" is Locke.

Good point about the list. I like how Hurley pointed out to Miles that Ben didn't remember Sayeed (or however you spell his name) when he was being tortured and that Richard made it make sense when he told Sawyer Ben would forget everything.

Also, that tree thing Richard took Ben into at the end is the same place Smokey came out, right? Maybe we'll get to learn a bit more about Smokey.

I was kind of disappointed to find out that Kate gave Aaron up, not that he was stolen away or something. It seems so anti-climatic. And where did Faraday go? And where is young Charlotte?

Was Richard living in the town with Juliet and Ben, etc, when the plane crashed? I don't remember him being there for some reason. Maybe he's the one that has the list. It seems to me that Richard is really in charge of the Others and he just lets Ben (or Charles Widmore or John Locke, or whomever) believe they're in charge. Richard is really calling the shots from behind the "special" leader. And why doesn't Richard EVER change? And why doesn't any of the Others ever wonder that? Juliet should know the answer, shouldn't she? Or at least be curious?

I like the thought about Jacob being John Locke. It seems a logical (as much logic as can be expected, I guess) explanation for why Ben could see Jacob but John couldn't.

Anyway, I'm glad we're going back to the Locke-Ben-Sun part of the timeline, because I'm interested to find out WHEN they are (not where they are, like EVE previously thought I asked) and why Sun didn't end up in 1976 with everyone else. It seems pretty logical that Ben didn't, because Ben is already there. He can't be in two WHENS at the same time.

One of Richard's first lines when we met him (in Ben's flashback with the bunnies) was "I know all about missing birthdays". So yeah, he knows how to stay young. My guess is by knowing how to manipulate the timeline funkiness on the Island.

It looked like he took Ben to the "Temple". The same place with the well and where Locke was heading to turn the big donkey wheel.

I don't remember Richard being in the happy Otherville (bookclub) with Ben and Juliet. Otherville seemed to be Ben's little fantasy-land. My guess is that Richard hangs out at the Temple, most of the time. He took the remaining Others there towards the end of Season Three.

I think you're right that he's the real brains behind the Others... but Ben or Locke need to be leader for whatever reason. If Ben's the head coach, then Richard is the GM or "President of Operations".

Oh, and I just use the smart-ass "see, they're on an ISLAND" line when people ask me about the show. A guy I work with just starting watching the show through DVDs and Netflix. Whenever he asks me all these questions about what's going on, I just smirk and say: "see...they're on an ISLAND..."

Oh. Alright then. I thought you just couldn't read. ;)

Thanks for blowing away Caesar. We already have "dude" and "brother"...don't need "friend".

Although, with the wacky time travel and Island healing stuff, he may pop-up again.

This episode was a little anti-climatic for me. But I like how when the show focuses in on one character some of the gaps get filled in - like who beat up Ben, how he got Alex, and how the power shifted from Charles Widmore to Ben. It's like we as the audience don't know anything until we interview everyone involved and put the pieces together for ourselves.

I also like how the Island uses apparitions of the dead people to get shit done. Christian, Claire, the guy who built Jacob's cabin, and now Alex have been used by the Island to point people in the right direction and into doing what it wants them to do. The same could be said for the dead people Hurley has seen on and off the Island.

Furthermore, I'd like to go back to your point, EvE, about Ben having Otherville as his utopia and Richard living in the jungle, still. John Locke asked Ben whose idea it was to move into the Dharma houses and by the lack of response it seems like it was Ben's idea, and getting rid of Charles, who was clearly fine living in the jungle after the Dharma people were killed off (as we saw when Ben found Alex), was the last string besides Richard between living in the jungle and living "civilized."

Anyway, I'm STILL looking for a chronological time line for the events of Lost. I don't want "real" time (like Jack et al left they Island and then returned in 1976) I want the "actual" timeline (like Jack et al came to the island in 1976 and later returned on a crashed plane).

And where the hell did Faraday go!? Did he leave on the sub that was offered to Jack et al?

I'm curious exactly WHEN Ben moved everyone into Otherville, as well, and if having Alex had anything to do with it.

By piecing things together from last night and the Ben flashback episode from Season Four (when Ben gassed and killed all the Dharma people), it seems that Charles was still on the Island when the big Dharma purge went down. Charles was led off the Island via the sub, which leads us to believe that his exit occurred AFTER the Purge and when they moved into Otherville. How soon after, and if the Purge had anything to do with the Ben/Charles rift, remains to be seen.

In the 1977 period, I'm guessing Faraday is deep in the ground working with the mining team, as we saw in the season opener. Next week's episode is supposed to focus on Miles in 1977, so Faraday might be showing up.

There are a few more significant events that will probably fill themselves in before the season's over. Like the building of the Dharma stations, Kelvin's arrival and the blocked-off sections of each station. I think it'll end up that the Losties will unintentionally create the dissolution of the Dharma Initiative and, eventually, the Island's status quo in 2004.

Well, now we know why Miles was asking for $3.2M from Ben, last season. Oh, and Pierre Chang/Marvin Candel is officially now his father as we've been speculating about since he first popped up.

Hurley secretly writing the screenplay to Empire Strikes Back may be the biggest geek mark-out moment in history. Sigh...if only Luke and Vader could communicate!

Bang, Faraday's back. He apparently worked with the "Ann Arbor Chapter" of the Dharma Initiative.

Recap show next week (*fart*), but in two weeks it looks like more statue stuff!

Holy do I EVER need a recap show. I'm actually glad about that.

And there goes my theory that you can't be in the same "when" as yourself - as baby Miles and adult Miles clearly exist in the same "when." Also, didn't someone totally call that Marvin Candel was Miles' father in last season's thread?

I want to know what happened to Saeed (how the HELL do you spell that!? I'm currently assuming it's the same as Raisha Saeed. haha).

Going back to your point about Charles being on the island when the Dharma purge happened - When Ben took Alex from Danielle, she asked Ben if he was the one who made everyone sick. Do we know exactly what year the gassing happened, because I would assume that the Dharma purge was what she was referring to.

Looking forward to learning more about the statue, because that has been seriously bothering me since we first saw the darn thing.

Anyway, STILL looking for that time line. I really need it, as I am awfully confused as to what happened when in the linear line of time.

Ok, I take that back about the gassing happening when Alex was born. The gassing took place in 1994, and Alex was born in 1989. I found the timeline, btw, on Lostpedia.com. I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon getting all this straight. Haha.

There was some timeline confusion regarding Charlotte's age and date-of-birth. But it was just a writer's slip-up. So the word is to not read anything odd concerning Charlotte's incongruities in any timeline.

I also thought that it was impossible to have two "yous" in the same "when". Like, maybe the world would explode if you saw yourself while time traveling. But apparently not .. and I'm okay with that. You could still No-Prize this by saying that Old Miles and Baby Miles didn't make eye contact; thus preserving the theory.

I like how everyone seems to have their little missions in 1977. Yet Hurley's is to prevent the Ewoks. Dude...Awesome.

Oh, and as far as I know, it's spelled "Sayid".

I'm guessing the recap will have those annoying pop-ups, though. With informative crap like: "this is CHARLES WIDMORE. He is trying to FIND the Island".

Hey! Those pop ups are fantastic! Mostly because I'm very bad at recognizing people if I don't see them all the time. For instance, I didn't notice Eloise Hawking was the lady that sold Desmond the ring until the little Pop Up Losteo told me. Little stuff like that.

Anyway, I was thinking about this all night - I wonder if the Losties are going to cause or somehow influence the "incident." On the timeline I've been reading it says the "incident" was supposed to have happened in 1977 or shortly thereafter, and the current timeline is in 1977.

As for Charlotte, the timeline I found says something like "this is the date Ben erroneously said was Charlotte's birth" or something like that, so I think they have it figured out.

Here's the link: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

...if anyone wants to check it out. It's actually a very in-depth and totally awesome timeline, and includes the semi-cannon stuff (like the video game and the online game) and links to articles about the individual stuff. I read the article about the statue, in particular, and starting marking out. I had noticed the Egyptian hieroglyphs in the monster's layer, and as it turns out, the statue is decidedly Egyptian in style, and also echoes themes in poems about the Ramses II statue (like "Ozymandias" et al). I love ancient Egypt, so I hope that ties in here some way.

I just wanted to say that Sawyer has thus far had the best line in the whole entire show...

"Your mother is an Other?"

Hahahahahaha!


I will have more time later to tell my thoughts on the show.

Newest fan murmur I'm hearing is "whose face will be on the statue"? Hadn't thought about that, but it's interesting. Popular choices seem to be either Jack or Locke. I think Richard would be another choice, but he's not as significant in relation to the overall cast.

Randomly watched a little bit of the Season 2 finale on Sci-Fi channel, last night. To refresh: it was the episode where Locke and Desmond lock Mr. Eko out of the hatch control, while Michael leads Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to an Others ambush.

Anyways, I think we're on to something with the enigmatic "LIST" relating to the Losties who went back in time and joined the Dharma Initiative. In the Season 2 finale, Michael says that Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley's names were all on a list the Others gave him. All four of those guys are "currently" in the Dharma Initiative in 1977.

Wildcard is Jin, though. He's part of the Dharma team, too. But I can't remember if Michael was trying to bring him along, as well, in the Season 2 finale. Or if Jin was simply unavailable because he was already on the boat with Sun and Sayid. Michael was kind of a half-assed dork anyways, so I could see him trying to go back to the Others with only 4 of the 5 he needed.

Regardless, I'm guessing the 2004 Others were trying to act as "timeline custodians" or something by finding the people on the "LIST". I'm sure Juliet and Miles were also on it. Maybe they want to get them all together, send them back in time and fix things (or manipulating them to a better outcome). Whatever the reason, I'm sure the "LIST" and the 1977 stuff will tie together soon.

Pierre Chang: "You fought in the Korean War?!"

Hurley: "there....was no such thing...?"

Pierre Chang: "who is the President?"

Hurley: ".....okay dude, we're from the future!"

Awesome.

Definitely my favorite moment in the show

I LOVE that future Richard has NO idea what's going on. For once in this show, Richard is clueless and it makes me happy.

Any guesses on who Jacob is going to be?

Totally random and I have no explanation for it, but howabout Walt?

Locke's still my first pick (ugh..that pun really WAS unintended).

I think it'll be someone who's somewhat tied into the cast, in terms of significance. If it's someone like Nemi (Eko's brother) or Karl (Alex's boyfriend), that'd suck.

I'm betting on someone completely new

$20 (Canadian, of course) says it's Richard. Besides my guess being based on the fact that Richard is supernatural in some way (what with the never aging thing and all), my guess is also based on Sawyer/LeFleur's little eyeliner comment. The back of the statue looks completely Egyptian and Egyptian men (and women) of high rank wore khol, (effectively black eyeliner) ceremoniously. Other than that, I really have no clue who it might turn out to be or that we'll even ever know.

Swiggy wins the pool with "someone completely new"!

Notice we didn't see the OTHER guy from the opening scene? I'm guessing he's the spirit controlling currently controling Locke. Whereas Jacob has used Christian Shepherd in past episodes.

In that opening scene, Jacob had a white shirt and the other guy had a black shirt. Going back to the black/white duality that was on display with Locke/Walt and Widmore/Ben in previous seasons. I'm guessing the two are brothers in some way and eternal "Agents of Chaos and oOrder" or some shit. They keep experimenting and trying to prove points to each other. The Black Rock was one of their experiments and Oceanic 815 was another. Maybe the Ajira flight was their last? Only issue I have with them is that their dialogue seemed WAY too contemporary in that opening scene (the Black Rock crashed in the 1800's... and their speech patterns seemed like something from 1985 or later).

So Sayid gets shot ..and still lives (for awhile, at least). Wow... a LOT of people do not die from close range gunshot blows in this show. See: Young Ben Linus, Locke, Desmond, sure I'm forgetting a few.

Season ends on a big white light...so they could theoretically pick it up anywhere and anytime, next season. C'mon, 2010! Get here! Think I might finally pick up the DVD's and re-watch all the old shit until then (I also wanna' get the Main Chickie into it...since I've been patiently sitting through CSI, Law & Order and Daisy of Love with her).

I was wondering about this so I thought I'd look it up...

Clearly, they're talking about Jacob. I also think clearly Jacob knew he was supposed to die or wanted to die or something. Why else egg Ben on like that?

Anyway, in the off-season, I intend to finish figuring out this silly timeline, and maybe re-watch some stuff that confuses me.

Oh, and in case you were wondering:

I hadn't seriously thought about LOST in a few weeks. But on Sunday night, I had a weird LOST-ish dream. I was stuck in some time paradox, on the south side of town, with Juliet, Sawyer and (of all people) Samoa Joe playing the role of Hurley.

You know, you should really SHARE some of those drugs...

This stuff costs money. Hit Da' Site, click on some Google ads, then maybe I'll share some.