I have a guess on that one. Desmond was on his way home after finishing his race around the world. With no island to crash on he presumably finished the race.

so from these pictures i guess locke gives jack a call?

these weren from an old episode were they?

Those are from the lost baggage room in the season premiere I think.

ah yes...thought for a minute that might be a doctors office

What do any of you think about last week's title...

"LA X" ?

NOT "lax" , "LAX", or even "L.A.X."

LA '10 as in 2010?

Or like Earth X? That's the stock/cliche name for parallel Earths.

In algebra, X is usually the variable. So maybe that's it. This is Earth, as we know it, but with a variable removed or added.

Or maybe the 10th time they've gone around some kind of time loop.

hurley is lucky since he doesnt play the cursed numbers, with the hatch not being built the cursed numbers wont be cursed, so even if he plays the same numbers they wont be bad numbers, just normal everyday lotto numbers.

as for sun:
if the incident causes the island to sink widmore would die right?
widmore wouldnt work with sun's dad so maybe paik isnt as powerful?
the watch might just be jin's watch that sun got for him as a gift?
maybe they're running to america to escape and get married?

this one^

I don't think Desmond was physically on the plane.

Or maybe he was, but at the same time... wasn't.

I am definitely of the opinion that he wasn't on the plane in the same capacity that everyone else was.

Of all the questions that arose last week and could be at least partially answered this week, I'm most interested in whether or not Sayid is still himself. Is tomorrow nights episode one hour or two?

When is the next episode?

Tomorrow. One hour.

I believe it was probably the same Desmond we know, and not some alternate Desmond. But given what he's already gone through, something messed up and he's flipping back and forth between the two. Or something. I don't know.

I know the big theory revolving around Sayid is that he's not really Sayid anymore but instead Jacob, using the Locke/MiB as a template. I don't see how they're the same thing though. Locke's body is still dead, uninhabited. MiB is more like a copy. Wouldn't Jacob do the same thing? Still, Richard said taking little Ben to the temple would change him in some way, so maybe that's why Sayid won't exactly be the same Sayid.

I hope there's a lot of Desmond this season. He's the best character.

Agreed. It was great to see him become what seemed like an unnecessary addition to quickly one of the more interesting people on the show. Oh, Nikki and Paolo, what might've been!

Tomorrow's episode is called "What Kate Does".

I like the flip-flop reference to an old title, very LOST.

That's a very good point. I've had this conversation with several people over the last week, and that point has never come up. MIB is not a soul inhabiting Locke's body, he's wearing a John Locke costume. Jacob inhabiting Sayid would be completely different than Flocke.

Further ammo in my argument that Sayid is not Jacob. Hopefully we'll see tomorrow. It would be awesome if the muddied water meant that the healing properties were somehow corrupted, and Sayid will turn dark and become an incongruous force.

There was some great stuff in that Dark UFO weekly recap. Visiting Dark UFO and Doc Jensen are an invaluable ritual for the morning after a new Lost episode. Seems like Jensen approaches his analysis from a more outsider/philosophical/literate perspective, while Dark UFO knows more about the details of the 100+ episodes of this show than anyone outside the writing team. They both pick up on things that the casual viewer couldn't hope to notice.

I'm watching, but I'm not as involved as I was for the first 3 seasons.

for as busy of a week i've had since last tuesday i've been wanting the new lost episode so much that these past few

days have taken forever.

Now, hold on. We saw Desmond on the plane, right? In that particular reality, the island is underwater, and has been for, what, 30 years? They originally encountered Desmond, in the "original" reality, on the island pushing the button. So wouldn't Desmond's life have a whole new trajectory in the "no crash" reality? There would be no island for him to go to, no button to push....so what's to say he didn't "coincidentally" happen to be taking the same flight as the rest of them in that reality?

At least I think. I can barely keep my facts straight.

I wonder how much stuff they'll answer by the end of the show, and how much stuff will just be left hanging?

My take on Desmond is that he has control over his time-hopping and checked in to that reality timespan to do a headcount of who was on the plane for Mrs. Faraday.

How about Locke inhabiting Sayid's body? He was in Jesus' spot on the last supper promo pic.

you just blew my mind

That's what I'm thinking.

I was thinking about the relationship between Jacob and MIB this morning, and an old episode title popped into my head: Man of Science/Man of Faith. What if that wasn't referring only to Locke and Jack, but also to Jacob and MIB? I really don't think that the MIB is the evil counterpoint to Jacob's goodness. What if Jacob represents faith and MIB represents science? We know from their conversation on the beach that Jacob believes in the redemptive nature of man, that we are inherently good and will find a way to progress beyond our human faults. However, Jacob has seen this hypothesis tested several times, all with the same result. He is forced to for the theory that the outcome will always be the same.

I also don't see pure evil in the MIB. He almost always (there have been a couple exceptions) allows his victims to be fairly judged. Even in the last episode, when the guys came in with guns he gave them a very straightforward, reasonable way out. Their mission ended with Jacob's death, so they were free to leave. They didn't listen, so he attacked. But after the attack, he told Ben that he was "sorry he had to see him like that." Doesn't seem like he necessarily takes pleasure in becoming smokey.

What this could boil down to is that Jacob and the MIB are being forced to test humanity itself, but Jacob cheated. He locked the MIB in that cabin (which we thought was Jacob's) and put a rung of ash around it to keep him in. Now he's free and he's "very disappointed in all of you", meaning that anyone who knowingly went along with Jacob's schemes is a traitor in his eyes. The scales were unfairly tipped in Jacob's favor, so now the MIB wants nothing to do with this game anymore, he wants out. He wants to "go home."

Of course, this will probably all be proven wrong in about 11 hours, but it's interesting to consider.

I like this.

I think you're certainly on to something there. It seems likely that the Jacob/MiB conflict is not as black and white as it seems so far, given the history of the show. Who knows, maybe in the next few episodes we'll be lead to believe that MiB is the 'good guy', only to switch back to Jacob by the series finale. I'm dying to see the scene where MiB lays down 'why you were brought to this island' (it looks like he's manipulating Sawyer in the promo.. hard to tell). I'm not entirely sure Carlton & Co really had this all figured out around "Man of Science, Man of Faith" however.

You can be certain that Cuse and company knew the nature of Jacob and MIB from the onset of the show. They had the skeleton of the main plot figured out for the pitch to ABC, and have been filling in the details since season one. There have definitely been times when they've lost their way (first six eps of season 3), and there have been too many mysteries created to be able to wrap it all up in a neat little package. But I have faith that they've always known where they are headed. I don't think they could have (or would have) started this show without a reasonable idea of what the end game is, and the nature of Jacob/MIB are elemental to that.

But C&C set up enough beautiful thematic/character counter-points to make this new conflict tie-in to almost everything else on the show.

What do you mean?

I think he means Jack/Locke and Ben/Widmore foreshadowed Jacob/MiB, which I agree with. The slow and ever expanding scope of Lost's main conflict is what makes this show one of my favorites.

the main thing i just realized (which took me forever to see) is that both of these timelines are in present tense.
we wont see flashbacks of the alternate reality, so everything has to be explained in present tense, no flashbacks to what
happens to sawyer before alt time line flight it all has to be told in present tense.
we have no way to deal with motives in this alt reality.
with flashbacks we saw why people did what they did on the island because of the past.
with flashforwards we saw why people did what they did off the island because of what happened on the island.

because if they start flashbacks in an alt world i will lose my shit.

i believe mib is not evil since if he's smokey why would ben want him to come and kill kemi?
why trust pure evil, to me they are two spirits/gods... at a yin yang, neither evil, just at opposite ends of the game.

I have been assuming this, since I re-watched the episode on Saturday. Cheap as hell and dramatically ridiculous. So I figure it's a go.

I am done going to the imdb page to look at the cast members for upcoming episodes, because I'm trying to avoid any spoilers this season. But knowing the title of tonight's episode, it would be sweet if Nathan Fillion made one last appearance on this show.

Yeah. Pretty much.

Is the Black Rock in the middle of the island because the island has been underwater before?

Good call.

Well we saw the blackrock (presumably) out on the water in lost seasons finale. Island wasn't underwater at that time. I always pictured a tsunami washing the boat inland.

Pretty underwhelming episode.

terrible episode. it's just a pathway to other episodes. every single one this season should be at a high level and so far I find myself laughing at what goes on more than being intrigued by it.

I fast forwarded through most of the parts showing Kate's story outside of the island.

I'm sick of Jack simply not believing in anything that happens on the island. He keeps challenging everything and it's gotten beyond old.

Again, I'm still watching, but they're not pointing this season towards an ending that will be satisfying.

Come on, they're finally revealing what the "illness" is all about, plus all the dead bodies walking around. Plus what happened to Claire. Plus some more around Aaron. Not sure what else you're looking for, especially in episode 2 of a 16-episode season.

Pretty revealing line by the Japanese guy: "I was brought here like everyone else" (paraphrasing). Don't know why, but I never put 2 and 2 together with women not being able to have babies on the island and Jacob "bringing" people to the island. Everyone there is a transplant.

Some nice laughs in the episode, especially with Mac showing up.


He's a doctor. A man of science if you will. I still don't accept that any of this stuff can be explained away by magic. Why should Jack?

LOVED Jack taking the pill. Such a great fuck-you to the secrecy of The Others.

So what happened to Claire and this new batch of Others when the island moved in 2004? How did they end up in 2007 instead of shifting through time like everyone else?

The births started going wrong after the incident, though, right? I think that all was when, until them shits went down.

The Kate and Claire story was horribly executed. No one would give a credit card willingly to someone who sticks a gun in your face. I think they write themselves into corners and then we get scenes like that. With that being said, looking forward to next week!

I know I'm given to hyperbole, but this was the worst episode ever. No mysteries exposed or created, no Locke, forgettable dialogue, and WHY THE HOLY FUCK DID THEY GIVE MAC FROM SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA THAT MANY LINES? All I could see was Mac from Philly trying to be a badass on Lost. Totally took me out of the reality of the show. I hope he dies or disappears soon, because I will never get used to his character.

I was never interested in Claire's character, except for her relationship to her brother and father. Kate has grown more and more annoying over the years. And let's hope we've closed the Sawyer hearts Juliet chapter. With only 16 more episodes, I can't believe they completely punted this one. 55 minutes of meaningless melodrama, followed by five minutes of average intrigue. I don't even feel the need to check out Doc Jensen or Dark UFO today.

as much as i dont like jack at least his episodes go somewhere.
kate's treaded water. we have kate and claire in the cab and then rightaway we ditch her on the side of the road.
just to go back and get her.

only good thing about the episode was ethan. loved that.
also loved when hurley and miles "headed to the food court"

so here's how we have it:
mib can look like dead people.
and the mib as the sickness can take over living people? do i have this right?
that makes him a strong force compared to jacob who hasn't taken over anyone really.

horrible episode.

i will say that the enhanced version of last weeks episode did help me out.
i forget what they pointed out, but it had to do with something from season 3 or so that made my jaw drop.

Actually, I think there was a connection between the two characters that goes beyond common sense. If these alt timeline characters do retain some memory somewhere of the other timeline then you can see why Kate and Claire would both go against common sense to help each other. I think Claire naming her baby Aaron and having no idea where the name came from is the writers giving us a big hint that the alt timeline characters do have all those experiences locked in their head somewhere.

This episode proved once and for all that Danielle Rousseau wasn't crazy, her team was infected. How did she know this I wonder?

This episode while mostly a setup episode did answer a lot of questions and I definitly wouldn't call it a horrible episode.

We were given fairly definitive proof of the nature of Rousseau's team's "infection" in the first half of last season. The episode where Montaug lost his arm to Smokey. I didn't consider that an open mystery any longer. What questions do you think this episode answered?

anyone notcie the date on the ultrasound...10.22.04