My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The End

TITLE
This actually refers to something Jacob said a few episodes ago when he told Hugo that they were nearing the end. It can also be taken as this is the end of the series.

Ok, the show is over. It answered questions and didn’t answer questions. Here are some things that did not get answered.

WHAT DISSAPOINTED ME
What disappoints me about LOST is Locke. Here he was this man who had faith in the island and in the end he gets murdered. In season one he was the wise man who knew more about the island than anyone. He was mystical and mysterious. In the end he was a broken man and was trying to commit suicide just before he was murdered. That was kind of anticlimactic for me. The only redemption is that Jack states that Locke was mostly right about everything.
We never learned the name of the man in Black.
We never learned what the light in the cave really was, or who put it there or why removing a stone makes the island explode.
We never really learned why the Hurley numbers were special. We do know that Jacob told Hurley they were a blessing and that Jacob used these numbers for people and put their names along with the numbers on the wall of a cave and those people with Hurley numbers were all on flight Oceanic 815. But what did the numbers have to do with Hurley’s string of bad luck including the meteor hitting the chicken joint and other calamities?
Why was Walt so special? How did he make birds fly into windows? Why wasn’t Walt in the finale?
Where did Claudia come from? How did she make it so that Jacob and Esau could not harm each other? Who taught her about the light in the cave? What year did Claudia come to the island?
The psychic told Claire that Claire needed to raise Aaron. He implied that it would be disastrous if anyone else raised him. Why? This was never explained. What is the deal with Aaron?
Who built the statue on the island and why?
What was the connection to Egypt and Greek gods like Apollo?
In season one Rose says that the noise of the smoke monster sounds familiar. Why?
Where did the lighthouse come from in the Church? How did DHARMA know how to use it to find the island?
Who was still sending supplies to the swan hatch? How did they know how to find the island? Remember the pallet of food that landed with DHARMA supplies in season two?
Who was Henry Gale? What was he doing in a balloon over the island?
Why didn’t DHARMA ever return to the island?
It was disappointing to see Richard lose all his faith in Jacob for a while and even tell others not to listen to Jacob.
The Others were very interested in children in seasons one and two. It was interesting to speculate why, but the answer that the Others could not procreate on the island left me feeling flat. That’s it?
We never really got a definitive answer on how the Others made lists of people and determined who was “good” and “bad”. Sayid was determined as “bad” through an odd test of torturing. Why? How did that test work? What was the “disease” that infected Sayid and Claire that worked its way into their hearts that destroyed the person they once knew?
Why was Esau not allowed to kill some people but was allowed to kill other people – Eko, Seth Norris and so forth.
Was Esau the one who appeared as Walt? This happened a few times including the day Shannon was shot. Walt also appeared to John Locke right after Ben shot him, and he was lying in a ditch of dead DHARMA people.

WHAT I THINK IT IS
So, what was this show all about? A very difficult question to answer, but I will try. The island was created by God, and the light represents spiritual goodness that emanates a signal out to all of humanity giving them the choice to do good. Without the light they would not have a choice and fall into darkness with corrupt minds. The island is a test for humanity. God decreed for man not to mess with the light in the cave. That is why when you remove the stone from the light the island goes all crazy.
Claudia made a deal with God that Jacob and Esau could not harm each other. But when Jacob destroyed the body of Esau, because of this deal he could not be destroyed completely and so he became an ethereal being – the smoke monster.
There were actually clues to the show’s end. When Desmond says “see you in another life” this actually happened at the Church when Desmond met Jack. In season one Jack is quoted as saying “we all died” which could be interpreted as a vague hint at the final destination of everyone in the finale. This unfortunately led to the theory that the survivors were actually already dead in season one, and the island was purgatory. That turned out to be wrong.
Esau had not been human for a very long time – perhaps thousands of years. If Claudia was part of the Roman Empire then that could have been roughly 2,000 years ago when she came to the island. Thus the smoke monster could have been without his body for that long. In that long time the smoke monster lost touch with his humanity. He forgot what it was like to be human and became desensitized. Human life meant nothing to Esau in the end.

WHAT I LIKED
The Black Rock saga was explained in detail, and it did double duty by explaining Richard’s backstory and how the statue was broken. For once Ben told the truth. When Ben arrived on the island the statue was already broken.
I am really glad that the alternate timeline was not really an alternate timeline. None of those events actually happened. Whew!
I liked it that all the couples got together in the end.
All the plot twists. The phrase “I never saw that coming” definitely applied to the whole series.
If you haven’t seen it, the three alternate endings to LOST shown on the Jimmy Kimmel show are priceless!

ERROR?
When Miles tells Ben that he lived in the compound 30 years before he did that was not quite true since Ben had lived in the compound as a child and was there even before Miles traveled back in time to the 1970s.

LOST SPINOFF SERIES
Here are some LOST spinoff series I’d like to see

Vincent the Time Traveling Canine – after becoming “unstuck” in time Vincent now travels through time encountering people on the island. Using his superintelligent mind he aids hapless humans in the different problems they encounter, and they never know that it is a dog that saves the day.

The Agira Six – follow the adventures of six people who arrive on a plane in LAX that was bound for Guam. Not being able to tell where they actually have been, the six make up lies, but soon their lies begin to untangle all the while a private detective tries to solve the mystery of where they have been.

Walt the Seeker – Join physicist Walt all grown up as he now teach physics at a university while secretly trying to find a way back to the island. Quirky millionaire Alvar Hanso junior gets in on the action.

Thinking Clairely – Claire becomes a radio therapist helping callers with their problems. Her specialty is crazy. This mom has her hands full with a son bent on world domination.

Ghost Horse Whisperer – After seeing the ghost of a horse on the island Kate finds that she is able to speak to the ghosts of dead horses. Now she aids the former owners of these horses helping them find peace. Her sidekick Miles Straum is also on the case!

Smokey and the Bandit – The smoke monster is frustrated by a gopher who keeps stealing his stuff. Each week the smoke monster tries in vain to capture the smart rodent while Jacob sits back and laughs. The result is hilarity.

So, that’s it. I have now officially written a report on EVERY episode of LOST. This show is undoubtedly the best show of the decade and then some. I will miss it. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog. You can see me on youtube as qcotms and read my future novels at www.qcms.biz.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on What They Died For

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Refers to those who have died of the LOSTaways most notably the Kwons and Sayid the most recent victims.

Ben finally gets revenge for his daughter on Widmore by killing him. This is strange because Ben also invaded Widmore while he was in bed and when Widmore inquired if Ben would kill him Ben said “We both know I can’t do that”. Well, apparently Ben killing anybody is not against the rules so why could he not kill Widmore at his home but could kill him on the island?

QUIZ QUESTION: What cereal did Jack give to Claire in this episode?

Jacob states what we have known all along that these characters were lost in their personal lives. LOST has several meanings: lost literally in geographic space, lost in time and lost in their personal lives.
What did Ben mean when he said that when he summoned the monster that the monster was actually summoning him? Also who told Ben how to summon the monster? Jacob perhaps? Sounds likely until you know that Ben had never actually seen Jacob until the day he killed him.
We learn what we have known all along that Sayid did not kill Desmond showing that there was still at least some humanity left in Sayid. The plan of Widmore was to use Desmond to do something in an electromagnetic experiment. Was it to kill the monster using electromagnetism? He could still do that if Jack and the rest can find him.
We see the monster knock out Richard, but I do not believe that Richard is dead though we never see him again after the monster knocks him. I think it is against the rules for the monster to kill him just like he could not kill Desmond. Why? I do not know. Surely Locke-ness would have killed Desmond if he could rather than just trapping him in a well. Why would he get Sayid to do it if he could to it himself? Strangely Locke-ness has no problem killing other people such as the pilot of Oceanic 815, Eko and Widmore’s men. What makes it ok to kill some but not others? Are some people bad and others good?
Kate was crossed off the list because she became a mother. Perhaps this showed that Kate had something she cared deeply about off the island and that she most likely would not take on the role of Jacob because her heart would not be 100% in it.
I think we see now that Locke was mostly right in what he believed rather than Jack. The man of faith triumphs over the man of science. Jack sees that now and he himself has become a man of faith – a believer in the island. That is why he takes over the role of Jacob now. Strange that the drink that turns Jack into another Jacob is simply water. Also the ghost of Jacob is now materialized in this episode so that he is not just a ghost and can interact with the world around him. Notice how all the LOSTaways can see Jacob. The body count is so high now that it is easier to count survivors of Oceanic 815 than those who are dead. Here are the ones I remember:

Cindy with 2 kids
Hurley
Jack
Kate
Sawyer
Claire
Rose
Bernard
Aaron
Walt
(Vincent)

So that is 12 people and a dog. Did I miss anybody? The last we saw of Bernard and Rose they were in the past. We have no idea if they were transported into the future with the others when the H bomb detonated. If they remained behind in the past and lived out their lives they may be dead.

The alternate Desmond apparently can see the other timeline very clearly as does Hurley. That’s why Hurley knows Anna Lucia from his visions of the other timeline. Desmond it seems gets people to see the regular timeline by causing a traumatic event in their lives that may resemble an event they had in the regular timeline. Somehow this triggers a window into the regular timeline. Once this window has been opened then you continuously get to see the other timeline – that is, the more you remember from it. The regular timeline then seems to be the dominant timeline and the other timeline is a less timeline. That is why those in the regular timeline do not see visions of the alternate timeline. Now what is this thing with Jack getting cuts on himself that mimic what happened to him in the regular timeline. One way to explain this is that Jack is doing it to himself while he sleeps because he is dreaming about the regular timeline. Another explanation is that the alternate timeline is nothing more than a dream of one of the LOSTaways in the regular timeline. That would explain a lot. Another explanation is that the regular timeline is somehow bleeding through into the alternate timeline.

Notice that Jacob says we are getting close to the end and the final episode is called The End.

MY PREDICTION
Somehow DHARMA will be involved in the final episode. I do not know how. My prediction for the final episode is that it ends with Jack taking over the role of Jacob and the monster is still there trapped on the island. In the final scene we see another plane crash in the future and Jack introduces himself.

ANSWER
Super Bran

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Across the Sea

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Refers to the place which the brother of Jacob comes from and longs to be. His Other Mother told him there was nothing across the sea. She said this so that they would want to stay on the island.

THE MAN IN BLACK
In this episode we find that the man in black or the Locke-ness monster is actually the brother of Jacob. Since we do not learn his name in this episode either I will refer to him as Esau from the biblical brother team. In the original biblical story Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a single meal so he wasted his inheritance. In this episode we see Esau abandon Jacob and his Other Mother and Jacob ends up being the chosen one to guard the mysterious light in the cave. So this story vaguely mirrors the biblical one. In the biblical story the mother of Jacob also favored him over Esau and she even disguised Jacob like Esau so that his ailing father would bless him instead of Esau. It worked.

NO, A BUD LIGHT!
What is the mysterious light we see in the cave? We don’t know but the clues point to this being the “light of the world”. If this light goes out then it goes out everywhere the Other Mother said. Is this light the source of all goodness in the world? If so then that would make this island extremely important.

I think this episode raises more questions than it answers, but I will try.

Q: How was Jacob able to kill Esau when the Other Mother said she arranged it so they could not harm each other?
A: Jacob really did not harm his brother but only succeeded in transforming him. What the Other Mother did worked. When Jacob did try to harm his brother he only succeeded in killing his body but not his soul. His soul still survives and can appear as a dead person or as a smoke monster.

Q: Why did Esau turn into a smoke monster when Jacob through him into the cave? Somehow there was a rule that Jacob and Esau could not kill each other even if they wanted to. Esau turning into the smoke monster was the way the island handled the attempt of Jacob to break the rule and kill his brother. The island ensured that the rule was not broken. Esau still exists. Though how this rule was implemented nobody knows.

Q: How was Other Mother able to kill all those people and burn their village all by herself? Was she the mother of all smoke monsters or she set fire to their village while they were asleep. The latter would not require supernatural powers if she set their huts on fire and blocked the exits. The people would have died by smoke inhilation. Still, you have to wonder exactly how she pulled that off.

Q: Where did the bad people come from who brought with them the real mother of Jacob and Esau? There is no unique answer to this question. Since the island can move we have no way of knowing exactly where the island was at this time. Nor do we know the exact year. However we do know that the Other Mother and the people who crashed on the island spoke Latin. Latin is a dead language and has not been spoken as a national language in centuries. Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire. Could these people have been part of the Roman Empire? The name of the real mother of Jacob and Esau was Claudia which was definitely a Roman name. The clothes that the people wear resemble clothes worn in the Roman Empire and also into the Dark Ages (See the TV series ROME from HBO). It should also be noted that the Others who followed Jacob also spoke Latin. In this episode we see the connection of Jacob to Latin. Jacob spoke Latin as a boy. That was his original language.
But we do not see any Roman Soldiers among the crash survivors or any Roman insignia. Also where were these people traveling to when they crashed on the island? And did the Other Mother bring their boat to the island to crash as Jacob in later years also brought people to the island? It could be. Jacob and Esau were candidates as Jack, Hurley and Sawyer are also candidates to replace Jacob. It could be that the Other Mother made the boat crash and then found the pregnant woman and somehow she knew that her two sons were candidates to replace her, but she did not which one. She believed it was Esau, but later it turned out she was wrong and it had been Jacob all along. You can see the jealously that Jacob feels in this episode.

Q: Who built the statue that the Black Rock smashed into? Don’t know for sure but since Jacob has said there were many people before Ricardo to come to the island we can guess that it was built by previous followers of Jacob that he brought to the island long ago who are now dead. Though there is also the possibility that the statue was built pre-Jacob as we are never told if the statue exists at the time that the mother of Jacob crashed on the island. I only assume that it did not exist at that time because if it did then the Other Mother and the boys could have lived in the shoe instead of a cave, and the shoe would have been a nicer place to live.

BAD, BAD, LEROY OTHERS
Since season one they have been talking about the “bad people”. But who is “bad” and what makes them bad? In this episode the Other Mother calls the people who crashed bad except for Jacob and Esau. Esau who lives with these people says that they are bad. He calls them manipulative. So bad people then are people who have bad traits?
The Other Mother seems to believe that murder is ok if it serves the greater good. That is, it is so important that someone replace her for the good of humanity that she cannot take the chance of Claudia taking the candidates away that she feels it is ok to murder Claudia. But did she have a choice? If the light in the cave ever goes out then the light goes out for all of humanity whatever that means. But I do believe that it is something bad. So Other Mother kills Claudia to save all of humanity.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Q: How did the Other Mother of Jacob and Esau come to the island? How did she know to protect the light and how to make the drink that she gave to Jacob to drink that made him like her?
A: The Other Mother came to the island by accident which we can assume was in another boat crash though we do not know the year that happened. She probably learned what she knows from the previous caretaker of the island. Since Jacob became like the Other Mother after drinking the potion we can assume that the Other Mother had longevity and did not age.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The Candidate

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Has a double meaning with Locke being a candidate for surgery in the AT and he was also a candidate on the island along with others. The candiate may also refer to Jack alone in the regular timeline. Recall just before Sayid blew up he told Jack that it was going to be him.

QUIZ QUESTION: Of the original passengers who survived the crash of Oceanic flight 815 and who were not in the tail section, how many have been seen dying by drowning and what were their names?

QUIZ QUESTION: How many survivors of the tail section of Oceanic flight 815 are still alive as of the episode The Candidate that we know for sure?

QUIZ QUESTION: What is the maiden name of Sun Kwon?

REQUIUM FOR SAYID, SUN AND JIN
It was sad to see Sun and Jin die, but we also see a great love story here and Jin is unwilling to depart his love for the chance of survival. Note that Lepidus also dies so now they have no one to fly the Agira plane. I also grieve for Sayid. But in the AT we also see Jin who has come to the hospital to visit his wife. It is in the scene where Locke is wheeling himself in a hallway in the hospital right before Jack comes to speak with him. After seeing them die we then see Jin in the hospital and he is ok, and we assume that Sun is ok too. Recall Sun had earlier been hit at the shootout at the restaurant. The deaths of these three beloved characters was difficult to accept and was a sad end to their stories. Sayid does not get the girl and gets killed. The only real conclusion about Sun and Jin is that they did find each other again before they died though their reunion was short lived. They will never see their daughter again.

IRONY
In the AT Locke was in a plane crash with the father whom he loved. The plane crash made Locke crippled. In the regular timeline Locke was in a plane crash and he was able to walk again after being crippled. In the regular timeline Locke hated his father and had him killed. In the AT the father of Locke is practically dead already as Jack hints to when he says that he is gone. So in effect in both timelines the father of Locke is dead. In the regular timeline Locke is dead. In the AT Locke is alive yet still crippled as through it was his destiny to be crippled. But some things in the AT are very different like Jack having a son. Also we know that Daniel Faraday is a musician in the AT. So it was not his destiny to be a physicist.

CLEVER
The Locke-ness monster was beyond clever in getting all the LOSTaways together on that sub. First he had to act like he cared about them and save them to show he was on their side while at the same time still being deliberately sneaky and devious enough to want to get Sawyer and the rest to turn on him, as he knew they would. I believe that Jack was right on the sub. That Locke cannot kill the LOSTaways. If they had just let the clock tick down nothing would have happened. Recall the scene between Jack and Alpert on the Black Rock. Jack knew he would not die even though a stick of dynamite had been lit in front of him. The same reasoning can be used here. The question is why are their rules about who Locke can kill and not kill? I think the rule to not kill applies only to Candidates and also to Alpert from some reason. I believe this because when Locke was with Alpert in the jungle the young blonde-haired boy appeared and said you know the rules you cannot kill him.
My theory is that Locke-ness being a demigod is bad son to one of the gods and spreads spiritual impurity wherever he goes. If he gets off the island he will contaminate the rest of the world and cause all humans to become like zombies losing feelings of love and hate. To prevent this from happening the gods imprisoned Locke-ness on the island with Jacob until such time as Locke-ness had learned how to control himself and not spread his evil. Jacob was there to try to teach him this but failed. The two had been on the island together for centuries, but Locke-ness did not learn anything or change. Occasionally a new Jacob would be appointed so there have been many Jacobs but only one Locke-ness. The gods themselves made the rules about not killing candidates. You may have seen that the Others had lists of people every once in a while for example when the others raided the camp of the tailies and stole 9 people they had a list of names. These people were also originally candidates. We know Locke-ness killed Eko a tailie so he was not a candidate at the time of his death. But yet they seemed to be interested in taking Eko when their camp was attacked. There is some evidence that your name can be crossed off the candidate’s list. For example, the name of Kate was crossed out in the cave. So she was a candidate at one time but not anymore. Perhaps Kate did something that the gods did not like so they crossed her name off. The same could have happened to Eko. When the smoke monster first appeared to Eko and did not kill him, it could have been analyzing him to see if he was a candidate.

MY GUESS FOR THE FINALE
I see Jack becoming the new Jacob and in the final scene the frustrated and again trapped Locke-ness has to deal with Jack now. Another plane crash happens on the island and the series ends with Jack introducing himself to the survivors. And so we begin again … SCENE!
Look for the real name of the Locke-ness monster to be revealed. My guess is that he is a demigod, the son of the Greek god Apollo and a human female. Whoever this female was she went kind of nuts.
We will be told who that blonde-haired child is who keeps appearing to Locke-ness.

ANSWERS
4 people have been seen dying by drowning: Joanna, Charlie, Sun Kwon, Jin Kwon
There are 3 known survivors of the tail section left: Cindy the flight attendant and two children. They were not on the beach when Widmore fired on Locke and company and killed a few of them. We were told that the survivors fled into the jungle so we may assume Cindy and kids are on their own somewhere in the jungle.
The maiden name of Sun Kwon is Paik.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The Last Recruit

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Refers to Jack being the last recruit for the flock of the Locke-ness monster. However I may point out that Locke-ness did not acquire all the people he needs to leave the island so Jack should not be the last recruit.

QUIZ QUESTION: What time travel book did Sawyer read on the island long before any time travel occurred?

QUIZ QUESITON: What is the name of the boat that Sawyer steals and takes to Hydra island in this episode?

We learn in this episode that Locke-ness can only appear as dead people. Why? We have seen several dead people on the island that were certainly Locke-ness in disguise. We learn in this episode that in the first season episode White Rabbit when Jack saw his father that it was actually Locke-ness impersonating his father. We also saw the dead brother of Eko right before Eko was murdered by Locke-ness. Again why? But Kate saw a horse. Are we to believe that Locke-ness also became a horse? Also we have also seen live people impersonated on the island such as Walt. Recall that Walt has appeared to Sayid, Shannon and Locke and it has been shown that Walt is very much alive. My theory is that Locke impersonates dead people and Jacob impersonates live people. Who are the young boys we keep seeing on the island? Is this Jacob? The Christian seen in the shack with Claire was also Locke-ness. That was the first time we heard Claire say that she was with him now. Claire also said that to Jack in this episode and also Locke-ness said the same phrase to Jack. Clair indicates that Jack hooked up with Locke-ness the moment he let him talk to him. We have seen two different warnings about this one for Jacob and one for Locke-ness. The warning was the same for each: Once he talks to you it is too late. Now the question is, is Jack really with Locke-ness? I never took Jack to be one to go over to the dark side especially since it was the idea of Jack to jump off the boat in an attempt to stop Locke-ness. Is Jack infected like Sayid and Claire? Recall that the Others said that the infection eventually penetrates your heart and the person you were before dies. Sayid has stated that he feels nothing now. He does not feel anger or happiness. Did Sayid kill Desmond? We never see him do it and are sort of led to believe he did not. And this despite the phony previews which clearly show Sayid firing into the well where Desmond was. But in the actual episode Sayid only points his gun into the well. He is never shown firing into it. ABC!! Don’t lie like that. Hurley indicates that one can come back from the Dark Side and recalls Anakin Skywalker (a.k.a. Darth Vader) who in episode 6 did kill the emperor and redeem himself. If Sayid did not kill Desmond does this show that he still has a heart? If so then the infection has not completely taken him over.

At the hospital notice the reaction of Sun to John Locke. She obviously thinks something bad about him. This is most likely a crossover between the two timelines where Sun is recalling the Locke-ness monster.

I SPY A HURLEY NUMBER
When Desmond and Claire go to the office of the lawyer it is on floor 15. Did you catch it? How did Desmond know that Claire would be at the Lawyer office and how did he know to hook her up with that Lawyer?

Sawyer is one of the few to notice the strange coincidence of members of flight 815 meeting up and mentions this to Kate. We see a recurring pattern here. That members of this flight seemed to be destined to cross paths in either timeline. The regular timeline seems to be the more dominant timeline. In the alternate timeline there has been much attention paid to 815 flight members feeling like they do not belong in the timeline they are in. This revelation does not occur in the regular timeline. Thus the alternate timeline is the weaker one and does not belong. I sometimes wonder if the alternate timeline is really happening at all. Maybe it is just a dream of someone.

I was wondering what if Jack in the AT repaired Locke and so he could walk again. This happened in the regular timeline when Jack miraculously repaired his future wife and so she could walk. Also since Locke could walk in the regular timeline on the island because he got healed, will the AT reflect the regular timeline and allow Locke to walk again?

Notice when the missile hits near the camp of Locke-ness that there is no time delay as we have seen when the payload was fired from the freighter. Perhaps this is because the people of Widmore are firing much closer to the island that the freighter did.

RAMBLINGS
The boat that Sawyer steals is the original boat of Desmond.
When Saywer tells Kate why Claire cannot come on the boat he tells her that the Claire she knew is gone. “That was before she started drinking Locke’s Kool-aid”. This is a reference to the Jonestown massacre in 1979.
Kate mentions that it should have been Claire that raised Aaron. This agrees with what the psychic told Claire that only she should raise him. Is this because that since Claire did not raise him she went a little insane? We did see Claire create her own “child” out of bones in her camp. Kind of creepy.
Notice Alana is the lawyer in the AT.
Another mirror we see between the two timelines is that Sun can only speak Korean in both timelines at least for a short period of time. This comes to an end though with the Sun-Jin reunion when English finally returns to Sun. Will we find that Sun also speaks English in the AT now?
Notice that the fence is turned off just before Sun and Jin cross it. This is good because we recall what happened to Mikail when he crossed the fence when it was not turned off.
Notice that Locke-ness seems unworried about the bombs blasting around him. Pay close attention. He does not even flinch. This is because those bombs cannot hurt him.

ANSWER TO QUIZ QUESTION
A Wrinkle in Time
Elizabeth

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Everybody Loves Hugo

TITLE
This clever title is actually a play on words with the season two episode entitled Everybody Hates Hugo. Nice touch. Things have certainly turned around for Hugo in the AT.

In the AT we see that Hugo has become a philanthropist donating money everywhere and starting his version of the Ronald McDonald house. And it is all because he purchased Mr. Clucks the Fried Chicken joint where he used to work. It should be noted here that there is no mention of a meteor hitting Mr. Clucks. If that is true then that means the power of the numbers curse is very strong indeed being able to alter the orbits of meteoroids in space. But what could possibly have happened on Earth to alter the trajectory of a meteoroid in space or perhaps the trajectory of Earth so that the meteor would not have hit? I point to the major difference between the two timelines and that is the detonation of the atomic bomb on the island. Still, even that should not have made that much difference. Though I have been told that a recent Earthquake in Chile slightly altered the length of a day on Earth.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Quake-Might-Have-Shortened-Day-Scientists-85972347.html

Did the bomb slightly alter Earth’s rotation so that the meteor hit somewhere else? Is this correct or did the meteor really hit in the AT and it was just not shown? What do you think? QUIZ QUESTION: What was the name of the reporter inside Mr. Clucks who was killed when the meteor hit in the regular timeline?

Oddly Jacob did indicate to Hugo that the numbers were not a curse but a blessing. Recall Jacob also used the Hurley numbers to classify the candidates. Also there is no mention in the introductory video that Hugo ever won the lottery. We can assume that he did not win the lottery in the AT but became rich anyway. The AT for Hugo is the complete opposite compared to the regular timeline. In the regular timeline Hugo said that winning the money was the worst thing that ever happened to him. In the AT the money seems to be his friend. He even uses it to bribe a guy to see Libby. Libby of course was in the institution with Hugo in the regular timeline though he does not know this. If you look closely you will also see the man in the institution playing connect four who in the regular timeline told Hugo to go to Australia to see Sam Toomey who also used the Hurley numbers in his life and which he believed brought tragedy. It was because of this man that Hugo was on flight 815. In the AT Hugo gets to go on the picnic with Libby that he was denied in the regular timeline.
When Hugo goes to the institution to visit Libby notice the blackboard in the background. It has the same drawing of an island on it that was there when Hugo was in the institution in the regular timeline. There is also an alligator.

We now know what Desmond meant when he told his limo driver that he wanted to show something to the passengers of flight 815. He wants to show them the life they had in the regular timeline. That is why Desmond ran over Locke so he would have a near-death experience and relive his other life. Undoubtedly Locke saw himself walking on the island. When Dr. Linus confronts Desmond notice that when Linus asks Desmond the name of his son he says Charlie which is the real name of his son in the regular timeline. But in the AT Desmond has no son. Just like Claire, Desmond subconsciously knows the name of his child in the regular timeline.

In this episode a long awaited secret is revealed. The whispers which we have heard since season one are revealed to be the voices of lost spirits on the island who are trapped there due to the misdeeds they have done. Is the island then an island of lost souls created to punish those who have floundered in their lives? Richard stated that Jacob once told him what the island was. It would be interesting to hear what Jacob actually said to him and if it had anything to do with lost souls. Perhaps before the series finale we will know what he said. Does anyone wonder if the island was artificially constructed? The island has the ability to move yet retains its odd magnetic field. This shows that the magnetic field source should be near the surface rather than buried deep inside Earth. Locke mentions the weird magnetic field when he discusses the well with Desmond. He says that the well is very old. How old? Thousands of years or hundreds? Who built the well? Was it the same people who built the statue? What happened to them? Before we knew the story of Richard it was said that he was very old and had been at his job for a very long time. I interpreted this to be thousands of years only to find out it had only been since around the year 1867.
The Locke-monster throws Desmond into the well because he believes that Desmond is the secret weapon of Widmore. Whatever Widmore has planned it involves Desmond and probably something electromagnetic.
Ilanna getting blown up was a shocker. After what happened to Dr. Arzt the LOSTaways were clearly aware of how unstable the dynamite was. Would they not have shared this information with Ilana so that she would have been more careful with the dynamite rather than dropping to the ground like that and getting herself blown up. It was also a shock to see the Black Rock get blown up. I guess that is the end of the dynamite. What did Michael mean when he told Hurley that he was about to get everyone killed? Does this mean that if Richard and the other tried to blow up the plane that they would blow themselves up with the dynamite? This seems like a likely theory since Hurley blows up the Black Rock to prevent them from getting anymore dynamite. I have a solution. Ask Widmore to blow up the plane. Here are some reasons why:

He could easily do it because he has the firepower
He would want to do it since he does not want the Locke-ness monster to leave the island either. We can conclude this from some of the things Widmore has said.

Michael also tells Hurley that if he ever sees Libby again to tell her he is sorry. This is not out of the realm of possibility. We get a hint from an episode in which Hurley was back in the USA as part of the Oceanic Six. In one episode while Hurley is driving he is pulled over by none other than Ana Lucia who is dead. She says to Hugo that Libby says Hi.

ANSWER TO QUIZ QUESTION
Tricia Tanaka
Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Happily Ever After

TITLE
Refers to Desmond living his happily ever after in the AT, but it is not so happily as it turns out.

The opening scene with the eye of Desmond opening up is classic LOST. How often have we seen eyes opening on LOST? Even the series started with the eye of Jack opening up. Also there is a song on the CD called the Eyeland.

QUIZ QUESTION. When Charlie is drinking in the bar with Desmond he is wearing a ring with the initials DS on it. What do these initials originally stand for before driveshaft?

The circular electromagnetic device looks surprisingly similar to the device used to travel between other dimensions in the TV show SLIDERS (1994 – 1999) I keep expecting Desmond to travel through that ring and into the AT. Now would that not be cool? He could meet himself in another dimension. The device in this episode is a solenoid which is a real electrical device. When you run AC current through it it creates a voltage of its own which opposes the applied voltage. A slinky is an example of a solenoid. It should be noted that DHARMA was very interested in experimenting with electromagnetism and in fact it was their drilling into a pocket of electromagnetic energy that caused “the incident” that was first described in the episode Orientation. We have also seen that compasses do not work correctly on the island showing that the island probably has its own magnetic field. The name of the rabbit in this episode is angstrom. An angstrom is a unit of measurement and equal to one tenth of a billionth of a meter. Though he was told he was next, angstrom never entered into the electromagnetic device room. Now the big question is when Desmond was exposed to the electromagnetic radiation was he able to see into the AT? I am hoping that the AT does not really exist but it just a vision that shows you what might have been. How does that grab you?

This episode more than any other AT episode shows how characters in the AT can recall people and events from the normal timeline. This makes me believe that there is something wrong with the AT. Otherwise why would people say that they feel like they don’t belong here? Is the AT then an unstable timeline or perhaps like a dream showing us what might have been? If the AT is unstable is there any way that it can be erased so that only one timeline exists? The encounter between Desmond and Eloise may hint at just such a possibility. Eloise states that Desmond is not ready and she wants to shut him down. But what is he not ready for? Look for Desmond to be the key in future episodes for erasing the AT and getting everything back to normal.
It was wild to see Faraday not a scientist but a musician. His physics equations carried over from the other timeline. Somehow people in the AT can sense that they do not belong there and can get information from the regular timeline. Charlie apparently has figured out a way to gain information from the other timeline by having near death experiences.
It was also wild to see Desmond apparently happily working for Widmore in the AT. They are not so friendly in the regular timeline. Keep in mind that Desmond was not on flight 815 in the regular timeline but was on the flight in the AT. He was doing business in Australia which is why he was on that plane. They have not mentioned yet if Hurley is having problems with the numbers in the AT. That is why he was in Australia. He was investigating Sam Toomey and the numbers. But was he doing that in the AT or did destroying the island also destroy the curse of the numbers? But I digress.
The limo driver used to star in a show called Early Edition about a guy who got the newspaper of tomorrow today.
Note the scene where Penny meets Desmond for the first time in the AT. In the AT it is Penny that is running the steps while in the regular timeline we see Desmond running the steps and Penny and Desmond did not meet at the stadium in LA but met in Europe.
When Desmond picks up Charlie from the police station his brother is not there even though we saw his brother at the police station in a previous episode trying to get Charlie out of jail. I guess he was not successful.

When Desmond returns from his dream state he is eager to do whatever Widmore wants. What is the sacrifice Widmore wants Desmond to make? Perhaps it is to stay on the island for the rest of his life? I think it has something to do with stopping the Locke-ness monster from leaving the island because Widmore is worried that his daughter and everyone else will be gone forever. This hints of what has been said on previous episodes that if Locke-ness gets off the island darkness will spread. We have seen that Sayid has been contaminated by this darkness somehow and now he feels nothing – no emotion like in the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which the pod people had no feelings after taking over the bodies of humans. Maybe it is like that. Wherever Locke-ness goes he contaminates people making them lose all emotion. We were warned by the Others that when the darkness penetrated the heart of Sayid that the man they knew before would cease to exist. That kind of thinking totally agrees with the statement of Widmore when he states that is daughter and everyone else would cease to exist.
When Sayid gets Desmond at the end Desmond is eager to go with Sayid. Was this part of the plan all along? Did Widmore know this would happen? Else why is Desmond so content about it? Also I thought Sayid was there to get Jin back. After all Locke-ness needs Jin to leave the island. He must have all the candidates in order to leave. Sayid will return to Locke-ness with Desmond so if Desmond wanted to get up with Locke-ness this was certainly a good move to allow himself to be taken.
We will see soon find out how important the role of Desmond is in saving the world.

THINGS TO WATCH FOR
In the office of Widmore look for the Black Rock replica in the background. Also look for a painting of scales on the wall of the office of Widmore. In the regular timeline he had a painting with the word Namaste on it.
The scotch that Desmond and Widmore drink may be the same kind of scotch that Desmond found on the island in the regular timeline.
The bar where Desmond and Charlie drink is called JAX and has a kangaroo showing in front. And where do we find kangaroos?

ANSWER
Dexter Stratton

Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The Package

TITLE
Refers to Desmond. I actually called this about halfway into the episode. I said Desmond would be the package brotha.

WHEN JINNY MET SUNNY
The big shocker was that Jin and Sun were not married in this episode. Notice that Jin is carrying $25,000 with the watch in the AT. In the normal timeline the money was never mentioned. They only mentioned a watch. Given that in the normal timeline Jin was married to Sun and therefore the farther of Sun would have no reason to be angry and kill Jin for being with her daughter. In the AT the whole purpose for the trip to LA was to get Jin killed as arranged by the father of Sun. $25,000 seems cheap. So in the normal timeline this means if I am correct that there had to be another reason why the father of Sun sent them to LA, but we are never told this. However the father of Sun was not really excited about the choice of husband for his daughter so you never know. There is no indication that Sun can speak English in the AT. This does not mean that she does not though.
The part where Sun talks with Jin about his making her button her top on the plane is because Jin knows that agents of Mister Paik may be around and even on the plane. He thinks this because when they were in the Sydney airport Jin was confronted in the bathroom by a Caucasian man who spoke perfect Korean who worked for Mister Paik! This means Paik sent a spy to watch them.

When the Locke-ness monster is speaking with Claire about her name not being on the wall we learn that the name of Austin is no longer on the wall. Did the Lock-ness monster cross out that name? If so when did he do it? And who crossed out all the other names? Was it Locke-ness or Jacob. Note the Locke-ness tells Claire that he needs Kate to help him get other people on the plane, but after that whatever happens happens. This is a carte blanche permission to Claire to kill Kate. Interesting since Locke-ness also has had a heart-to-heart with Kate. But he is only using her. The fact that Locke needs all the candidates on the plane before he too can leave is very similar to the logic used by the LOSTaways to return to the island. In that one the flight of Agira 316 had to resemble the original 815 flight is as many aspects as possible. They even got a dead Locke to replace the dead Christian from the original 815 flight. So it seems the same kind of rules apply to Locke-ness leaving the island. Also when Kate and Sawyer were captured by the Others they were put at work building a runway. Interesting since Locke-ness is going to need a runway to get the Agira plane off the island. We learn in this episode that the smoke monster cannot travel across water else he would have done that and left. The pylons used to repel the Locke-ness monster show that Widmore knows more about smokey than he is letting on. We also see that clearly when he tells Jin what would happen if smokey gets off the island. Widmore was part of the Others so they certainly know who smokey is, what can stop him and what will happen if he gets loose. Interesting that DHARMA also had these pylons to protect their compound. So did they know about smokey? If they did they never mentioned it. They only thing that was said was that the pylons were used to repel wildlife. Also why did not the Locke-ness monster just knock one of these pylons over? Could he not just push on one? You could push it without cross the barrier.

It is mentioned by Widmore that is Locke-ness gets off the island then to paraphrase everyone they know and love will cease to exist. This is an obvious reference to the heart sickness disease whatever it is which we first heard about in season one from Rousseau. We know for sure that both Sayid and Claire have been infected with this thing. You can see the effect of it in this episode when Sayid states he no longer feels anything. The leader at the temple said that once the sickness reached the heart of Sayid that he would no longer exist. It is as though the sickness whatever it is comes from the Locke-ness monster himself. Where he goes he somehow can infect people with this darkness and poison their very hearts. But not everyone on the island seems to get infected. Why some do and some do not is a mystery.

You think Sun is pregnant with Ji Yeon? Surely at this point they cannot go back to Korea since the father of Sun tried to kill Jin and Sun is pregnant which the father of Sun would find as a disgrace probably.

The concept of aphasia which affects your speech center was also studied in Star Trek Deep Space Nine season one episode 5 entitled Babble. Note in both timelines this week Sun ends up speaking no English.

Interesting how Mikail only gets one eye in the alternate reality just like in the normal reality. And it’s the same eye! I checked. By the way, where is Mikail in the normal timeline? We never saw him at the temple with the Others, the group he was a part of. The last time we saw him was when he was murdering Charlie in the looking glass. Will he make another appearance before the end of the series?

I have been thinking about how this series is going to end. What if we have both a happy and an unhappy ending? How can you do that you ask? With two different timelines! In the normal timeline smokey gets off the island and takes over the world infecting everybody. But in the AT everything ends up ok for everybody. Another ending would be in the normal timeline that smokey is prevented from getting off the island when Jack volunteers to become the next Jacob. The series ends when smokey and Jack are sitting together on a beach and another ship crashes on the island.

Why is Desmond so important? Obviously Widmore brought him back to the island for a very good reason but what is it? This does agree though with the statement Eloise gave to Desmond at the lighthouse when she said the island is not done with you yet.

Long live the tomato!

Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Ab Aeterno

TITLE
Spanish for "Since the beginning of time". But of course Richard is not from the beginning of time so this might be slang for “a long time ago”. Or it could be a reference to the battle between good and evil being since the beginning of time.

So we finally get to see some exciting things in this episode. We see the story of Richard and how he came to the island. He is a little less mysterious now. Richard is Catholic and from the Canary islands which are owned by Spain. They are located off the west coast of Africa. When Richard was put on the Black Rock he was on his way to America yet he ends up on the island. Recall that our LOSTaways were flying over the South Pacific when they crashed on the island. This means that either the island was not located in the South Pacific in 1867 or that the whole ship was supernaturally transported to the island. Also recall that the drug plane from Africa also wound up on the island. Same possibilities for that situation. This is not impossible since we saw the man from Tallahassee was transported from Florida to the island. So why not a plane or boat?
Did you catch the name of the captain of the Black Rock? His name is Magnus Hanso. I wonder if he is any relation to Alvar Hanso who is apparently the financial backer of the DHARMA Initiative in the 1970s? It could very well be. Magnus Hanso was killed when the Black Rock crashed.
Notice also that we finally see how the statue got broken which is something I have been wondering about for a long time and I know you have too. It turns out the Black Rock broke the statue when it crashed into it during a storm. One problem I have though is that the ship hit the statue at the top so why would it break way down there at the foot and yet take the other foot whole? Any engineers out there think this is the most likely outcome? As most of us have suspected, we learn the reason why the Black Rock is in the middle of the jungle. It was simply because of a storm. That is what I thought. I did read one explanation a few years ago where someone theorized that a group of people moved it there with their minds! But we have all had theories that did not pan out. We get to see why there are skeletons on the Black Rock in chains. It is because an officer on the ship executed them because he did not think they had enough supplies to feed all of them since they were in a jungle. And the black smoke killed the surviving officers. QUIZ QUESTION: Who was the first LOSTaway to see the black smoke monster?

We learn from Jacob that the island is like a cork in a bottle keeping the evil in where the evil is the Locke-ness monster. Jacob also mentions that if the evil gets out it will spread. The similarities to the box of Pandorra are unmistakable here. Man, who is the Locke-ness monster? I am leaning toward him being a demigod, that is, he is the offspring of either a Greek god like Apollo or one of the Egyptian gods. Locke-ness has mentioned that he had a crazy mother. Who was she? Could she have been a human who had a relationship with a god? If he left her then that might be the source of her madness. There is a similar theme in a recent movie called Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief.
It was cool to see how the gift of Hurley could be used to communicate with Isabella and help Richard. Note also that Isabella as far as we know was never on the island when she was alive. So far I think all the dead people we have seen on the island were people who had been on the island when they were alive so this is actually a first. Can anyone of you confirm this? Do you remember seeing any dead person who appeared as a ghost on the island who was never on the island when they were alive? I cannot. When Isabella appeared on the Black Rock that was Locke-ness. Probably Locke-ness is responsible for many if not all of the appearances of dead people on the island except for the ones where only Hurley can see them. In one instance Walt appears to John Locke when he is lying shot in a ditch. Walt also appeared to Hurley and Shannon and Sayid just before Shannon was shot. But Walt is still alive. That may be the only person who has been impersonated while the person was still alive. This gives me an idea. Maybe living people are impersonated by Jacob and dead people are impersonated by Locke-ness. What do you think?
The rhetoric used by Locke-ness to persuade Richard to kill Jacob is identical to the one used by Durgan to convince Sayid to kill Locke-ness. It is practically the same speech. The part about if he speaks it is already too late was just used so that Jacob would not have time to speak to Richard and talk him out of it. That is the only reason he said that. But we know that many years later Locke-ness will succeed in killing Jacob and rather easily at that. If keeping Locke-ness trapped on the island is so important you would think Jacob would have put up more of a fight. Perhaps he thinks that someone will easily replace him since there are so many candidates on the island.
On the beach around the campfire where was Kate? We saw everybody else.

That whole part about we are dead and in hell is not true. They are on an island. This may be an inside joke as for a long time fans theorized that the LOSTaways were all dead in purgatory or hell. This theory was debunked first by JJ Abrams and later by the show itself when six LOSTaways returned home. They are NOT dead.



WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SEE
Walt will return and somehow his special powers will play a part in the story.
Desmond will have a small role this season, but what he does is important.
The DHARMA-Michigan connection will play some kind of role this season
We will finally learn the identities of the two bodies in the cave named Adam and Eve
The Sun-Jin reunion

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE
I hope later episodes show:
Who built the statue and why?
Who built the room with the wheel that can move the island if you turn it and why?
How can a man turn into black smoke?
What is the real name of the Lock-ness monster?
Why did the psychic tell Claire that only she could raise Aaron? Because Aaron right now is not being raised by her. What will be the consequences of this?
What is with all the whispering that we have heard on the island over the years?

We do not have much time left until the series finale, so I do not think they have time to answer all my questions. I may be disappointed in the finale.

ANSWER TO QUIZ QUESTION
John Locke – he described it later as they eye of the island and said it was beautiful. I think he was wrong do you not?

Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Recon

TITLE
Refers to the mission of Sawyer to Hydra island to scope out the people over there.

It was cool to see Sawyer as a cop now. We not only get to see what would have happened to the LOSTaways had the plane landed but it is them in an alternate timeline with very different lives, yet their lives are destined to cross. Notice in the hotel room that the secret word Sawyer uses to summon the police is Lafleur. This is the fake named he used in the regular timeline when he was part of the DHARMA initiative. It was also the name of a previous episode.
The writers are so clever. We think that Sawyer is a con man again when we see the briefcase of money fall open. We also had seen this in one of the previous cons of Sawyer in the episode the Long Con. In that one, he ended up with the money at the end but ended up in prison. It was great to see Charlotte again and this time she hooks up with sawyer. That was a nice twist. Notice the book that Sawyer is reading called Watership Down. He also read the same book in the regular timeline. This book is about rabbits whose home is destroyed and they make a new home on a hill called Watership Down. The analogy here may be that the LOSTaways are like the rabbits and Watership Down is the island.
We see in the AT that the parents of Sawyer were still murdered and he is still after the guy who did it but now as a cop. He may have become a cop just so he could track this guy. Notice that the con man Sawyer is the same guy Cooper who is the father of Locke.
Crazy Claire finally makes good on her threat to try to kill Kate. But if she really wanted her dead, would she not have just stabbed her from behind? Why wrestle her first? When Locke-ness talks with Kate we find Locke-ness had a crazy mom and whatever she did to him still affects him to this day. Locke-ness is emotionally damaged somehow. He sees that Aaron may suffer similar damage from crazy Claire. But after he says this to Kate does he tell her anything else? Like perhaps she should kill Claire herself to save Aaron? We do not know because we are not shown this, but I think it is not quite a leap to make that assumption. What do you think?
When Sawyer gets to Hydra island he finds a lot of dead bodies. Widmore claims he did not kill them but is he lying? We now know how Widmore found the island. He followed the Agira flight. QUIZ QUESTION: What was the flight number of the Agira flight? Lepidus was supposed to be the pilot of Oceanic flight 815 but overslept. QUIZ QUESTION: What was the name of the pilot of Oceanic flight 815? Not the actor the character.
When we first saw Widmore in the sub he tells his captain to proceed even though there were people on the island. But proceed with what? At the time he was looking at the main island at the LOSTaways and not at the Agira flight survivors. Looks like Widmore has hired more cronies again. Meet Zoe another hired gun. The lead guy with the gun behind Sawyer does not look like a military man. I predict bad things for all of these people and Widmore. They are going to lose against smokey. They are prepared to do battle with smokey because you can see them putting up the pylons that are able to repel smokey.
Sawyer in the regular timeline shows his con man skills again by conning the Locke-ness monster. He wants Locke-ness to battle it out with Widmore so he and Kate can escape the island.

THE WORD ON THE STREET IS
I heard that before the series is over we will know the identity of Adam and Eve, the two skeletons found in the cave. It is no coincidence the Hurley has already offered a theory about the identity of these two. He guesses that they are skeletons that went back in time to dinosaur times. We will see if he is right! Though previously it has been said that the skeletons are only 50 years old which puts us back to the time of atomic bomb testing. Who do you think these people are? We know that a white ball and a black ball were found on them in a bag.
I hear the DHARMA-Michigan connection to the island will play a part this season. I do not know what that may be but it seems DHARMA is not done with the island yet.
I will be back brotha. Yes, that is correct. Desmond will be back. Though we have not seen him in any episodes after lax this season, he will return to the show before the series finale and will do something important. This agrees with what Eloise said to Desmond when she said the island is not done with you yet.
There are so many unanswered questions that I fear that even a 2 hour series finale will not be enough to answer them all. I am bracing to be disappointed. While we are on this topic, let us review some bad series finales:
THE PRISONER (1967) – this interesting show about a former spy being held prisoner in a village is actually a social commentary. I can only describe the series finale as a gibberish mess of nonsense that even Albert Einstein could not comprehend. After it aired, it left viewers across nations in a state of bewilderment and the star of the show Patrick Mcgoohan had to lay low for a while. In his own words, he said he wrote the finale because he wanted fists in his face. He got it!
SLIDERS (1999) – This once promising show stumbled in its third season and this was followed by the removal of most of the cast and then amazingly even one of the replacement cast members! The series finale shows these inter dimensional travelers meeting themselves in another reality in which their adventures are a TV show! So why is this so bad? Because it ends on a cliffhanger as Remmy jumps into the vortex bent on destroying the evil Kromaggs and you never find out what happened.
QUANTUM LEAP (1992) – Though the series overall was one of the best SciFi series’ ever the finale was bizarre and undid the entire series! Sam is in a bar where he meets God I guess it is him. Then cast members from previous episodes appear in the bar as completely different characters. It ended with Sam traveling back in time to fix the marriage of Al which is something previously dealt with and it was said that Sam could not do this. After he fixes it, it negates every previous episode which featured Al as a previously six-time married woman chaser.
CAROLINE IN THE CITY (2000) – funny show but it ends on a cliffhanger at the wedding of Caroline. We are led to believe that Caroline will ditch her own wedding but we never see it happen.
SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND (1996) – Great series very underrated. Ends on a cliffhanger because Fox canceled it. If you have not seen this series it is a real SciFi gem.

So now how do you think LOST will end? Let us hope that the writers do not mess it up like these other shows. Here are some things we might see:

The two timelines communicating with each other. What if Sawyer the cop could meet Sawyer the con man or Jack could meet himself with a son?
The box of Pandorra – what if the island is like the box of Pandorra? The smoke monster represents all the bad stuff that could be unleashed in the world. The problem is that the world is already messed up. But what if smokey wants to take over the world?
One of the timelines evaporates – what if somehow one of the timelines is erased so that only one timeline exists?
They have to reveal the actual identities of Jacob and the Locke-ness monster. Who are they?
Sun and Jin finally reunite.

What happened to Rose and Bernard in the regular timeline?

ANSWERS TO QUIZ QUESTIONS
The Agira flight was 316
The pilot of flight Oceanic flight 815 was Seth Norris

Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Dr Linus

TITLE
Refers to AT Ben because in that timeline he has a doctorate degree. Quiz question: What is AT Ben’s degree in? Answer below.

RICHARD
So Jacob gives Richard a gift by touching him and suddenly he ages slowly or not at all? Jacob also ages slowly or not at all. Why then is Ben able to kill Jacob so easily? Could not Jacob have fought him off. And even Ben commented that Jacob did not defend himself.
Richard arrived on the island on the Black Rock in the 1840s I believe and apparently was a slave or criminal. Of course if you have been reading my blog you know that I already stated that this is where Richard was from. When the Black Rock was first found Locke said that it was a mining ship and these chained men were on their way to work in the mines. Richard is white and therefore was not part of the slave trade. He could have been a criminal who was sentenced to work in the mines. That would explain the chains and the dead bodies on the Black Rock. And spoiler alert I hear that an episode is coming showing the Black Rock arriving at the island and explaining the story of Richard. Who he is, what he is and so forth. End Spoil. Should make a great episode. That was either brave or stupid of Jack to stay with Richard with that lit fuse. Especially since he knew Jacob was dead and therefore had no influence on the situation. Or does he? Richard needs Jack to kill him because for some reason Richard cannot kill himself. What he means by that is even if Richard did try to kill himself he would not be successful because something would happen to stop his death. Which of course is exactly what happened in this episode. We saw something similar when Michael was in New York and tried to kill himself. He pulled the trigger but the gun did not go off. It is like that.

ALEX AND BEN
This episode shows a nice parallel between AT Ben and regular Ben. In the regular timeline Ben gets his daughter killed because he makes a decision that lead directly to her death. In the AT Ben makes a different decision about Alex that saves her academic career. In the AT the career of Alex replaces her life from the other timeline. In the scene where Alex and Ben are studying together Ben says that it is just a test and Alex replies: just a test it is only my entire life. Ben chooses not to pursue going after the principal so that the principal will write a favorable letter of recommendation for Alex and then she can get into a good college. It is like Ben getting a second chance with Alex.
The parallels between the two Bens and the different decisions that each made are interesting. In the regular timeline Ben loses his authority as leader over the Others. Remember when he shot Locke? He shot him because he felt threatened. He thought he would lose his power which of course he eventually did. Notice the segue when it shows AT Ben teaching in a classroom and the first thing he says is this is the island where it all happened. He tells his class that this is where Napolean lost his power. So this story parallels what happened to regular Ben. AT Ben tries to get power by blackmailing the principal, but he refuses to do it at the cost of ruining the future of Alex.
It was nice to see Arzt again, this time at his job which he had spoken of on the island. He said that he taught 9th grade science so we knew this before. Quiz question. After Arzt blew up on the island, what did Hurley say to Jack? The answer is below. Again, people in the AT are brought together just like they were in the regular timeline. It is their fate to meet each other. So far we have had so many meet it is hard to keep track. AT Locke plays a crucial role in this episode convincing Ben to go after the principal job.
Regular Ben gets in big trouble when it is revealed that he killed Jacob. The Locke-ness monster does give him a way out, but he does not take it thanks to the mercy shown him by Ilana. The previews said that Ben would meet his destiny in this episode hinting at his death. As usual this was misleading. When AT Ben talks with his father about DHARMA, Roger Linus states that they left the island. But when did this occur? Roger Linus shot Sayid and that was shortly before the bomb was detonated. Did he and young Ben then get on the sub? Apparently but we never see this. Also were any of them aware that the island just got nuked? Quiz question. In this episode AT Arzt tells AT Ben that Ben is a real killer. How many people has regular Ben killed while facing or touching them and who where they?

ENDING
At the end notice that Widmore is planning something bad for the island. He may have to get in line. Richard has already stated that the Locke-ness monster wants to kill everyone on the island.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Where is Mikail, the guy with the eye patch?
Is Jacob really dead? By the way, who is Jacob how did he come to the island and who hired him? Was it the blonde boy we saw a few episodes ago?
When Richard appears in the jungle he tells Jack that he would not believe where he just came from. And where was that exactly? Richard was not at the temple when it was attached. Why?
How did Widmore find the island after it had been moved?

SIDE NOTES
The actor who played the principal also played a physics professor in the movie Real Genius starring Val Kilmer 1985.

ANSWERS TO QUIZ QUESTIONS
European history
“Dude You’ve got some Arzt on you”
Ben has killed three people in close proximity: John Locke, Roger Linus and Jacob. Though when it was revealed the Ben killed Locke, nobody flinched when Ben said he killed Locke in a previous episode.

Q

My Serious, Logical Thoughts on Sundown

TITLE
Refers to the Ultimatum of Claire that the Others have until Sundown to leave the temple.

WHY?
Why does the Locke-ness monster hate the Others so much? Well, it must have something to do with the fact that the Others followed Jacob who is the arch enemy of Locke-ness. However now that Jacob is gone and Locke-ness being as powerful as he is are they really a threat? And why kill them if you are going to leave the island? One might speculate that he is not really going to leave or perhaps because when he does leave if he left the Others alive then another Jacob would rise up to give him trouble wherever he is. Remember it is Jacob that had Locke-ness imprisoned on the island in the first place. He can only leave now because Jacob is dead.

SAYID
Sayid it seems has been tricked into becoming a bad guy. As Turgo said, once the darkness reached his heart there would be nothing left of the friend of Jack. That would seem to have happened. Sayid has now turned to the dark side and there is no turning back. This is why when Ben tries to get Sayid telling him there is still time Sayid replies not for me. Did you ever think that Ben would seem like more of a good guy than Sayid? So what Turgo said would happen has happened.
Locke-ness woos Sayid to his side by promising him his one love, Nadia, if he helps. Ben has referred to a box on the island and whatever you wanted could appear in that box. Perhaps Locke wished that his father would arrive on the island so much that he actually did. If so then this is a sad end to a character that I would have liked to have seen redeem himself after having been a torturer. But we see in both timelines that he kills people. It is the destiny of Sayid to be who he is and not with Nadia. I am reminded what Nadia wrote on her photo: I will see you again in this life or the next. Notice Keamy makes an appearance in AT. He was the bad guy on the freighter who shot the daughter of Ben. Nice to see he dies in both timelines.
But will Locke-ness make good on his promises or is he all smoke? Pardon the pun there. Who is Locke-ness? How old is he and how does he turn into smoke? Questions that beg for an answer. Richard said that Locke-ness would kill everyone on the island. Well, that would include Sayid to whom he made the promise. We have no reason to doubt Richard. Recall Locke-ness is guilty of indiscriminant killing. Remember Mister Eko?

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Where was Jin in the normal timeline in this episode? I thought Jin was leading Claire to a back way into the temple? Where was Richard? Is he not a leading member of the Others? Was he not on his way back to the temple after he spoke to Sawyer trying to get him to come with him? Do you think Bernard and Rose are out there somewhere? Perhaps they also got transported through time.
We do see Jin in AT when he is tied up at the end. Recall why Jin was on that plane? He was delivering a watch to someone in L.A. That watch was most likely a message to someone whom the father of Sun was dealing with. No doubt a bad person. So perhaps it was Keamy. Jin seems to have been beat up. They may have been trying to get information out of him.

Is it a surprise that so many of the Others left to join Locke-ness. They do not seem concerned that many of their friends are now dead and the man(being) they are following killed them. Let us go back to when Ben talked to Locke about the submarine. Ben mentions that the submarine gave the illusion that his followers could still leave at any time. Ben states that not all his followers have made a full commitment. Based on this, we are not too surprised then to see so many abandon the cause to follow Locke-ness. Also Jacob is dead. With no one to follow now why stay on? I mean what would be the point really?

We learn how Turgo came to the island. Jacob promised him his son back. A very similar promise was made to Sayid to gain his loyalty. So it seems that the two sides use similar tactics to gain followers. It should also be noted that Jacob was instrumental in the death of Nadia by distracting Sayid. Jacob and Locke-ness use the desires of people to recruit them. One wonders though if they get what they want? Did Jacob bring back the son of Turgo? By the way we probably saw this son at the conservatory where the son of Jack was performing.

Another question to ask is will the new Claire kill Kate now that she knows that she took care of Aaron?

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on The Lighthouse

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Refers to the lighthouse where Jacob apparently spied on the LOSTaway candidates. Also it should be noted that DHARMA had a location in a church known as the lighthouse which they used to find the island. This does not seem to be connected to this other lighthouse as their lighthouse was a room with a giant pendulum in it.

TRY NOT TO GET YOURSELF PETRIFIED
Hurley presents a theory about the bodies in the caves and mentions that they could have traveled back to dinosaur times and these could be their bodies. Actually these bodies have already been dated to about 50 years ago by the LOSTaways in a previous episode and if they had gone back to dinosaur times then these bodies would have been petrified by now so that could not be true.

NO LIGHT AT THE LIGHTHOUSE
Jacob set up the whole lighthouse scenario for Jack to help Jack along on his journey to whatever that may be. To become the next protector of the island perhaps? Jack “has what it takes” to become the new Jacob? I always thought Locke would get that job and he is dead now. The line Jacob gives to Hurley that someone is coming to the island may in fact be a lie just to get Jack to the lighthouse. In the lighthouse you can see more hieroglyphics on the wall above the head of Hurley and Jack. One of them looks like the flame that we have seen before. There was as DHARMA station called the flame and when the timer in the Swan hatch counted down to zero one of the glyphs that appeared in placed of a number was a flame.
Notice how Jack says that he would be a terrible dad yet in the alternate timeline Jack really is doing an ok job with his son. He does not over react when his son goes missing, and he does not yell at him. In the lighthouse Jack and Hurley do not seem nearly as shocked as they should be when they discover that the lighthouse can show them the house of Jack that he lived in when he was a boy. It is kind of like a mirror mirror on the wall like in the fairly tale. One would think you would be very shocked to see a mirror magically show you things that are not physically in front of the mirror. Perhaps it is because they have seen so many things on the island that they just are not surprised at anything anymore. In the mirror reflections you can also see a scene from Korea where Sun and Jin are from and also the church where Jacob met with Sawyer for the first time.
Jacob mentions that someone is coming to the temple and that someone is bad. This no doubt refers to the Locke-ness monster. And he will have Claire with him.

BIZZARO CLAIRE
Note the scars on Claire that indicate that she was given the same test that was given to Sayid. This was to diagnose her. She failed the test and surely would have been killed had she not escaped from the temple. So meet the new Claire. The new Claire is not afraid to kill people. The new Claire has killed at least two of The Others – one was brutally killed with an axe. She also threatened to kill Kate if it was true that Kate had been raising her son. Now think about old Claire. Would she have done that? Some kind of darkness has claimed and infected Claire. Claire in a way has become the new Rousseau. Let us examine the similarities. Both set traps, use guns and use dynamite. Undoubtedly Claire has been to the Black Rock. Both seem a little crazy and are not afraid to kill. Both are\were in a battle with The Others over their child. Two difference though. The Others really had the child of Rousseau but did not have the child of Claire. Also Rousseau openly acknowledged the infection of her own crew and killed her own crew because they were infected. Rousseau was not infected, but Claire however is infected. That makes Claire the anti Rousseau or the Bizzaro Rousseau. Claire and Rousseau epitomize the light the light versus dark theme which began in the series pilot.
The evidence for the insanity of Claire can be seen the mock child she made in the crib made from animal bones. Yeeech! Also her friend the Locke-ness monster (Smokey monster that looks like Locke or Smocke) may have been the one with her in the cabin when Locke entered to talk to Jacob. In the cabin he found Claire with Christian who said he was not Jacob but could speak on his behalf. Christian told Locke to move the island. Christian was most probably the Locke-ness monster in disguise who befriended Claire and claimed Claire as his own. But if the Locke-ness monster is an enemy of Jacob then how could he speak on his behalf? Because at that moment Jacob and the Locke-ness monster had a common enemy – the freighter people. Christian appeared again when Locke fell and hurt himself just before moving the island. Undoubtedly this was also the Locke-ness monster. Note also that the writers get close but never mention that actual name of the Locke-ness monster. Claire says this is not Locke this is my friend. Maybe even she does not know the real name of this person. I predict that when we finally hear the name of this individual it will be a name we all recognize.

SON OF A JACK
The big surprise in this episode is that Jack has a son in the alternate timeline! We know he did not have a son in the other timeline not just because they never showed or mentioned a son but because of the line Jack says “I would make a terrible dad”. This introduces yet another parent-sibling relationship which has been the source of several storylines in the show. Consider the relationship of Kate with her mom and now deceased stepdad. Kate killed her stepdad and her own mother turned her in. Still wondering why a federal Marshall would involve himself so heavily in a murder case in a small Iowa town. The revenge kick that Sawyer carried for years over the deaths of his parents. The stormy relationship of Jack with his father. Christian told Jack that he did not have what it takes and that hurt Jack. He carried that around with him his whole life. Note that Jack was on flight 815 after picking up his father. The relationship of Kate with her actual father who is in the military. That is how Kate learned to track. The relationship of Jin with his own father. He said his father was dead because he was ashamed of his upbringing. The relationship of Sun with her dad. She bought a large stake in his company to get back at him for putting Jin on flight 815. The Claire-father relationship. Christian was the father of both Jack and Claire. The Ben-Roger Linus relationship. Ben killed his own abusive father. And who can forget the Walt-Michael relationship? The Jack-David relationship has had communication issues but it looks like it is going to be ok unlike some of these other relationships. Jack does not want to be like his own father. To top it off we see, I think his name is Tugor, the Asian man who is the leader of The Others with his son in this episode.

I MISS YOU MY SCAR
Jack notices something odd about his appendix scar as though it is more pronounced now. Is this a coincidence or does this have something to do with injuries Jack suffered in the plane crash? Remember Kate had to help stitch Jack up just after the crash. Though this injury was not in the same place as this scar, it does show Jack was hurt in the crash.
Are Hurley and Miles really playing tic-tac-toe? I thought backgammon perhaps would be more suitable.

WHAT YOU MISSED
Look for the DHARMA logo on the cup that Jin drinks out of.
Hurley tries to set the lighthouse to 108 degrees and 108 is the sum of the Hurley numbers. Does he know this?
The son of Jack is named David just like King David in scripture. This name joins Aaron and Jacob as biblical names used in the show. I’m waiting for Moses.
Did you see the Alice in Wonderland book? This is not the first time this book has been referenced in the series. In fact one of the episodes in season one was called White Rabbit in reference to the large white rabbit character from the book. What does that mean for the series? Does that mean that our LOSTaways are trapped in a wonderland? Well in a sense. They are trapped on an island where scientific laws do not apply in the same way they normally do and you have things like a smoke monster and time travel which are out of the ordinary. So in that sense yes, our LOSTaways are in a wonderland of their own. The island is the wonderland.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on the Substitute

TITLE
Refers to Locke being a substitute teacher. Another good title for this one would have been the candidates.

Notice how the LOSTaways keep finding each other. Locke meets Rose, Hurley and Ben in this episode. And he had already met Jack. It is as if these people are destined to meet each other in any timeline. Helen hints at this when she says that maybe it is destiny referring to AT Locke meeting Jack.
A big hole has been blown in my theory about things disappearing from the AT as the luggage of Locke makes an appearance. But the question still remains what happened to Desmond? He sort of disappeared on the flight while it was in mid-air. Another big hole in my theory about Jacob and Locke being warring gods is the admission by the Locke-ness monster that he used to be a normal guy before he came to the island. He must be very old since the book Of Mice and Men was way after his time. We know he has to be at least 160 years old and may even date back to ancient Egypt. Though Locke-ness said he read books, and unless he lived in Alexandria books were not as common back then like they are today. We also get a slight insight as to what Jacob and Locke-ness disagreed on. Jacob was the protector of the island. But Locke-ness does not think that the island needs a protector. When Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, it could have been to try to choose who would be the next Jacob from among the viable candidates on the ship.
Notice that Richard has no idea about the candidate system though he has done the will of Jacob for a very long time. So the Others certainly are not all-knowing. Ben did not know who the smoke monster was or even that it was a who. Even though Ben summoned the monster before. Richard seems to know more than Ben as he seems acquainted with Locke-ness.
We learn that Locke-ness is a prisoner on the island and wants to leave. If so then why does he not just leave? Could he not build a boat or is some for keeping him there? Yet he offers Sawyer the opportunity to leave. Does taking Sawyer with him change the rules so he can leave now? I am reminded of the 1967 TV show The Prisoner.
Who was that blonde-haired boy? There must be people who are over both Jacob and Lock-ness. They may be the real ones in charge. Are they then the gods such as Apollo? And they have rules like Locke-ness is not allowed to kill him. I assume him refers to Richard. That is why Lock-ness does not kill Richard when he refuses to follow him.
Notice Locke-ness throw a white rock into the sea. There were two rocks one black and one white perfectly balanced on a scale. This represented Locke-ness and Jacob both on the island keeping each other in check so that no one side dominated. With Jacob gone now, the dark side reigns. Interesting that the crashed ship is also called the Black Rock just as the black rock in the cave represents Locke-ness. Much can be said about the dark-light theme dating all the way back to season one when Locke spoke about the rules of backgammon and the white and dark pieces. There was also a dream sequence in which Locke had a black eye and a white eye. When AT Locke is drinking in the bathtub his mug is black and white with a little green in it. Locke also mentioned how old backgammon was hinting that this conflict has been going on for thousands of years. This agrees with the ancient Egyptian symbols all over the place in the series. To name just a few:

a DHARMA member had an ankh, an Egyptian symbol for life
The guitar case had an ankh inside it
The large statue on the island once held an ankh in its right hand. Only a foot remains.
There are both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek symbols inside the foot of the statue where Jacob lived
When the timer in the swan hatch hit zero the indicators showed Egyptian symbols
There are Egyptian symbols on the dilapidated building where the team member of Rousseau got his arm ripped off

What can be made of all of these examples? It is telling us that this conflict is very old and dates back thousands of years. Good versus Evil perhaps.
Now that Ben is a teacher he must have survived the H bomb going off? Where was Ben when the hydrogen bomb detonated that allowed him to survive? Was he on the sub or perhaps already transported off the island? In any case the bomb went off after Sayid shot him. But the Others said that the boy would not remember the events so it may be that Ben has no memory of ever being shot, however he should remember at least being on the island. If AT Locke questioned Ben would he recall the island?

Here are the numbers that Jacob wrote for each candidate:

4 Locke
8 Reyes
15 Ford
16 Jarrah
23 Shephard
42 Kwon

The cave is littered with other names that have been crossed off. I would have thought Kate would be 23 since there was a bounty on her head of $23,000. We have not seen a good example of the Hurley numbers for a while so this overt example is great to see. Does this mean that Jacob is behind the numbers? There is evidence to the contrary as DHARMA also used the numbers. Remember the Swan hatch had the numbers imprinted on it, and in a LOST video online it shows how scientists relate each Hurley number to catastrophes that could destroy the world.
A surprise in this episode was to see Helen in the life of AT Locke. The last time we saw Helen she was fed up with Locke and was leaving him because of his involvement with his father. He proposed but she said no. Obviously in the AT something has changed. It may even be that some of the events of the life of AT Locke are a little different that the life of original Locke (the one who is dead).
Richard obviously knows who Locke-ness really is, but they are coy about actually saying his name. Each time you think someone is going to say it; they do not.
Notice how Sawyer is able to tell that Locke-ness is not Locke. His years of being a con man have given him insight into people. Oddly he seems not to be alarmed by this. Perhaps he has been exposed to one crazy thing to many so that he no longer is shocked by this kind of stuff. After all he did travel back in time and then back to the future. And this was a man who was reading the book A Wrinkle in Time during I believe season one. That actually turned out to be a foreshadowing of the time travel he would actually do one day. Nice one.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on What Kate Does

TITLE
What Kate does refers to more than just what Kate does in this episode. It is actually a play on words of a former episode entitled What Kate Did. In that episode we learned that Kate killed her stepfather.

To remind you AT = alternate timeline and allows me to reference the same character in the timeline where the plane landed. The alternate timeline gives us an insight into what would have happened to the LOSTaways had the plane landed. Though this timeline has been altered by the disappearance of certain objects such as coffins, knives and at least one person. We learn that the plan of Claire to give up her baby for adoption would not have worked because the marriage of the adoptive parents fell apart. Hey, try picking up a phone next time so AT Claire doesn’t have to travel across the ocean to find that out! I am reminded that Claire was warned by the psychic that she had to raise the child herself or something dreadful would happen. There was some speculation a few seasons ago by some that the psychic knew Claire would crash on the island and that there were no waiting parents in L.A. That theory was proven wrong by this episode, but that doesn’t mean that the psychic didn’t know about the plane crash.
In both timelines there is a definite Kate-Claire relationship. In the original timeline Claire asks Kate to watch her baby, and Kate goes back to the island to rescue Claire and bring her back to Aaron. AT Kate befriends Claire despite her felonious circumstances and the two become friends so quickly that Claire even covers for Kate when the cops show up. This may be because both can sense the other timeline in which they have a strong bond which involves Aaron.
Notice how AT Claire knew the name of the baby was Aaron. This indicates that the two timelines are not as separate as they may appear. This alternate timeline may in fact be slowly converging into the other timeline. When Kate is in the cab at the airport, for an instant she sees Jack and feels like she knows him. Look for more people and things to disappear as the episodes of this season continue. In the end only one timeline will remain. Notice that we see AT Ethan. To remind us, Ethan was the child of two members of DHARMA. In the original timeline after DHARMA was killed off the Others adopted Ethan. In the AT Ethan escapes on the sub off the island before it explodes. He is called doctor Goodspeed in the AT. In both timelines note that Ethan is a doctor though in the original timeline we have no info on any medical degree just that he is an excellent surgeon according to Ben. We have not seen AT Juliet yet. Wonder if we will. Will she be back with her sister, or will her sister be dead from cancer?

Since season one we have wondered about the mysterious sickness first mentioned by Danielle Rousseau. She of course had to kill her own team members when they became infected with something. During time traveling Jin actually sees her kill her own husband after he tries to fire a rifle at her not knowing that the firing pin has been removed. This sickness now appears to be not an infection in the conventional sense that you can treat with antibiotics. It appears to be a sickness of the soul and turns you into some kind of evil person. This also agrees with what Ben said when he said we are the good guys referring to the Others. We are told that you get this sickness when you are claimed. This implies that someone is doing the claiming. That may be the Locke-ness monster. He claims you as his own and then you turn into some kind of bad person. The sickness erases the old person. Whatever this thing is it changes your heart so much that you are a completely new person and for the worse. The Others know this and that there is no cure. Once you are claimed you are claimed. The test used to diagnose Sayid seems to be based on the reaction of the body to strong heat stimulus and electrical stimulus. But how does this test work? If Sayid had passed the test what would have happened differently? Notice that the tester spreads what looks like gunpowder across the chest of Sayid. Interesting that the part where Sayid says they tortured me and did not ask me any questions is a line straight out of the Empire Strikes Back and was spoken by Han Solo in the cloud city.

Claire has already been infected. This may have occurred on or before the day when she abandoned her baby in the jungle and went off. We find her later in a shack with Christian. But is Christian just another representation of the Locke-ness monster? Could be. And that lends credence to my idea that you get claimed by the Locke-ness monster. He claimed Claire and so she is with him now. That is a quote from Claire herself: I am with him now. There was some speculation a while back that Claire might be dead, but she turns up alive and well at the end of this episode and toting a gun in uncharacteristic Claire fashion. Ever see Claire shooting a gun? I did not think so. She seems to be a decent marksmen too. Could the evil have already infected her heart? If so then how will that affect her relationship with the other LOSTaways? Will she want to kill them help them or get them claimed like herself. By the way, how did the Others know that Claire was the sister of Jack? Even Jack did not know this when he got on the plane. The trap that Aldo, Justin, Kate and Jin almost fell into was set by Claire though it is mentioned that it looks like a trap Rousseau would set. So now Claire has become like Rousseau living on her own setting traps and such. She heard that trap sprung when Jin got caught in it and that is how she showed up so quickly.

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My Serious, Logical Thoughts on LAX

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LAX refers to the three-letter designation of the Los Angeles airport. Every major airport in the world has a three-letter designation. For example, BRU is Brussells Belgium. Flight attendants are required to memorize all of them. I spoke to one flight attendant who said in her training she had to memorize them all in one day then take a test on it! Next time you are on a flight give your flight attendant a quiz. J

SPLITSVILLE

As you noticed when the hydrogen bomb went off it created what I call a bifurcation. See my book on time travel called chaotic planet (www.qcms.biz). There is a whole section in there that explains what is going on perfectly. I will give a short version of it here. Think of a straight tree branch coming out of a tree. Then at the end of this branch two other branches come out of that branch and go off in different directions. Time is like the tree branch. At first there was just one timeline, but then time got split in two so that there are two different time lines that now coexist simultaneously. In one timeline the plane crashes and in the other it does not. The two timelines are like the two branches that come off the end of the original branch. The splitting of time into different branches is called a bifurcation. To tell these two timelines apart, I will refer to those characters who landed in LAX at alternate timeline characters or AT characters. For example there is original Locke who crashed and there is AT Locke who did not crash. Same for the rest of the passengers.

Notice that even AT Charlie seems to think it was his destiny to die when he tells Jack that he was supposed to die referring to himself. Interesting. It hints that the other timeline where he did die is the correct one.

Now, for some reason the alternate timeline where the plane lands in LAX is unstable and appears to be slowly disappearing. The following items have now vanished from this timeline: Desmond, the knives of Locke, the Father of Jack. I predict the disappearing will continue until nothing remains of this timeline. I believe this because as Desmond has been told, the universe has a way of course correcting. It was the destiny of the plane to crash and therefore the universe has to erase the timeline where it did not crash. If you can find it, check out a Star Trek the Next Generation episode entitled “Remember Me”. In this episode, doctor Beverly Crusher is transported to an alternate reality when a warp core bubble expands and engulfs her. In her reality people keep disappearing, and when they do, no one remembers the missing person. Eventually she figures out that the entire universe is disappearing and that she is stuck in a shrinking warp core bubble. She escapes at the end. Though I do not believe the alternate reality is a warp core bubble, I do believe that it is disappearing with the one difference that people do remember those who have vanished. Note how Jack does recall Desmond sitting next to him on the plane before he vanished. There is also the faint possibility that the alternate reality is simply the imagination of someone ala Saint Elsewhere, but I doubt that.

THE LOCKE-NESS MONSTER

Finally it is revealed that the smoke monster is not a what but a who. I had previously theorized that the smoke monster was the one impersonating people on the island, and now my theory is vindicated. Feels good to be right folks. I figured it out when the brother of Eko appeared to him on the island, and when he spoke to Eko he said “you talk to me like I am your brother.” Just after that the smoke monster showed up and killed Eko. Now that we know the monster is a who, the scene when Ben meets his dead daughter makes so much more sense. His dead daughter appeared to him and told him to do whatever Locke said. In reality the smoke monster knew the he himself would be impersonating Locke later so this makes perfect sense. He knew that He impersonating Locke would ask him to kill Jacob. Having his daughter tell him to obey would really help persuade Ben to do it.

But this episode never tells you the name of the smoke monster so I will refer to him as the Locke-ness monster. But I have a theory. Here is what I think is going on.

The Locke-ness monster and Jacob are two brothers who are gods. They got into fights because they disagreed on how to get humanity to evolve. The Locke-ness monster thought humans should evolve on their own, but Jacob felt that they needed to intervene to force humans to evolve. Their fights were so severe that the two were banished to an island that the gods created that was shielded from the rest of the world. They were told to work out their differences there. And there was a rule that neither was allowed to kill the other. Though I do not know the real names of these gods, there is evidence that one of the gods may be the god Apollo from Greek mythology. I do not think Jacob is his real name. I present as evidence the candy bar Apollo that has appeared in more than one episode and in the season finale of last year, Jacob gets an Apollo candy bar out of a machine for Jack. One of the gods may be one of the Egyptian gods such as Hippophus. The most obvious Egyptian reference is the Ankh which is a symbol for life. We saw this when the followers of Jacob opened the guitar case Hurley had. Inside was a rather large Ankh which the Others broke apart to get to the secret message inside from Jacob. One member of DHARMA had an Ankh, and the original statue on the island was a crocodile-like creature holding an Ankh in its right hand.

For centuries Jacob would bring people to the island to test his theory on how to get mankind to evolve. At one point inhabitants of the island built a statue to Jacob, and he lived inside it.

Jacob brought the ship called the Black Rock to the island. One of the people on that ship was Richard who is kind of like a priest. I believe this because of a remark that the Locke-ness monster made to Richard when he said “you look good out of those chains”. I thought about all the time in the series where we have seen people in chains. The best example is when original Locke and others went on board the Black Rock. There they saw skeletons that were in chains. That would also fit in with the remark of Juliet when original Locke asked her how old Richard was and she replied “old”.

THE THREE FACES OF LOCKE

It is interesting to note that actor Terry Oquinn plays three different incarnations of Locke. There is AT Locke, original Locke (dead Locke) and the Locke-ness monster. That must be fun for him. How do you think he liked playing the dead guy?

PARDON MY RED SEA

The red healing waters seem very similar to one of the Egyptian plagues in the bible when the water turned to blood. Does the red water have anything to do with the recent death of Jacob? Again – another Egyptian reference and also biblical reference. The similarities are uncanny.

The hourglass reminded me a lot of the wizard of Oz when that witch turned over the hourglass. It was a giant hourglass too like the one in this episode. This movie has been referenced before in the series. Remember the balloon and Henry Gale?

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Why does Juliet say it did not work and then posthumously say that it did work? How would Juliet have knowledge of the alternate timeline?

In this episode the Locke-ness monster was motivated to kill the people who were shooting at him. But why did the Locke-ness monster kill Eko, the pilot of flight 815 Seth Norris, and one member of the team of Rousseau (the guy who got his arm ripped off seen briefly in this episode)?

The contents of the message contained in the Ankh are baffling. Why is everyone in trouble if Sayid dies? Especially if the followers of Jacob were ready to kill our heroes on the spot?

What happened to the rest of the statue?

Why cannot the Locke-ness monster cross a barrier of gray ash?

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