With the Season 6 premiere announced – February 3rd, 2010, I’m beginning to rewatch the entire series and take down some notes. With the introduction of Jacob and his friend “the Man in Black” or “Esau” (as many people online are calling him), we know have a sense of what good and evil battle has been raging on the island. Esau had tricked John into leaving the island, where he was killed – enabling Esau to take his form and trick Ben into killing Jacob. This “Loophole” has been in the works since the Oceanic Flight 815 smacked into the island. There also some mysteries that have not been wrapped up and I will point them out during my rewatch.

The Pilot (parts 1 and 2)
The first thing I noticed was that Jack was laying in the jungle. On the Ajira flight, Jack and crew vanished (time travel) right before the crash. They all were placed on the island (albeit in sucky situations). Did this same force place the major players gently from the Oceanic plane? I still believe that the Smoke Monster caused the crash, to ensure that mojor players survived, they were placed on the ground.
There was a “Missing Pieces” video showing Christian Shepard standing over Jack’s body in the bamboo trees just after the crash. He tells Vincent (the dog) that there is work to do. It’s clear that ghost Christian is Esau (much like he took over Locke’s body in Season 5). I also think Vincent is possibly Jacob. They both choose forms to in which to play this game.
Also, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, seem to be placed in the jungle, not with the initial plane crash. Just an observation.

Also, it’s interesting to note that the Smoke Monster does not come to the beach. It’s possible the Smoke Monster is Esau’s guard dog. Sure it can read minds and serve as judge/jury/executioner, but only when Esau deems fit. Esau probably dines on souls captured from the Smoke Monster.

And I still don’t know how in Charlie’s pre-crash flashback, it seems that he fell out of the front bathroom and buckled himself in first class – the front part of the plane that broke off into the jungle. Not to mention how Cindy the flight attendant got to the back of the plane when she followed Charlie up front. It also appears that Shannon and Boone where in the back of business class (Shannon tells Boone that they were denied First Class and were made to sit in Business), but maybe they were right after the part that snapped off.

Locke plays backgammon with Walt and explains the entire premise of the series, I believe. “Backgammon is the oldest games in the world…Two players. Two sides. One is light. One is dark.” Obviously, this is a reference to Jacob and Esau, who are playing Backgammon with the survivor’s lives.

What I never understood is why did everyone automatically assume they were on an island – and why did no one ever think of hiking around the island to make sure a 7-11 wasn’t on the other side?

Tabula Rasa
No mysteries here that haven’t been answered. Except, I still feel there’s more to Kate and the Marshal’s story.

Walkabout
Rose calls Jack “a good soul”.
Here’s the thing with Locke: the big moment of the episode is that Locke sees the monster and will later describe it as “a beautiful white light” and refers to it as “the eye of the island”. I think he was tricked from this very moment. Jacob gave him the use of his legs, but it was Esau who manipulated Locke from the get go.
We also see Jack first see Ghost Dad. Also Esau assuming the form of Jack’s father. This is explored in the next episode.

The White Rabbit
Jack sees his dead father walkin’ around on the island in suit and tennis shoes (the shoes have been explained in Season 5). A chase through the jungle and Ghost Dad leads Jack off a cliff. This isn’t the last time Esau tries to leads someone off a cliff (Hurley in the episode “Dave”). The question here is why did Ghost Dad lead Jack to the caves? Was it positioning? Was it to find Adam and Eve? It was probably to divide the survivors.

I do have a question about the empty casket. Both Christian Shepard and Eko’s brother, Yemi, has their bodies go missing on the island. I would assume this has to do with Esau taking their form – but if that the case, then what about Hurley’s imaginary friend, Dave – or Kate’s black horse? Even in Season 5, Locke’s body is what exposes Esau as the Locke impostor. Why did Locke’s body stick around when Christian Shepard’s body didn’t? Is it a simple as Esau just physically hiding the body?

This is also the episode gives his famous “Live together, die alone” speech. Which is exactly the case with dealing with Esau. Everybody that’s been picked off by Esau trickery (or has come close) has gone off alone. I guess part of the game is manipulation of the soul – whether good can turn bad, or bad can turn good. And it’s easier to trick a soul when they are alone.

House of the Rising Sun
This episode has the biggest unanswered question I have about the series, one that we probably won’t get an answer for until the last episode of Season 6. The reveal of Adam and Eve, the two corpses in the caves. There has been speculation that the corpses are actually one of the Oceanic survivors – Kate and Jack, or Kate and Sawyer, or even Rose and Benard – somehow thrown back in time. And since it’s been established that time travel *does* happen on the island, this scenario is entirely plausible. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell who I think is Adam and Eve – Sun and Jin. From the dialog, Jack says that they (Adam and Eve) have been placed there. By who? Somehow, Sun, Jin, and their daughter Ji Yeon, have gone back 50+ years into the island’s past. They all lived and died there, Ji Yeon placed them there. After all, the episode is their flashback. My alternative theory, one I like better but seems more implausible, is that Ji Yeon and Aaron grew up on the island together, fell in love, time traveled back, and had a baby – their offspring, placed them there.

Also, what happened to the white and black stones that Jack found on the corpses? There has been no mention if Jack has these stones still in his possession.

And this episode has the most frustrating scene of the entire season: Kate bends over to tie her shoes and looks behind her and asks Jack “Are you checking me out?” Jack, like the dummy he is, denies it. Kate pushes him and asks to go ahead and say what’s on his mind, opening her door wide open. Dummy Jack misses the opportunity and goes on about his dumb ideas about the caves. First of all, when an attractive woman you like asks if you are checking her out, you say “Yes” – even if you weren’t. If you fail to do this, and she presses you a little further – you tell her she’s on your mind – even if at that moment she wasn’t, you lie and tell her she was. This little incident is how Jack lost her to Sawyer.

Michael utters another important clue to the Lost mythology: “I found this in the wreckage and figured, hey, why let a $20,000 watch go to waste. Which is ridiculous since time doesn’t matter on a damn island!”

The Moth
This is one of my favorite episodes of Lost. It doesn’t really offer any questions to the overall mythology of Lost, but really gives Charlie some character depth. It does bring up the concept of how temptation is nothing unless we give into them, and those choices make us human. This is one of the island’s first redemption stories even though Charlie still bit the big one in the end.

It has one of my favorite Charlie lines (and there are quite a few): “You don’t know me! I’m a bloody rock god!” [then the cave collapses]

Confidence Man
No questions unanswered from this episode. Crazy to see this Sawyer such a dick, to the Sawyer who sees his girlfriend sucked down a well and sobs. His character has come a long ways.

Next: Lost Season 1 – Discs 3 and 4

Faraday made a video of Chang:

When did this happen (if it is canon)? Is this proof that Daniel is alive? Well, the creators of Lost have already said that Daniel is truly dead, so, when did this take place?

UPDATE: It appears that Carlton Cuse has gone on record saying that Daniel’s voice in the Chang video is a “continuity error”. That sucks.

The Ajira folk are disciples of Faraday (or DHARMA, or possibly Hawkings). They are going to the donkey wheel to return to 1977 to help Faraday blow up the swan station with the H-Bomb. The box contains drilling equipment to get to the donkey wheel (that has possibly been buried by the Others in the last three years since it was turned).

It’s a Wonderful Lost:

What would happen if the hatch was never built… (and the island was nuked in 1977)

Widmore would still have control over the island (if he survived the blast). Ben would not have been shot by Sayid, thereby not taken to the others and probably would escape with some of the DHARMA people. Inevitably, Penny may not have met Desmond and Desmond would not have felt the need to compete in Widmore’s boating race. Flight 815 would not have crashed, better still, most of the people would not have been on it. Notably Claire, Locke, or Sayid, who were positioned to be on that flight by possible Widmore operatives. Other people, like Hurley, would have never been on the flight in the first place as explained below.

Jack, would return home to bury his father – continue being a spinal surgeon and possibly never fall in love with Kate. Probably make amends with his ex-wife – or become a sad lonely drunk man, like his father.

Kate – would return to the States a fugitive still captured by the marshall. She would be sentenced and spend a few dozen years behind bars.

Sawyer – would return home and never find closure for his parents’ deaths. He could find redemption in his estranged daughter. But like he’s said before, there really isn’t anything for him to go back to.

Hurley – probably would never hear the numbers from Leonard, since the numbers were a product of the DHAMRA people after the swan station. He would never become a millionaire, or meet Libby, or have his father return (because his father only came back for the money, initially). He probably would have remained a pathetic employee of Clucks.

Locke – would have remained a cripple, and would have never gone to Australia to begin with. It was Matthew Abbadon, a employee of Widmore, who put the idea of a Walkabout in Locke’s head. He may have reconciled with Helen, before she died of an aneurysm.

Michael/Walt – It’s quite possible that Susan, Walt’s mother, was hired by a Law firm that worked for Widmore. If this was the case, then Susan would have stayed in New York with Walt. Michael would never have been on that plane. He probably would have had visitation to Walt, too.

Sun/Jin – again, possible that Paik is an affiliate of Widmore. But even if Sun and Jin were on that plane and made it to the states, it’s not certain that their marriage would have lasted beyond that. Plus, their daughter would never be born.

Charlie – well, first of all, Charlie wouldn’t be sleeping with the fishes. Although, that’s not to say he probably would continue being a heroin addict – which means the high probability of him overdosing. But if he did survive and kicked the habit – I would like to think that he started a new musical endeavor, and gone back to that girl he tried to steal from, and possibly become a damn good copier salesman.

Claire – Claire would not have left Australia, since Richard “Psychic” Malkin, who most likely worked for Widmore or Hawking, gave her the plane ticket. She would have remained home, had the baby (named something else, “Aaron” was an on-island decision), and been there when her mother woke up from her coma.

Sayid – would have returned to the states and found Nadia. He would shoot no children, torture no hicks, abused evil masterminds, or killed random people with dishwashers.

Desmond – again, it’s hard to tell if he would have met Penny, since the monastery he tried monkshood with was linked to Hawkings. He would have never joined the military. He would never tried to sail around the world. He would never ended up on the island, pushing a button in the hatch.

Daniel Faraday – probably would have grown up on the island as an Other (possibly the leader, who knows) and become a damn fine pianist. But considering if the island got nuked and he was a ten year old boy, then he would be dead with all the other Others, including Widmore and Hawkings.

Libby worked for Widmore. Thus, she probably wouldn’t be on the plane either.

Of course, if the future does change – then they would never come back to the 1977 island to begin with, so the bomb will never go off. My guess, is that they cap the swan station with concrete – and the future continues as planned, but the explosion somehow sends them back to current day.

Daniel Faraday is back, but what is he going to do, and why?
I think Faraday’s mother, Eloise Hawking, is the leader of another faction of Others. She, and her followers, got booted off the island by Widmore, while he was in control. The Ajira people, might either be her people – or DHARMA employees (or their children). They seem to be of the cult caliber and enjoy the Kool-aid a little to much, if you get my drift. Of course, Faraday also could be either Widmore’s son or nephew – which adds complexity to the situation.

Could this be the episode in which Daniel tells young Charlotte *not* to come back to the island? Did Daniel spend the last 3 years off the island, building the Lamppost station (the one with the pendulum)? Will Daniel look for his mother on the island?

And things look bad for the Time Travelers – DHARMAville doesn’t seem like a very safe place for them now that Sawyer’s lie is about to be discovered. Will they seek the help of the Others? Will this cause the rift between Hawking and Widmore?

I think the Swan station, and the “Incident” that Chang talked about in Season 2′s orientation film, are going to be Season 5′s point of interest. Incidentally, the finale is called “The Incident”. Could this be how the time travelers will get back to the future? Will Pierre Chang help his son in using the secrets of the Swan station to do this, inadvertently causing Chang to lose his arm (a Darth Vader and Luke moment, to be sure).

Things are heating up.

Time to play, “What’s in the box?”

Could it be:

• An super intelligent monkey.
• Smoke detectors.
• The statue’s missing toe.
• Charles Widmore (who has been surviving on beer and pretzels this whole time).
• Locke’s body. The Locke that is up and around is really a “ghost” of the island.

I’ll wait here until you finished. Good? Here is my theory, Ben goes to call the smoke monster (by flushing a muddy toilet??). Instead of the smoke monster coming out of the woods, Locke appears – clue #1. Locke goes to the temple wall, somewhere he has never been, but knows that this is the place the smoke monster lives – clue #2. Ben is in the smoke monster’s lair while Locke goes to “find a rope or something”. All this magical stuff happens kinda like “This is your bastard life” between Ben and the smoke monster, and then dead Alex, only does Locke show up afterwards – clue #3. If you were easily confused when Clark Kent went away, then Superman shows up – much like Lois Lane, who was an investigative friggin reporter, then I’ll make it simple for you. Locke has become one with the island. The only thing he’s missing is sun god-like robes. Ben was telling the truth. Dead is dead. Nobody comes back from the dead – only their “ghost” do. Check out my Season 4 predictions about Locke (and my Season 3 predictions). I’ve been mostly right in my theories (I totally called Michael getting blown up back at the start of Season 3).

Anyway, back to Ben’s moment of judgement. We see this wonderful piece of art:

Besides the smoke monster having a face like Jimmy Durante, it confirms a few things. One, the four-toed statue is Anubis, Egyptian God of the underworld and tampons (okay, I made the last one up). Two, it shows an interesting relationship between the two beings. It almost appears as if the smoke monster is Anubis’ pet. Which is interesting because the Greeks god of the underworld, Hades, had a similar pet, Cerebus – the giant three-headed pooch of death. So what does this tell me? The “ghosts” that appear are really the guise of Anubis. The smoke monster comes in and takes the thoughts and memories from people that have lost someone, and then Anubis comes around and uses that information to appear to that person and tell them how *not* to screw with the island. Is Locke really Anubis? Well, I kinda get that – if it wasn’t for that pesky Christian Shepard question. Obviously, Locke didn’t know that Christian appeared to Sun and Frank. So does that make Christian the one who is Anubis and Locke something else? And who is this Jacob guy and why hasn’t he lifted a finger to make his presence known?

It kinda goes back to the first season. It’s quite possible that there are two forces on the island – one good, and one evil. I had questions back in season 2 and 3 that the island seemed to do contrasting things, notably towards Locke and Eko and their contradictory dreams/visions about the pearl station. Locke even holds up two Go game pieces (black and white) to Walt in Season 1 and talks about Good and Evil (also in Claire’s dream, Locke has one black eyeball and one white eyeball). Also, Locke sees the “heart” of the island and later reveals that it was a “white” light and not the black smoke of death.

Who knows.

And let me briefly gloat about the prediction that the survivors of Ajira 316 are Others. I was partially right. Illana is one. And there are at least three others in her group. I was surprised it was her. I thought it was going to be Caesar, but that ended quickly with a shotgun blast to his chest. Her question to Frank, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” is obviously a way of identifying the Others that were planted on the flight. Of course, I don’t think these are Ben’s Others – I think these guys are Others loyal to Widmore. Poor Frank. And it looks like they’re going to carry that box to the other main island. On second thought, maybe the box doesn’t contain Locke’s casket – but maybe drilling tools. Why drilling tools? To get at what lies in the shadow of the statue… Jughead, of course, the hydrogen bomb.

One last thing. Last week I downloaded the free Geronimo Jackson song, “Dharma Lady” from iTunes. It’s a weird song. I think they were trying too hard to make it sound 70′s-ish. The lyrics don’t really have any hidden meaning (that we know of) but what I found intriguing is the cover art:

Paging Donnie Darko… White rabbit (skull). Top hat (magic act). Lotus flowers. Hole in wood that leads to space. Any thoughts?

Ok, I haven’t posted any new Lost stuff in the last two weeks. Things have taken a very interesting turn. Sayid shoots young Ben. Kate and Sawyer bring Ben to Richard to “save” him. Here is the million dollar question:

Did the island bring back the group to ensure these events happened – or did the island bring them back to fix this history?

The group of time travelers all had a part in potentially preventing Ben from becoming an Other, but either choose not to do anything or take the wrong action. Sawyer told the lie that got them all in DHARMA. Jin runs off to find Sun, and gets Sayid caught by DHARMA. Juliet makes the suggestion to take wounded Ben to the others. Kate and Sawyer brought Ben to Richard and made the choice to have Ben become an other. Jack sat on his ass and did nothing to save Ben (hippocratic oath, my butt). If Jack would have saved Ben, then Ben wouldn’t be taken to Ben – AND Ben would lose interest in becoming an Other. Sayid, of course, puts a bullet in Ben. If none of these events happened or happened differently, Ben would have grown up a normal kid (albeit a sad, abused, messed up kid), but things wouldn’t have turned out so messed up.

Regarding Kate. I’m glad her character has grown up and has chosen to do something that doesn’t involve making a choice between Jack and Sawyer. I think that her mission the smartest one out of the survivors this far. Find Claire – bring her back to Aaron.

What about Sun? Why didn’t she go back in time to be with Jin? I think it’s either because she forgot to bring her daughter back with her, or she has a role to play in the upcoming war and the island needs her in the present time.

And let me reiterate my position that there is something fishy about the Christian Shepard Ghost character. He’s obviously not Jacob. If he is an agent of the island, then he’s making some odd choices. The first time we see Ghost CS, he tricks Jack into running off a cliff. Then he takes Claire but leaves Aaron. Then he appears in the Cabin (with a very relaxed/drugged Claire) and tells Locke to move the island. But where was Jacob?

Receiving Ben, Richard makes the statement that Ben would be “one of them” and will lose his memory of recent events and also lose his innocence. By becoming an Other, is this the process that they take? By being exposed by the secrets of the island, does that make them “special” and give them abilities like disappearing into thin air, healing themselves, and immortality? Is this same process that saved Ben and made him an Other, the same process that brought Locke back to life? Is Locke now officially an Other? I’m also getting the sneaky vibe that all the passengers aboard Ajira 316 are paid soldiers of Widmore. You can’t fight a war without soldiers right? And who are the armies on the island in Present day? The Others… and who else? All the Oceanic people have been either killed or tossed back in time.

Okay, so I missed a post. Since I last blogged, the Oceanic Six came back to the island, Locke got off the island, had a nice chat with Widmore, tried to get the O6 to come back, and got nicely snuffed out by Ben. Now we come back to the exact moment where Locke left the island.

The Statue – Right before Locke turns the wheel, Sawyer and company are still topside. Sawyer is still tugging on the rope that used to hold Locke but is now buried in the ground. They start wondering when in time they are when Miles points out to something. A giant statue looms off in the distance. Now of course, this seems to be the rest of the four-toed statue that we saw from season 2. My theory is this may not be the same statue. I’m thinking there used to be several of these statues around the edges of the island, “guarding” it. The statue here may be that of Anubis, an Egyptian god of the dead. Anubis has the head of a jackal and holds a staff and an Ankh, a symbol of life. In the screenshot, you can clearly see it’s holding something, and that it does have ears and a Egyptian head-dress. Although in many pictures and hieroglyphics – Anubis is portrayed with bigger ears. The other Egyptian gods who have animal heads do not have ears. So my guess it is Anubis. Also, it would explain why it has four toes instead of five. The scene ends with Locke turning the wheel and them blinking out of time again – Miles says it felt like an earthquake – possibly the result of Locke turning the wheel. But maybe this earthquake caused the statue to crumble.

The Truce – After Sawyer and crew find Faraday babbling about Charlotte (who’s body did not jump with them, possibly leaving her corpse in the far past with the statue). They then come across Amy and dead Paul – being attacked by Others. Sawyer and Juliet dispatches the Others, one of which has a horseshoe tattooed on his shoulder. A tattoo? Horseshoe? Do the others have a tattoo parlor in the temple or something? Eventually, I will have to do a long diatribe about the ethnic composition of the Others. Tattoos and english accents… some lost tribe indeed. Anyway… Amy starts to blab about some “truce” between the Others and DHARMA being broken. It looks like she and dead Paul were having a picnic when two Others started to pick a fight.

HERE IS MY THEORY: Paul was originally an Other. Somehow, when this truce got started, Paul fell in love with Amy and jumped ship from the Other’s. These two other Others saw them together and picked a fight with Paul. Why do I think Paul was an Other? Two reasons. One, Paul was wearing an Ankh – the symbol that Anubis statue was holding, and probably a symbol for the natives of the island, the Others. Second, Richard Alpert demanded justice for his people – by taking the body of Paul? That really only makes sense if Richard told his people that Paul shot the other two Others – thereby calming his people and holding the truce, because Paul was an Other to begin with, the DHARMA folks didn’t kill them.

(click below to continue)

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, I missed a post last week, so I’m two episodes behind. Let’s see if I can shoot out some theories and observations…

We’re Baaack! – I’m surprised the Oceanic Six got back to the island as quickly and seemly effortlessly as they did. Although missing from this story is how Sayid, Kate, and Hurley did a 360. I’d like to point out that the plane did land on the runway that Sawyer and Kate were building in season three. The plane did not crash, Frank Lapidus is too much of a badass to let that bird go down.

Paging Ms. Hawking – Yesh, she’s Faraday’s mum. Told ya. I want some confirmation that she was the Ellie on the island in 1954 (the army photo kinda confirms this – but I want a solid admittance).

Charlotte Has Some Chocolate and Checks Out – God in Heaven, why’d you have to kill off such hot snatch? Seriously though, I’m surprised Charlotte lasted this long. Charlotte grew up on the island, no shocker, but was is was that Faraday appeared to her then as grown man (a kinda creepy-scary grown man) and warned her never to return – which I’m sure we’ll see in an upcoming episode. So here’s a paradox – Charlotte told Daniel this happened, so why does Daniel warn the child Charlotte later when he knows it obviously didn’t work?

Locke is Pining for the Fjords – Observe:

Or he could have been juiced up on Medusa spider venom. Co-workers at the office have had enough of Lost’s shenanigans – but I offer this: It’s a fantasy that revolves around fantastical questions – if they were answered all at once, there would be no point of watching the rest of the seasons. On TV, people come back from the dead ALL THE TIME. Frankly, I don’t know why this is the deal breaker – after smoke monsters, polar bears, time travel, ghosts, hallucinations, and freaky prophetic dreams – resurrection is off limits??

Also, you notice that Locke’s injured foot kinda looks like it only has four toes? I think Locke eventually gets tossed back a few thousand years BC on the island and not only becomes the island’s first leader whom the locals make a giant statue in his honor, but also has his consciousness become “unstuck” in time – becoming Jacob.

Trapped in Time – At the end of last episode, we see Jin pull up in a new blue DHARMA van wearing a jumpsuit. Apparently, Locke fixed the wheel and island skipping, but stranded the remaining survivors in 1970′s – the beginning of DHARMA on the island. This explains why Daniel Faraday was inside the orchid station with Pierre Chang (Dr. Marvin Candle). Looks like Chang is going to be the group’s Dr. Emmet Brown (if you don’t know who Doc Brown is, shame on you – go watch all the Back to the Future movies again). Dr. Chang is Miles’ daddy, and knows that cute little red haired girl, Charlotte. So once Jack and the rest of the Oceanic Six show up, everybody is stuck in the age of bell-bottoms and sideburns. Groovy.

And they introduced a new character, Jack’s granddad, Ray. Why do I get the feeling that Ray has been on the island and might show up in the 1970′s? Either as part of DHARMA or as an Other. Maybe Christian Shepard was born on the island as well, an interesting parallel to his drinking and Jack’s.

Danielle and the Smoke Monster That’s a big temple the Smoke monster is guarding. We also get a glimpse into another possible power of the smoke monster – either duplication or mind control. Her crew and her lover all try to kill her and her unborn child, I would think that level of brainwashing wouldn’t suffice. I would go with duplication, just like the smoke monster could create the Horse, Dave (Hurley’s friend), and Eko’s brother, Yemi. I also believe that these “duplicates” or whatever the island does to them, are who the others are. Maybe there are many smoke monsters – either aliens or spirits, that can inhabit the body of the living or the dead.

Hurley New Groove – the only reason Hurley would have a guitar case is to have a lifetime supply of stashed twinkies and ho-hos to enjoy on the island.

Kate is Preggers – My friend Erika offered up this juicy bit: If the passengers of Ajira Airlines 316 are trying to recreate the conditions of the first 815 crash, then we can surmise the following:

• Jack is Charlie the junkie. Also Sawyer the letter carrier.
• Locke is Christian Shepard the dead guy.
• Sayid is Kate the fugitive.
• Hurley is Charlie the Rockstar (guitar case).
• Ben is Locke the cripple. Also Hurley the late passenger.
• Sun is Sawyer the avenger, and Rose the ring bearer.
• So would it make sense that Kate is now pregnant, taking the place of Claire? Wouldn’t that drive Jack bananas, since she’s obviously going back for Sawyer and has had enough of Jack.
• Or another person that’s as pregnant as Claire was is none other than Jack’s ex, Sarah. Ben could have easily put her on the plane in coach. Now we have some sort of weird love pentagon happening: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, and Sarah. Freaky, eh? And do you think that Juliet will take Jack back after he ditched her on the island and shacked up with Kate? That’s going to be an awkward confession.

So here is my new theory:

• The island is actually the upper part of a giant inter-dimensional spaceship. The smoke monsters are the ship’s passengers subjugating the locals and treated like gods. The ship is powered by exotic matter, which gives the island it’s powers.

• Jin – Yay! Jin is still alive! Apparently, he has been unconscious while drifting on wreakage from the boat explosion.
• Danielle – Jin doesn’t know Danielle’s fate. He also hasn’t been in many scenes with her, so while he knows of her, he hasn’t crossed paths with her. Since we know that Danielle comes to the island in 1988 (or so we think), we know that Jin is skipping through time on the same track as the rest of his group (Sawyer, Juliet, Charlotte, Daniel, and Miles). Also, notice that her crew is listening to the signal from the radio tower – the same one that she will travel to and change to a distress transmission that the lostaways discover in Season 1. This means the tower was broadcasting a similar countdown before Danielle’s crew arrived. We also know from a previous episode that the message that drew Danielle to the island repeated Hurley’s numbers. We also know that Danielle kills her team due to them being “infected” with some sickness, before Alex is born and that she travels to the tower while still pregnant. A week after Alex is born the Others will take her. I’m not sure if we will witness all these events.
• Ben – What is Ben’s plan? He admitted trying to take Aaron from Kate. Was it just a ploy to force Kate back to the island? And if the lawyer represents Oceanic Airlines and Ben, wouldn’t that infer that Ben controls Oceanic Airlines? And if that was the case, wouldn’t that also mean that Ben might be behind Flight 815 crashing? Maybe with the Smoke Monster help under his control?
• Sayid – Don’t mess with Sayid. Ever. He killed a man with a dishwasher.
• Sun – Sun is a little hot for revenge. Is she going to try to kill Ben? Did Widmore send the gun inside a box of chocolates?
• Sawyer – Sawyer sees Kate help Claire give birth to Aaron in one of the time jumps. Notice, however, that he does not reveal himself to them because the island won’t let him. Also, is Juliet going to make a play for him? Really? Are chicks just naturally drawn to rednecks?
• The Outrigger Chase and Ajira – Okay, here is my crackpot theory of the week: When the time skippers come across their wrecked campsite – they discover a water bottle from Ajira Airlines. My theory is that this is in the future where the Oceanic Six have already come back to the island, via a plane hijacked from Ajira Airlines – landed on the small islet that the Hydra station was on (remember the runway that the Others made Kate and Sawyer work on?). The Oceanic Six then took two outriggers to their old camp. Sawyer’s group comes across the outriggers and steals one, thinking it’s one of the Other’s outriggers. The Oceanic Six, thinks the Others have taken one of their outriggers and chases after them, shooting at them to make them stop. Get it? The people in the other boat were the Oceanic Six.

Time travel has been a staple of Science Fiction since (and maybe before) H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”. There are many different variations, and Lost is exploring a few of them. Here is a primer for those who have trouble keeping straight the possibilities…

There are three main theories about time travel.

One is a Straight Path or flow, there are no branches or alternatives. Events happen in a certain order and there is no way to change it.

Another is the Wide Pipe theory – things happen in a certain order, even though time can be manipulated in subtle ways, larger events will always happen as expected.

The Time Tree – time is continuously branching and creating alternate timelines. These timelines can exist simultaneously and can be jumped from one branch to another, up and down the tree. Changing events simply creates another branch. There are infinite timelines branches from every little event that happens in time. A butterfly that is killed by a time traveler in prehistoric times will drastically change the rest of history. This is known as the “butterfly effect” and was featured as a plot device by Ray Bradbury in his short story, “A Sound of Thunder”.

Now to confuse the reader even more is the concept of personal timeline; a time traveler will usually be conscious of experiencing the difference in time as he jumps. If a traveler goes back in time 20 years into the past and stays there for 2 years, then returns to the future at the same moment he left, he would physically be 2 years older, since his personal timeline had not been altered.

Standard Time Travel
A person simply goes back (or forward) in time, and then comes back to his present time without any repercussions. Time is represented as a linear path, and the traveler is able to jump around. Simple, right?

Time Twins
Time twins is when a traveler goes back in time and visits his past self. In a straight path timeline, both versions will remember meeting each other. The past self will know that one day he will travel back in time to meet himself. Some variations of this scenario includes a stipulation that time twins cannot come in physical contact with one another or else risk in both disintegrating on a molecular level (identical matter cannot exist on the same temporal plain).

In a Wide Pipe timeline, if a person travels back in time and tries to visit his past self, and has no recollection of this happening, he will be prevented in actually meeting himself. The very nature of the wide pipe will prevent this from happening.

In a time tree timeline, a person will be able to meet his past self, without the traveler having recollection of this. This is due to a new branch being created. Unfortunately this is not without it’s drawbacks. Since a new timeline branch has been created, the traveler is now in a different timeline, and will not be able to travel back to his own time unless he is able to jump between branches. Also, his past self is doesn’t have to travel in time from the future, and the two twins can exist and grow old on this new temporal timeline.

Consciousness Time Traveling
A traveler travels in time only through his mind – most cases back into the mind of his past self to relive certain points of his life. Sometimes it is the mind of another individual in the past.

In a straight path timeline, the traveler will only be able to experience his past without being able to alter events – most likely traveling to a point in his past where he was unconscious for a period of time (allowing the traveler to take control of his past self’s body without effecting the past self’s consciousness).

In a wide pipe timeline, the traveler takes control of his past self’s body but is still restrained by the timeline events. He would be able to alter smaller events, but the ultimate outcome would still remain the same.

In a time tree timeline, a traveler can inhabit the body of his past self (or anybody else’s) and is free to alter time, since the timeline would branch anyway. Like in physical time travel in this scenario, the traveler would return to a different future, unless he is able to jump back to his original branch.

Fortune Telling
Bringing information back into the past is another example that marks the differences of these time travel theories.

If a traveler goes back and warns of, say, the 9/11 attacks. Two possible outcomes can occur. The first, under the straight path timeline theory is that no body would believe the traveler, or the natural order of events would prevent the traveler from achieving success, and the events would occur as they happened. A similar outcome would happen under the wide pipe theory – except that while a traveller can successfully warn of the impending attacks, the attacks (in some shape or form) would still occur.

In a time tree timeline, the traveler successfully prevents the attacks and a new timeline is created. This new timeline however, is not the same one the traveler left – and will not be able to return to it, since the traveler never had the desire to time travel from that timeline to change something that never happened.

Paradox: Kill The Parents/Self
A traveler travels back in time to kill his own parents (or ancestor). This isn’t a true paradox (in my opinion) since the only way it can occur is in a time tree timeline scenario. A traveler cannot achieve this situation in a straight path or wide pipe timeline, since it would not be possible, a branch would be created if that ever was to happen – no matter what.

A wide pipe timeline would simply prevent this type of event occurring.

Furthermore, if a traveler is able to kill one of his ancestors or alter a situation in which breaks his ancestral line – he would not disappear – like in “Back to the Future”, since a new timeline branch is created, in which his future self was never conceived. Even if he killed his past self – he would not disappear or blink out of existence. He has merely created a different timeline in which his past self was killed.

Also, on the notion of death – it is possible to die while back in time in any timeline theory – since death is on a personal timeline. If you time travel back to say, 1955, and someone kills you, your corpse will continue on and an earlier version of your self can come across it.

Paradox: Time Created Objects
In a straight path timeline, if your future self appears to you and gives you, say, a baseball, then later in life, you create a time machine and travel back in time to give your past self that same baseball, you’ve just created a time object. This is a true paradox, since that baseball only exists in the time loop – it has no origin or no end, other than existing in this loop.

On the contrary, an object that is brought back in time and left there, would not be considered a paradox, simply because that object has a natural origin and an eventual end.

Paradox: Father and Son
Another true paradox is the parent child paradox in which the child is his/her own parent. Again, this only works in a straight path timeline. A traveler goes back and time and conceives a child which is the traveler himself.

Other Types of Time Travel

Tangent Universe – As shown in “Donnie Darko”, time exists in a straight path but an abnormally breaks the timeline into a tangent universe, which is temporally unstable and will eventually collapse upon itself. The only way to correct it is to fix the abnormally and put the universe back on it’s original timeline.

Focused Isolation – As shown in “Somewhere in Time” in which Christopher Reeve travels back in time to find his true love by isolating himself in a hotel room and believing he is back in the early 1900′s. His physical body is transfered back in time since his mind believes he exists in the early 1900′s and willfully forgets about the future.

Unstuck in Time – As written in “Slaughterhouse Five”, a man is unstuck in time while kidnapped by aliens. He relives events in his life out of sequence, including his own life, but is unable to alter it. The book uses the device of four-dimensional space/time, in which time is able to exist at any point at the same time.

Third Person – As shown in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and written in “A Christmas Carol” in which the traveller experiences (or is shown) different past and future events from a perspective outside his self, but does not interact with these past and futures.

So, Jones is actually Charles Widmore, on the island – in 1954. He appears to be in his early 20′s. So let’s do the math: 2009 – 1954 = 55 + 20 = 75. Widmore doesn’t appear to be in his 70′s. The actor who plays Widmore, Alan Dale, was born in 1947. That would make him around 62. His daughter, Penny is in her mid-thirties (Sonya Walger was born in 1974). Meaning she was born when Widmore was in his 40′s.

Where am I going with this?

Eloise Hawkings, the elderly British lady, is Daniel Faraday’s mother. The recap episode before tonight’s new episode states her name as “Eloise Hawkings” – and I thought, isn’t that interesting, they gave her first name. And she was on the island in this episode. She was the young blond Other that was with Daniel when he was checking out “Jughead”, the atom bomb. Richard called her Ellie (short for Eloise). Daniel tells her she looks like somebody he knew. Daniel also reveals to her he is from the future, and that time travel is possible – something that will probably cause her to study physics (and inadvertently, cause her future son, Daniel, to pick it up as well). IMDB states that Jeremy Davies (Faraday) was born in 1969 and the actress that plays Eloise Hawkings (Fionnula Flanagan) was born in 1941. This would make her older than Widmore (68), but gives birth to Daniel when she is 28. Plausible. Okay, well, both are named for physicists, Hawkings after Stephen Hawking, and Faraday after Michael Faraday.

And to make a further point, Fionnula Flanagan also starred in the movie “The Others”. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

So how does this fit into the story line? Widmore was obviously either the leader of the others, or really, really, thought he should be. I’m thinking he was the leader at one point – then this punk kid Ben Linus comes around and Richard is thinking a change of leaders might be in order. It was Widmore who ordered the extinction of the DHARMA Initiative, then was ordered to move the island by Jacob, kicking him off the island. Widmore is a rogue Other. Hawkings left the island earlier – perhaps as a task force to insure that the island doesn’t become lost, if something disastrous happens to the inhabitants.

Oh SNAP! What if Widmore and Hawkings are brother and sister?? That would make Daniel, Widmore’s nephew, which would explain why he help fund Daniel’s research, and why Widmore knows where Mrs. Hawkings is even though she appears to be on Ben’s side (or more likely, the Other’s side).

Ready for another one?
In Faraday’s first flashback, we see him watching the news footage of the 815 wreckage discovery. He is crying and a woman walks past him and ask why. We don’t see her face, but the Lost creators hint that she is his caretaker. What if this woman is Jill (the woman that Ben meets in the butcher shop) – hired by Ma Hawkings to watch her son? Btw, Daniel is probably crying because he has seen his future, (and possibly death) and the news footage is a harbinger of these events.

More later…