Lost


I feel that a lot of answers were given in this episode and last week, if only you could clear out the cobwebs long enough to pick up on what is important and what is not. Thursday night I felt satisfied that I wasn't being dangled on a string and being tormented with endless questions that were never going to be answered.

We learn that there is a specific route to the island. How Daniel got those coordinates we don't know yet. Maybe he's conducted endless experiments of trying to map out the path and that's why it's taken them this long to finally get there. Maybe he got his data from that Black Rock Ledger that we see Penny's dad buying at the auction.

I think it's a fair assumption that Penny's dad is financing the freighter to find the island. Finding the survivors of 815 is not his mission nor is Desmond. I think Desmond was a tool in finding the island as well. To prove it's existence if you will.

When flying back to the freighter Frank went slightly off course and, boom Desmond travels back to his body in 1996. We learn from Daniel that there could be side effects in people with prolonged exposure to radioactivity. I was disappointed that Jack didn't make the connection of the hatch explosion and Desmond now suddenly freaking out and not remembering who he was.

We also know that the time difference is not constant (island time vs. real time). There are variables to which even Daniel is unable to explain and predict. We just know that island time travels at a slower rate.

There are so many connections between the main characters and secondary characters/player and intersecting time-lines that after 4 years it's hard to keep track of everything.

For whatever reason Desmond is the key to everything. He ties it all together. But I can't fully explain how.

I believe the Daniel is also leaping through time. It was shown that he's been exposed to radioactivity through endless experiments, and it was important that Desmond mentioned his head not being protected...could explain his memory and why the card game to improve his memory. It also explains his disorientation when he first landed from the helicopter. The 'electric storm cloud' made him leap.

He knows that Desmond is his constant.

This episode was very good and it pulled me right in. I haven't really been this interactive with the show in a while. I was yelling at Penny to just give him her phone number, please for the Love of God he's going to die. Then when he phones her on Christmas Eve, I was yelling again...just answer the phone Penny!!! For the Love of God please Penny answer the phone!!! LOL

I realize this was a crappy recap/summary...I can't get away from theory...just blame Bacchus okay. He should have taken his turn.

This was a weird episode, but weird in a good way. I felt it harkened back to the beginning of season 3 as far as character scope. We had a Desmond centric episode and not a sign of the Locke group on the island, and barley a touch of Jack. The funny thing is I did not even notice until it was over. I was wrapped up in the story and the oddities of the "soul travel" as it may be.

The one thing with time travel is that there are always paradoxes created and I know that the writers went out of their way to avoid them, but I am still left confused. You could argue that Desmond during his entire stay on the island knew about the ship and his need to call Penny being he was made aware of this in 1996. His 1996 version could not have easily forgotten about what happened, right? And in the end his 1996 version knew his 2004 iteration made the call because he smiled the moment it happened and was at peace. Why didn't he just tell everyone on the island about the future? If there are no alternate universes involved then he could not change the future anyways, so maybe that is why he did not say boo? Ouch, my brain hurts thinking about it. When I start trying to connect the dots with post-hatch Desmond (with flash forward time travel issues) and then post flight Desmond (with seemingly a secondary set of soul flash backward time travel issues) I confuse myself! Hopefully the writers will continue to connect the dots for us. My dots are going off the page and the more I think about it the more Lost I get...

I'd like to get an easter egg list from the episode. It seemed littered with them and I just could not keep track. There was so much going on for the entire hour!

Overall this was a watershed episode and it is going to lead us into all sorts of new and exiting story arcs. Hopefully things keep chugging right along next week with the Julie flash forward/flash back.

I can understand where you are coming from with the overall confusion of time travel. I think it's a given that the brain is always thinking rational to explain what you are seeing but you really can't rationally explain the unexplainable.

My reasoning for Desmond not knowing in the future because of this time travel is that it hadn't happened yet. His soul of 1996 and his soul of 2004 did not truly meld until Penny answered the phone.

It was at that instant that the time-line found it's constant and we see Des'96 smile and Des'04 calm down and tell Sayid everything was fine. This is the point where Desmond's past changed and his present self was able to regain his memories.

Now we can scratch our heads and say...but if he had prior knowledge of coming events why didn't he.....

You just can't. You have to set rational thoughts like that aside. You just have to believe that when it all happened he didn't have that knowledge until Christmas Eve 2004.

I think the writers did a fabulous job and minimized the confusion as best they could. Time travel is still science fiction. It's not possible and I'm not sure that it will ever be. But it sure is fun to theorize about.

But you see, it had to happen already. In a singular universe when he traveled back in time to 1996, he was aware. The only way there could have been a 1996 Desmond that didn't know, would be if there were two time lines (one in which he is aware and one in which he is not.) This would lend itself to a multiverse, and the producers have said repeatedly that there is only one time line.

That is the complexity of time travel. It doesn't matter when you do it, if you go back in time and do something, it always already happened (to the future observer) back then - and thus its paradoxical nature.

But you'll drive yourself iNSaNe! LOL

This is something no one can ever fully address or explain in a plot. Because you'll always ask why didn't he/she????

Like the movie Frequency. Brilliant movie! But in the end the viewer walks away thinking, now why in the hell did he just sit and do nothing for 20 years (or whatever the timeline was) while he knew the killer was waiting in the dang closet??????

Ok as I said in another thread...my significant other only watches, like two shows (tsk tsk) and one is Lost. I just started watching it this season and let me just say this. It's boggling my mind!! LoL I came to read this searching for explanation, answers from people that know the show inside and out. And you guys are just as confused as I am!! But I'm strangely drawn to keep watching with him every week...
Damn you TV gods....you've sucked me into another one....

OtherPPls....the show is def worth getting into....but do yourself a favor and start at Season 1 and come back to it next season when you can FULLY catch up =)

Also.....my gf would always be so annoyed how DEEP into everything I look. Characters, plots, writer's agendas, etc. Lost is one show I've chosen to take a passive "backseat" sort of stance. Theorizing makes my head hurt. The show doesnt make sense. It never does. It might never make sense either.

I'm finding it hard to enjoy because I know that MOST of this DOESNT MATTER. Honestly...this episode ended and I looked at my girlfriend and said "wake me up in 2010, because I dont ***king care".

She then said we werent allowed to watch it together anymore.

The Kate/Sayid episodes were phenomenol, but other than that....Season 4 has me sleeping.

***Booooooo! Stone him! ***