Lost Season 6 - RE: LA X

did jack try to jump off a bridge at some point and fail? i don't exactly remember what happened there

wow I didnt hear that about episode 15. killer!

I still WANT to like Sun because she was a pretty good character for a while there - but this season has been ridiculous. I guess every season we need a WAAALLTTT/MOI BAAAYYYBEEEEE/"my husband?"

Hopefully, like I said upthread, Widmore's appearance will make Sun more interesting. She and Widmore were doing some plotting together to kill Ben, right? Didn't catch her reaction shot of seeing Ben yesterday, if there was one..

cutty: there was a car crash so he jumped down to help the people in the accident

Can someone help me unravel this? It's driving me nuts.

From here - http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/03/latest-from-tv-guide-magazine-march-9th.html#axzz0hiJ3OTDW

So will we ever learn why women couldn’t carry babies to term on the island? Isn’t that the whole reason Juliet was brought over by Dharma in the first place?—Jean B., via e-mail

Lindelof says the show is not going to specifically state why, however, “we feel like we’ve given you the empirical data so you can figure it out for yourself.” Hmm… a little more help please for the clueless? “Clearly Ethan was born on the island in 1977,” continues Lindelof. “That’s the last baby that we know of who was born on the island. And then something happened between 1977 and when our show takes place in 2004 (when Claire arrived eight months pregnant) where it’s been a long time since women have been able to have babies on the island. What might have happened between those two points that could have created fertility issues?”

Presumably women can't have babies on the island because Juliet set off the bomb in 1977. The bomb is "the incident" Candle keeps referring to. I'm cool with that.

So I guess the timelines split like this:

Timeline 1 -> Juliet sets off the bomb, some people die, some people leave the island, some people (including Ben) live and stay on the island and keep the Dharma initiative going? If that's the case, when in the timeline does grown-adult Ben kill his dad?

Timeline 2 -> Juliet never sets off the bomb (?) and everything happens the way we've seen it before. But then why can't woman have babies?

Or does Juliet always set off the bomb?

This detail has me seriously confused.

Do we have any reason to believe there is a fertility issue in timeline B? the island is underwater. There's an "everyone living underwater" issue :)

OK, cool, I get that -- but it still doesn't make Timeline 1 make sense to me. If Juliet blew up an atomic bomb on the island...young Ben & everyone else grew up safe & sound and just kept on living in Dharma land? And weren't the Dharma construction crews building the Swan hatch? So that never got completed? The whole time fuckery thing is proving difficult for me to unravel.

Pretty sure Ben and his dad left the island on a submarine. They evacuated the island before the bomb blew up or didn't blow up.

I suppose the last remaining explanation that would happen in the original timeline was drilling into the Swan station energy pocket / containing the energy. Alternatively, poison gas attack by Ben (very possible, explaining his guilt / obsession).

'Hurley sleep-talking "cheese curds..." is literally the low point of the entire series for me. '

You're gonna have to explain this dairy-hate.

At this point in the series, yes we know Hurley is fat and likes to eat. I think I just mentally skipped over this joke, didn't even notice it. At least if you're going to do this kind of joke anymore, it should be something different... like throwing a Hot Pocket at someone.

cheese curds are delicious though

^^^ Was going to post this, also being trapped on a desert-ass island for a long time I think I'd probably dream about food.

I thought he said cheese carrots

deserted-ass. Then again, maybe Dharma drops cheese curds.

yeah cheese carrots is what i heard

yet another example of british people thinking everyone is little miss muffet

Juliet was talking about food, too, when she was in death-delirium.

Pretty sure Ben and his dad left the island on a submarine. They evacuated the island before the bomb blew up or didn't blow up.

then they came back to the island and adult ben killed him? sorry, i swear i'm not trying to be thick, i just dont comprehend any of this.

in the original timeline, there was an "incident" but we don't know what that incident was

you are assuming that the incident and juliet setting off the bomb are one and the same. i don't think they are.

yeah I think we can assume that in the timeline where the bomb didn't go off, the people in the submarine came back once whatever caused the incident was contained

then again, maybe in the alternate timeline, the island was never evacuated in the first place. Kind of hard to figure out the exact point at which the timelines diverge.

Yeah, in the sideways timeline they don't return to the island, and seem to have a decent relationship. In the original timeline they return to the island and Ben murders him with gas.

Kind of hard to figure out the exact point at which the timelines diverge.

It doesn't really make sense that the timelines would diverge anytime before Juliet is in the hole. Clearly Ben and his father were on the island and then they left. It seems fair to assume that they left around the time of the incident.

Timeline has to diverge far back enough for Jack to raise a teenager..and for Locke's dad to not push him out the window (he wouldn't be invited to the wedding if he'd done that)..but I think locke's accident was only 5-10 years before the flight

Sinking the island in '77 means Rousseau and crew are trapped on Catalina instead? Rousseau hops a ferry to LA for their excellent school districts?

Would it have been too on-the-nose to make Widmore the alt-Principal instead of Walter Peck?

I wonder if Alpert ever visited young Locke in the sideways timeline.

Sinking the island in '77

we don't know when the island sank

Is there a continuity problem with a '77 sinking?

In the sideways timeline, the writers are clearly presenting each character with some sort of conflict that their original selves would have handled differently. Ben would have sold Alex out, but this time he compromises to help her. Locke normally would continue questing, but instead has accepted domesticity and his limitations. Sayid normally would avenge his family, but instead chose the path of peace and acceptance, and only killed Keamy et al. in self-defense. Killing Keamy is the only thing he did that seems more like something Old Sayid would do, but I think it was inevitable at that point.

I would argue that Jack seems pretty well-adjusted, has an improving relationship with his kid, doesn't seem to be an alcoholic... he seems like he's in a good place.

I imagine next week will be a Sawyer episode and soon after that we'll have a Hurley episode that achieve similar ends. I imagine that soon we'll resolve whatever is going on with Jin and Sun.

But that phase of the sideways storyline should be ending after a few episodes, and honestly I can't for the life of me figure out what could possibly set them in motion after that for the remainder of the ten remaining episodes. There can't be ten more episodes about the characters compromising and thereby overcoming their flaws. So there is going to need to be some kind of huge plot point in the sideways timeline that shakes everyone out of their slumber.

Is there a continuity problem with a '77 sinking?

The issue is that we don't know that the bomb went off, and the underwater island doesn't look exploded.

this is a wild goose chase - the sideways timeline isn't a 'what happens if the bomb doesn't go off' or 'what happens if the plane never crashes' but more like a 'what happens if Jacob never touched/influenced any of these people's lives'.

Ha, what if Jacob has a sideways flash too, and he is biblical Jacob just hanging out, grilling fish.

the sideways timeline isn't a 'what happens if the bomb doesn't go off' or 'what happens if the plane never crashes' but more like a 'what happens if Jacob never touched/influenced any of these people's lives'.

In the sideways timeline there is an underwater island with barracks on it, so I am going to disagree with you here.

this is a wild goose chase - the sideways timeline isn't a 'what happens if the bomb doesn't go off' or 'what happens if the plane never crashes' but more like a 'what happens if Jacob never touched/influenced any of these people's lives'.

I think this is otm, and based on how their lives turn out, a pretty big hint that maybe Jacob is the asshole in this whole feud.

BTW, I expect ep 15 will be mainly about early Jacob/mib and maybe a little bit the black rock.

x-post, he never influenced their lives b/c the island was sunk, imo.

Hurley still wins with Jacob's numbers though. Unless it's an entirely different set of numbers he wins with. What a lucky guy!

x-post, he never influenced their lives b/c the island was sunk, imo.

The island was sunk after he had influenced some of their lives ... Locke, for instance. For you to be right, it would mean that it selectively altered the past to not involve Alpert scouting Locke but also still resulting in all of the Barracks folks winding up on the island, building a Barracks, branding a shark with a Dharma logo...

Also was very pleased to see Arntz rewarded with Linus' parking space as consolation for blowing up in Island continuity. Truly karma is an equitable mistress.

The island was sunk after he had influenced some of their lives ... Locke, for instance. For you to be right, it would mean that it selectively altered the past to not involve Alpert scouting Locke but also still resulting in all of the Barracks folks winding up on the island, building a Barracks, branding a shark with a Dharma logo...

The only one I can think of that jacob influenced pre-77 is Sawyer. Jacob didn't really get around to touching Locke till after he was paralyzed. I don't consider Alpert's actions here to be on behalf of Jacob, since it's strongly implied that they weren't.

But you're point still stands with respect to Sawyer, but I somehow I suspect that when we get to Sawyer's centric, in the alt he won't have finished that letter, therefore he won't have bitterly "held onto his emotions," or whatever it was his uncle said, and so he won't be the angry conman who landed on the island in the original reality. Because Jacob wasn't there to give him that pen.

I don't consider Alpert's actions here to be on behalf of Jacob, since it's strongly implied that they weren't.

How would Alpert have navigated off the island and to the home of young Locke without Jacob's guidance?

In the sideways timeline there is an underwater island with barracks on it, so I am going to disagree with you here.
not sure of the connection here - don't remember anything about Jacob specifically bringing Dharma to the island...

For you to be right, it would mean that it selectively altered the past to not involve Alpert scouting Locke

i think at this point we're beyond speaking in terms of what "the island" did or didn't do - all these things are the result of the works of Jacob and Smokey, this is the big picture the show has been building up to.

keep in mind the only reason Richard went out to scout Locke is because Locke - first, being manipulated by Christian/Smokey in the cabin, then again by Richard who told him he had to turn the wheel and die - who was being manipulated in turn by Smokey/Locke in 2007 - told Richard in the 50's that he would be their leader, which led to a very long chain of events leading to Locke being considered next in line, and getting close enough to Jacob to finally get someone to kill him. it's a long con. The point being that these are Smokey's machinations, not Jacob's.

You think Alpert needed Jacob to get off the island? Or his help once off island to find Locke? I don't have any reason to believe either of those things. Did Widmore need Jacob's help to get off the island and father Penny?

x-post: exactly

not sure of the connection here - don't remember anything about Jacob specifically bringing Dharma to the island...

Flocke said that everyone on the island was brought there by Jacob, and there are Dharma names on the cave wall / lighthouse wheel.

i think at this point we're beyond speaking in terms of what "the island" did or didn't do

By "it" I meant the incident, not the island.

keep in mind the only reason Richard went out to scout Locke is because Locke - first, being manipulated by Christian/Smokey in the cabin, then again by Richard who told him he had to turn the wheel and die - who was being manipulated in turn by Smokey/Locke in 2007 - told Richard in the 50's that he would be their leader, which led to a very long chain of events leading to Locke being considered next in line, and getting close enough to Jacob to finally get someone to kill him. it's a long con. The point being that these are Smokey's machinations, not Jacob's.

Ah, that's a good point. Locke told Richard that Locke was the leader. We don't know that Jacob had anything to do with it.

But it's still possible that all that stuff happened pre-'77 in the alt-timeline.

You think Alpert needed Jacob to get off the island? Or his help once off island to find Locke? I don't have any reason to believe either of those things. Did Widmore need Jacob's help to get off the island and father Penny?

There's a big difference between being forcibly removed from the island and later having a kid (who was not a candidate, just an off-island lady) vs. leaving the island and finding the child version of a random guy you met for 5 minutes in the '50s. Jacob has a lighthouse that directs him to his candidates, and Alpert works directly for Jacob. And Locke was always one of Jacob's candidates, Smokey's interference or not.

Alpert kept tabs on Locke because future Locke told Alpert when and where he would be born and to go check it out. Alpert would later leave the island and recruit Juliet at Ben's behest. Also Widmore apparently routinely left the island. What these three things have in common is that there is no apparent reason to think the others needed Jacob's help to leave the island. That was my only point in bringing up Widmore.

There is no indication that Alpert was keeping tabs on Locke at Jacob's behest, and in fact, it is implied that it wasn't because of anything Jacob wanted at the time at all.

Jacob may in fact have told Alpert to go to the mainland and visit Locke. I don't know whether he did or didn't. But the show has not given me any reason to think that he did. And, on the contrary, it has given me some hints that he did not.

yeah the Dharma sub came and went every two weeks and I don't think they got permission.

I guess as far as Locke is concerned, it depends on whether there is a difference between having your name on the lighthouse wheel and having your name on the cave wall.

I think the cave really belongs to Smokey in spite of the "Jacob's Ladder" joke - all we know about it is what Flocke has said and I think at this point he has lied about at least some things? Anyone remember? That might be an important point. Has he lied? Has Jacob?

He's all, "Hey Ben come with us you can be leader of the island again" pretty lie-tastic.

Also, as far as the Dharma sub is concerned: when Widmore was coming in going, the Others had possession of the submarine because they'd seized the island from the Dharmas. When Alpert went to see young Locke, they didn't have the sub. In fact, it's quite possible that the Dharma submarine hadn't even arrived at the island at that point. So Alpert clearly left the island in some other way, and almost definitely not via the donkey wheel which seems like a worst-case scenario thing.