LOST Notes

[Mugen910]

LOST: Charles Widmore refresher and other things

Facts to remember about Charles Widmore:

• He was an Other, even in a position of authority at one time.
  
• We saw him as a teenager (age 17) when Richard Alpert was in charge. This was when Locke time traveled back to 1954 and talked with Richard at the Other's camp (Episode: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham).
  
• He sent the freighter to the Island, was the one who gave Keamy and crew their orders (find Ben Linus, kill everyone else), and therefore is partially responsible for Alex's death.
  
• He tried to get Sun to kill Ben.
  
• He purchased the Black Rock journal at an auction (Tovard Hanso owned the journal at one point, the journal was discovered in 1852 among the artifacts of pirates on an island off the coast of Madagascar, the Black Rock was a 19th century British vessel).
  
• He encouraged Locke to get everyone to go back to the Island (We know that Smokey promises people what they want most. Widmore seems to want control of the Island, and in fact believes he is the rightful leader of the Others. Perhaps Smokey promised Widmore that he could control the island if he helps Smokey get off the island???)
  
• He's the father of Penny Widmore (mother unknown) and Daniel Faraday (mother Eloise Hawking).

Some lingering questions:

• Why did Widmore purchase the Black Rock journal at the auction? To help him find the island?
  
• Now that we know what we know, we could infer that Widmore was working with Smokey and therefore knew the plan to take over Locke's body, which is why he sent Locke back ... or at least knew that all of Jacob's candidates were needed back on the Island in order for Smokey to be able to 1) kill Jacob, 2) kill all of his possible replacements, and then 3) do whatever it is he intends to do -- leave, blow up the place, etc.
  
• Why has Widmore been searching for the Island? To exploit its magical properties?
  
• Why did Widmore assemble a fake crash of Oceanic 815 on the ocean floor? So the search would end, thereby preventing someone else from finding the island?
  
• What are "the rules?" Ben wanted to kill Widmore but couldn't because of the "rules." We've heard reference to those rules again and again and they seem related to who can/can't or should/ shouldn't be killed.
  
• Why was Widmore determined to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island? Did it help him find it? Does he need those people there to be part of the war?

LOST fun:

A message board is having a guessing game about what's behind the locked door in Widmore's sub. Some of the guesses have been:

• Shannon's ghost
  
• The missing hairbrushes from Oceanic 815 (Season 1 - remember how the girls couldn't find hairbrushes in the luggage?)
  
• More blue tarps (since people have thought it was weird how many blue tarps
• the Losties found for the beach camp!)
  
• Mr. Friendly in sequined spandex tights
  
• The statues' 5th toe
  
• Jimmy Hoffa
  
• Widmore's MacCutcheon whiskey, locked up to keep Desmond away from it
  
• Jack's tears

[white_s2k]

Yawn

[weak_link]

Too much filler, not enough meat.

[kugie]

Last Nights not so good. But I am liking the lead up to the final Battle.

??? Who will take Jacobs Place.
My Guess is Jack

[dannysguitar]

Yeah, they sure seem to be making Jack seem like the new Jacob, but I think it will be someone a little less expected.

I really liked last night's episode. There is a huge war on the horizon...

[weak_link]

Hurley is going to be the new Jacob.

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by weak_link

Hurley is going to be the new Jacob.

I have heard a few others say the same thing. Who knows? As soons as I think I have grip on what's going, a new angle hits me.

[white_s2k]

Any new notes on the last 2 episodes? Interested to see what the internets has to say about the Richard episode!

[Mugen910]

very sorry guys..I will try to post something up tomorrow.

[weak_link]

I only picked Hurley because of who, on the surface, appears least likely to assume the role of Jacob. The 'new' Hurley seems a lot more self assured and he seems to be the only one that can see everyone on the island.
Also, if the man in black can appear as dead people and turn into a bad ass smoke monster thing, what can Jacob do? He said he doesn't like to directly intervene so does that mean you don't get any smokey-type superpowers? But then he gave Richard the 'gift' of eternal life. Will the candidate inherit potential superpowers or do they already have whatever they are going to get? Maybe they have them, they just don't know how to use them yet? Maybe you get some cool stuff, like prizes. Congrats, you win a lighthouse with cool mirrors you can spy on people with...oh wait scratch the lighthouse. You do get some, to be disclosed at a later time and place, cool stuff. I feel like a cat chasing my tail.

Still think there needs to be more of a distilled story at this point in the series. Sidebars and human interest pieces are great but just as they advertised, I want answers. In the five or six episodes that are left it would be nice if they began to tie all together but something tells me they are just going to string things along until the last episode and try and cover as much ground as possible in a two hour special and hope for the best. Pretty present with a bow on top or soggy cardboard box with old spaghetti and meat sauce inside? Guess we'll know in a couple weeks.

[Mugen910]

LOST season 6, ep #8 "Ab Aeterno"

1. Richard's pre-island story
The doctor tells Richard that his wife's cross is worthless, a not so subtle jab at the idea of religion being ultimately worthwhile for Richard, and another case of man of science vs man of faith.

Richard hails from the Canary Islands. Over the course of the Canary Islands' history, people claimed to have seen a vanishing and reappearing eighth island. So there you go, the number 8, and a mysterious island. And the Canary Islands were the location of a famous plane crash in 1977, the year of the Incident in the LOST universe.
Richard and Isabella lived on the largest Canary Islands, Tenerife. (Tenerife is known for its ancient pyramids believed by some to be a link between Egyptian and Mayan cultures).
The passage Richard was reading in jail from the Gospel of Luke concerns Jesus rejecting the Devil's temptations, which is obviously relevant to the episode.
Notice how the doctor and priest wore black, while Richard wore white.

2. The Black Rock
What we were previously told - The Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth, England on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the kingdom of Siam, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is a journal, which was discovered among the artifacts of pirates on the Ile Sante-Marie off the coast of Madagascar seven years later (1852). This constitutes a discrepancy because in Richard's flashback we were shown the date of 1867.

Another note about the date error is that we know there was dynamite on the ship. Alfred didn't invent dynamite until 1864 and didn't patent it until 1867. Maybe this is simply a writers' error to try to fix a past dating error?

It's possible that the owner/captain of the Black Rock wanted it to appear that the ship had been lost at sea in 1845, so that it could carry on possible illegal/secret voyages. It would have been simple enough to leave a journal on some far-flung island where it wouldn't be found for years.
After officer Jonas Whitfield killed the other slaves, was killed by Smokey, and Smokey killed everyone else, Richard was the only one from the Black Rock left. So how did the journal get off the island and make it's way into Hanso's hands, and eventually Charles Widmore's?
Hanso was never actually seen on screen. He died when the ship crashed, and he was (presumably) buried near the wreckage by the remaining officers before Smokey killed them all, just like it says on the blast door map at the Swan Hatch (see attached map, bottom right corner).

Richard said he wanted to go to the New World. America wasn't exactly a New World in the 1860s. However, Australia is very much still a "new world" in the 1860s. Gold had been discovered in the 50s, and certain Australian colonies were experiencing gold rushes. It seems plausible that Hanso was headed to Australia to get rich working his slaves in the mines. This would of course also explain how the Black Rock crashed on an island we know to be in the middle of the Pacific (if you sailed from the Canary Islands to America, you wouldn't cross the Pacific, but you would if your destination was Australia).

According to the texts of LOST, Magnus Hanso was an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, the financier behind The Dharma Initiative.
Upon arriving at the island, Richard saw the statue Taweret: the Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, a former bad girl goddess who redeemed herself and helped keep the god of evil Set in check.

3. Richard's on-island story
Smokey told Richard the island is Hell and Jacob is the Devil. It seems that he used language from that era which Richard understood, from a time when people were devoted to religion and believed in absolutes.

Richard essentially creates his own job by telling Jacob that if Jacob doesn't interfere, Smokey will. In that respect, Richard becomes "the cause of his own suffering." (just like we were told by the brainwashing in Room 23!)

4. Smokey
Smokey's past manifestations: those not buried on the island: Harper (Goodwin's wife), Dave (Hurley's friend), Isabella, Walt, Eko's drug dealers, Locke. Those buried on the island: Christian, Yemi, Alex.

During the season 3 episode "The Cost of Living", Smokey appeared as ghosts of the drug dealers Eko killed with his machete. Perhaps he acquired images of those ghosts from Eko's past after scanning him, much like he was able to take the form of Isabella after scanning Richard (and taking Isabella's cross). So, that being said... what's all this business about hiding bodies, and Richard asking young Ben whether his dead mother he saw died on the Island?
Why does it seem like Smokey is incapable of drinking or eating? Is it because Jacob "took his body?" Smokey didn't eat boar along with Richard. He didn't drink along with Jacob. He didn't eat the fish with Jacob in the season 5 finale, either. Why did Jacob even ask Smokey if he wanted to eat fish? Is Jacob some sorta smart-ass???

Smokey presents Richard with a knife and instructs him to go to the statue and kill Jacob without letting him speak. These were the exact same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid in "Sundown". It is also the same knife. (see attached photos)

From Smokey's perspective, the island is Hell. It's his eternal prison. And Jacob, his prison keeper, is the Devil, a devil that has robbed Smokey of his humanity and identity. This plays right into the Biblical story of brothers Esau and Jacob, as Esau stole Jacob's birth right and inheritance by tricking him with a bowl of soup. "He can be very persuasive," Smokey warned Richard. That's may be coming from someone who was once fooled by Jacob, and now regrets it.
"Do you ever want to see your wife again?'' Smokey asks Richard. His utilitarian logic is located in the broad, contentious body of thought known as ''Consequentialism.'' A weakness of ''Consequentialism'' is its shaky, nebulous definition of justice. A major philosopher in the field of consequentialism? Jeremy Bentham (also the name Charles Widmore gave John Locke before his death).

Richard gave Smokey a gift from Jacob: a white stone, which may be nothing more than an inside joke, an ironic declaration of victory (I won Richard's soul! Nah-nah-nah! Again, Jacob the smartass?) punning off of Black Rock. (Get it? Black Rock the ship and an actual black rock)

5. Hurley
Hurley seems to be the new Richard... messenger of Jacob

6. Jacob
Why won't Jacob touch Ilana (wears gloves during visit)? The gloves are an obvious precaution against him touching her, even by accident.
Jacob seems to have a lot of faith that both Jack and Richard will discover what it is they need to do on their own.

Jacob makes it seem like the island is Pandora's box: although it contained a whole host of evil, it also contained hope.

Jacob doesn't promise Richard his wife back, telling him simply "I can't do that". This seems out of place; according to Dogen, Jacob promised to restore Dogen's son's life in return for service on the island. Jacob seems inconsistent.

Jacob said he gives everyone a clean slate when they come to the island. Meanwhile, it has been made clear that Smokey judges people on their past.

In relation to the Man of Science vs Man of Faith theme, if Jacob is Man of Faith then this may shed light on why he said to Ben "What about you?" before Ben stabbed him. Ben hails from the Dharma Initiative (Man of Science).

After Jacob beat the crap out of Richard, he somewhat "baptized" Richard (in the ocean) into Team Jacob.

Richard asked a crucial question: Why doesn't Jacob take a more active role in shepherding his spiritual reclamation projects? ''Because I want them to help themselves. To be able to tell the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them, it's all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything! Why should I have to step in?'' Richard's reply: ''If you don't, he will.''

[Mugen910]

LOST season 6, ep #9 "The Package"

1. Sun/ Jin flash-sideways
Title "The Package" could reference the watch Jin was delivering, Sun's bun in the oven, or Desmond on the sub.

At the hotel, before Sun answered the knock on the door, she checked her face in the mirror, making her the latest flash-sideways character to do so.
Flash-sideways/ island time affecting each other theory: On-island Sun is knocked out cold, and off-island Sun is just waking up. We've seen this happen many times, including when Jack gets put under anesthesia for his on-island appendectomy and immediately wakes up in the Oceanic Six time-line. Unconsciousness has been associated with enlightenment. It's worked as a transition between scenes and storylines... but what if it also acts as a transition between worlds? Remember sleeping Claire waking up in her flashback car crash during the episode "Par Avion?" Remember Desmond hitting his head on the freighter and waking up in one of his flashes? Also, if you believe Jin's infertility was healed by the island, this could be even more evidence of the time-lines affecting each other. Flash-sideways Jin has never been to the island, yet somehow he's able to father a child. This could be chalked up as one of the things that are simply 'different' in the sideways time-line, or you could take it to mean there was island influence.

2. Sun loses her ability to communicate
There has been one other instance on LOST in which a character mysteriously lost the ability to communicate verbally. The episode was ''Further Instructions,'' and the victim was Locke himself. The Island had taken away his speech in the aftermath of the Hatch explosion as a kind of punishment for his big season 2 sin: Straying from his Island mission and becoming obsessed with pushing the Button. Perhaps Sun was stripped of her English for similar reasons. After all, in the island time-line she learned the language in order to run away from Jin. Moreover, she learned it from a man that became her lover. Sun's English had once saved her husband from the false charge of setting fire to the raft. It helped her build bridges with the castaways. Regardless, she doesn't need it anymore. Her future is in Korea, with her husband, with her daughter, and with a mother and father that need her forgiveness. So maybe losing her English was a movement of the Island to reminder her of who she is - and what she needs redemption for.
Perhaps Flocke was able to force Sun to channel herself in the other reality, where she doesn't know English. If Flocke has that power, we might have seen a glimpse of how the flash-sideways could ultimately factor in to the island time-line. Flocke might be the link between these two realities. This theory is based on the assumption/ guess that the two time lines are bleeding into each other.

Perhaps it's because Sun declined Flocke's offer to join his team and he knew she'd try to talk her friends out the plan - which she did try to do. Either that, or Flocke wasn't thinking short term at all by taking away Sun's English, but rather was planting a seed designed that will bare him fruit down the road when Team Richard executes its plan. In other words: maybe Sun's loss of English will prove costly at a pivotal point down the road.

3. Flocke
Flocke demonstrates once again that he has access to the real John Locke's memories by quoting Widmore's speech to the real John Locke: "a war is coming."

If water is an obstacle to Flocke, keeping him contained, what does that mean for the flash-sideways where we see the entire island underwater?

4. Keamy and his goons
When Keamy needed a translator he said to call ''Danny's friend'' (sideways version of Danny Pickette the dead Other?)... enter Mikhail Bakunin. We used to call him Patchy. Mikhail Bakunin is named after the historical Mikhail Bakunin, a philosopher and anarchist who believed in non-violent revolution and the abolishment of all government and religion. Remember when Jin and Mikhail fought on the island? It seems that Jin's always destined to get the best of Mikhail, and Mikhail is always fated to lose an eye.

The walk-in fridge, where Omar bangs Jin's head on the way in. "C'mon Omar, you gotta be more careful than that..." For a guy about to 'pop' someone, didn't Keamy seem overly concerned about what happened here? Was he just looking to keep things neat and tidy, or was Keamy concerned that Jin might go unconscious on them? On LOST unconsciousness = enlightenment. People pass out, get knocked out, or go to sleep, then we get a flash (sideway, back, or forward) where they experience something revealing or enlightening.
There is a hot debate over what Keamy said to Jin as he was tying Jin's hands. Some people think they heard Keamy say "Just in case you figure out what's about to happen ON THE ISLAND... can't have you freaking out". I think he just stumbled saying the word "I" after I re-watched the scene... "Just in case you figure out what's about to happen to ya, I-I can't have you freaking out" but the debate continues!

Keamy, speaking calmly in English - Jin had no idea that Keamy was telling him he was going to kill him. In other words, Keamy's brainwashing cooler in Los Angeles = the Room 23 brainwashing room on Hydra Island, which we visited during Island Jin's storyline. Note here that the only other time we saw Room 23 in use was when Karl was being punished by Ben for... dating his daughter Alex. Therefore, sideways Jin + Sun = Island Karl + Alex (both of whom were shot and killed by... Island Keamy and Omar).
When Keamy is locking Jin in the walk-in fridge he makes reference to the heart ("the heart wants what it wants"), a reference that parallels his own connection to the heart-monitor bomb he hooked himself up to.

5. Sayid
Sayid's motivation for joining Flocke: he wanted to see Nadia again. This was back when he had feelings, however. Without such emotions, will he still remain loyal to Flocke?

In the flash-sideways Sayid refused to cut Jin free, but still provided him with a means to do so. This repeats the "Moth" motif (the episode when Locke enabled Charlie to refuse heroin, but didn't directly help him) we've seen, allowing a character to experience personal struggle along the way to freedom or enlightenment. Also, remember Locke gave Boone the knife to cut himself free during the episode "Hearts and Minds."
Why doesn't Sayid feel anything? No pain, emotion, anger, etc?

6. Bridget's AWESOME theory
We already know that Desmond's consciousness has bounced around in time. Desmond is currently drugged. Sayid is numb, can't feel anything...wait for it... Desmond is currently consciousness traveling within Sayid! That's why Sayid can't feel anything, he's been drugged! That's why they looked at each other so strangely on the dock... they are seeing themselves! I love it! Thanks Bridget!!!!

7. Charles Widmore
Widmore's plan mimics his Season Four plan - bring scientists to the island to investigate strange properties - no mercenaries this time. We know where 2 of the electromagnetic pockets are: At the Swan Hatch and the Orchid Station.

8. Desmond
As Daniel Faraday pointed out in season 5, Desmond is "uniquely special". The [time travel] rules don't apply to him.
Previews for next week - background music: Amazing Grace - Written by John Newton, published in 1779, has a message of forgiveness and redemption, Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was pressed into the Royal Navy and became a sailor, eventually participating in the slave trade. One night a terrible storm battered his ship so severely that he became frightened enough to call out to God for mercy, a moment that marked the beginning of his spiritual conversion. His career in slave trading lasted a few years more until he quit going to sea altogether and began studying theology.

9. Damon Lindelof's (show's exec producer) Twitter post
Yesterday, Damon posted this on his twitter page: "In one week the conversation is going to change." Intriguing, no?

10. Theory
Everyone is going to end up at the hospital in LA: Jin will take Sun there (gun shot wound), Claire (getting baby checked out), Jack works there, Sawyer and Miles have to investigate a possible gun shot victim (and they still have Kate with them). It feels like this scenario is being set up, but for what purpose?

[dannysguitar]

Desmond!

[weak_link]

Was Des on the list? Why didn't he fry?

[Mugen910]

LOST: Eloise Hawking refresher

1954: Eloise Hawking is on the Island, known as Ellie, and seems to have some sort of standing in the Others' community. She leads Daniel to Jughead, where he tells her how to bury the bomb to prevent its leaks from destroying a good chunk of the Island.

1977: Twenty-three years later, she's still on the Island, and in enough of a power position that a member of the Others actively questions Richard's decision to take Ben to the temple without her knowledge. When Daniel Faraday comes looking for her to find the location of Jughead's burial site, she shoots him in the back without seeing his face. As the man fell, he realized that he had been shot by Eloise, and whispered to her that she had "known it the whole time." Confused, she asked him who he was, and he revealed that he was her son leaving her standing over him, shocked. Eloise then helped Daniel's friends by trying to detonate a hydrogen bomb, in an effort to change the future.

Between 1977 and 1996: At a later date (likely 1978 as Daniel has a birth certificate), Eloise left the Island and moved to Essex, Massachusetts, where she delivered and raised her son Daniel Faraday, fully aware that he would die at her hands after traveling back to the 1970s. Off the Island, she stunts Daniel's musical gifts in favor of his mathematical prowess. She ensures that his mind is singularly focused on academia, pushing aside all other distractions. She's surprised to learn upon Daniel's graduation from Oxford that Charles Widmore has given Daniel a $1.5 million grant for his research, and gives him a journal as a graduation present.

1996: Eloise worked at the store where Desmond went to buy an engagement ring for Penny during his first time shift after he turned the failsafe key. When Eloise showed him a ring and Desmond told her he would take it, she seemed upset and responded by telling him he would not. After Desmond refused to give the ring back she explained to Desmond that she knows his name, he will break Penny's heart, he will not marry Penny, instead entering the sailing race to prove Penny’s father wrong, and he will go to the island and press the button for three years until forced to turn the failsafe key. She said that if he "doesn't do those things," that "every single one of us is dead." She explains that pushing the button in the Swan Hatch is the only great thing Desmond will ever do. She teaches him about the concept of course correction before Desmond's mind returns to the Island after the Swan's implosion. During this meeting with Desmond, Eloise was wearing a pin, an ouroboros, a circular serpent with its tail in its mouth, a symbol in alchemy representing life as a cycle. But this particular one wasn't eating its tail.

2004: After Daniel's visit from Widmore, she visits her son and convinces him to go on the Kahana, the freighter taking mercenaries, scientists and Michael to the island.

2008: From within the Lamp Post, she determines the location of the Island for a brief window of time. She uses Ben Linus to help gather the Oceanic 6 to board Ajira Airways 316 to recreate the conditions of the Oceanic 815 crash. When Desmond refuses to go along, she warns him that the Island is not done with him. Later, after Ben shoots Desmond at the marina, Eloise visits Penny at the hospital to apologize for her son's involvement in this event. Outside the hospital, she and Charles Widmore talk of sacrifice and their son. When Charles calls Daniel his son, Eloise slaps him and leaves in a cab.

[Mugen910]

Originally Posted by weak_link

Was Des on the list? Why didn't he fry?

He's just special Eric...Not short bus special but that out of body sideways flash special.

[mosesbotbol]

My girlfriend in enamoured (as probably all our better half's) with Sayid & Sawyer. Have to admit they are handsome, but so are all the women on the show.

[OLS]

Even with all the BS you've been through on this wrap-up season, you still watch LOST? I thought I
was a glutton for punishment.

[Skywalker]

I only have one deep thing to say, "We are everybody!!!"

[Mugen910]

LOST season 6, ep #10 "Happily Ever After"


UPDATE FROM MY FRIEND!!!



This week’s episode (sorry this is so long, but there is so much fun information/ speculation/ theorizing that I love to consider and share!!!):



Fun fact to remember

* Desmond used to work at a monastery. Remember what his job was? Corking wine bottles.



George, the limo driver

· He's George Minkowski, the radio operator from the freighter who died after having the same experiences as Desmond in season 4… time travel flashes/ consciousness moving around in time. It was Minkowski who helped Desmond and Sayid get to the communication room so Desmond could call Penny. He died in Desmond's arms, a victim of time travel sickness; his mind had come unstuck in time and yo-yo'd between periods until his brain became mush.

* Suspiciously, can seem to get Desmond whatever Desmond wants (women, alcohol, flight manifests)



Seamus (the scientist) who spoke to Angstrom (the bunny)



* Did you recognize Seamus from the 80s sitcom “Kate and Allie?” I didn’t either, until it was pointed out to me, but he played the son Chip. See attached photos…



Charlie Pace



* Charlie still evades death for the time being (choked on heroin bag in airplane, walking across a busy street, drowning in a car).

· Charles and Desmond share drink and conversation in a bar called Jax, an Australian-themed pub.

· Charlie revealed that contrary to what we may have thought, he did not try to commit suicide by overdosing on the plane. He wanted to hide the drugs from the Marshall on the plane and choked while trying to swallow them. A theory! The rapturous blonde beauty he saw himself with, loving forever, was not Claire, but his season 2 Island temptress: the heroin-stuffed Virgin Mary statues. The painted hair? Blonde. The robes? Sky blue.

· Desmond wasn't buying it all the “love” talk that Charlie gave. ''That's poetry,'' Desmond cracked about Charlie's story. ''You should write a song about it.'' Actually, in another life, Charlie did write a song about redeeming love: ''Saved,'' the song Island Charlie wrote in his last-gasp bid to save Drive Shaft from disintegration. The season 2 Charlie-centric episode ''Fire + Water'' — memorable for its surreal, religiously-charged dream sequence (Hurley as Jesus; Claire as the Virgin Mary) and the ''You All Every Butties'' diaper commercial — gave us this bit of lyrics: ''All alone, I try to be invincible/Together now, we can be saved.''

· Desmond tries to save Charlie from drowning just like in the season 3 episode at the Looking Glass underwater station. NOT PENNY’S BOAT. Yikes.

· Both Charlie and Desmond had flashes of their island-life time line during near-death experiences.

· Remember when Charlie was down in the looking glass section, he was told that the code was programmed by a musician? We assumed it was Charlie from the past who programmed it, but could that musician be Faraday?

Desmond in flash-sideways

· Oceanic Airlines logo behind the glass of a video screen showing arrivals and departures of inbound and outbound consciousness — err, I mean flights. We saw Desmond's reflection in the glass (another flash-sideways’ character’s reflection).

· Desmond, to Claire, said he'd want to know the baby’s gender if he was pregnant. He said, ''I don't like surprises” … which is what Flocke told Sawyer last week, explaining his decision to send Sayid to do recon at Widmore’s camp.

· Desmond’s license plate was the same as Jack’s and Nadia’s in their flash-sideways.

· Desmond's wedding ring (see attached photo). Desmond had a wedding ring on his finger when Jack saw him on the plane… in this week’s episode he clearly wasn’t married. Is the island reality leaking into the flash-sideways reality

· Nurse Tyra that Desmond asked to give him Charlie's room number is the same woman that played nurse Susie at Santa Rosa in the original timeline. She gave Hurley his pills. See attached photos.

Daniel (Faraday) Widmore

· EEEEE!!! Daniel has his own LOST theory! J His theory: he and Desmond (and many others) are not living the lives they're supposed to be living — a consequence, he believed, of creating a new reality by detonating a nuclear bomb. ''I don't want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume,'' Daniel said. ''I think I already did.''

· Penny is still Daniel’s half-sister in the flash-sideways, but this time his parents are married to each other.

· Daniel says he took the physics equation he wrote to a friend who was a math wiz at Cal Tech. In the online game The Lost Experience, it was reveled that Thomas Mittelwerk, a chief of technology for the Hanso Foundation who overthrew Alvar Hanso to take over the group that helped create the Dharma Initiative, went to Cal Tech.

Charles Widmore



* Did you notice the picture in Widmore's office - balanced scale with the white / black stones (see attached photo)



Eloise (Widmore) Hawking



* Eloise said to Desmond… “You got what you wanted” (a better relationship with Charles Widmore). It wasn't time for him to start questioning about Penny yet. Daniel was a musician, what he had really wanted. Others may have what they wanted also. For example, Kate may actually be innocent it this "reality"; Jack has a son; Dogan is with his son; Hurly is "lucky"; Locke is comfortable with his life and has Helen; Charlie is a rock star again; Nadia is alive; Claire is with her baby. It is as though they have their lives back and still have the potential to be with the ones they love. See theory at the end of the email for more on this…
* Eloise: ''Someone has clearly affected the way you see things. This is a serious problem. It is, in fact, a violation.'' Eloise definitely seemed to understand the origin, purpose, and more importantly the rules of the sideways world. She also seemed to have knowledge or vision for what should be happening and when, and Desmond's search for Penny threatened the implicit order she scolded him for wanting more than what he always wanted: Charles Widmore's approval. This landed like a newsflash for Desmond. ''How do you know what I want?'' he demanded. ''I just bloody do!'' See theory at the end of the email for more on this…

Penny

* In the flash-sideways, her last name is Milton (a shout-out to Paradise Lost author-poet John Milton?)

Desmond’s change in attitude/ stopping Flocke from leaving

· Have the candidates been nothing more than a distraction? Is Desmond the true threat to Flocke - The Constant - Jacob's heir apparent? Is Desmond both the Constant and the Variable, a wild card - something Flocke wasn't expecting? Afterall, Widmore said that Desmond will have to make a sacrifice.

· Desmond faints when he touches Penny’s hand and his mind transitions unconsciously into the island timeline. We’ve seen him do this before. He’s the only one who the rules don’t apply to. Maybe it's his exposure to electromagnetic radiation - in both timelines (hatch implosion and the MRI) - that allows this to happen?

· Desmond wants the Oceanic 815 flight manifest. Why? Is he going to "course correct?” He came out of the last consciousness flash as a man-on-a-mission. This may explain why he was so willing to go with Sayid. Desmond has already seen the end so he just goes along with everything. Because whatever happens, happens.

Watchmen

· If you’ve read Watchmen or seen the movie, here is a correlation between Dr. Manhattan/ Flocke and Dr. Manhattan/ Desmond that is interesting: “My comic book-soaked brained recalled Watchmen and the story of Jon Osterman, a physicist who was accidentally locked in a room and bombarded with energy that removed the ''intrinsic field'' that held his being together and became unglued... only to reconstruct himself through sheer force of disembodied will into an omniscient, omnipotent Nietzschean Ubermench capable of experiencing past, present and future all at one. He became a superman. Codename: Dr. Manhattan. The problem? He found himself stripped of his humanity, neither needing nor wanting companionship or love. The story of Dr. Manhattan should remind you of the Man In Black, who told us in ''Ab Aeterno'' that his humanity had also been stripped from him, hence his smoky physique. But it should also remind you of Desmond's Sideways story in ''Happily Ever After,'' for it told us the tale of a man considered something of a super-stud by the culture, but suffering from a malaise of emotional detachment.

Theory that Eloise is working with Flocke

Did Eloise help Flocke create the loophole? Go back and re-watch the scene in "The Variable" in which she stops Daniel from playing the piano. She emerges from her kitchen, almost as if she's just had a conversation with someone. Re-watch every action of adult Eloise and reconfigure it as a way to get her son back in her arms, EVEN IT MEANS UNDOING REALITY TO DO SO, and things make a lot of sense. Did she make a deal with Flocke? Help him as long as she can have her son back? By pushing Faraday harder than ever to conceive of the Jughead plan, she in turn created the possibility for Flocke's escape, which in turn offered her the chance to be with Daniel again. We've seen Flocke promise people what they want, over and over again, only to see the cracks in his promises show in the flash-sideways. Think of this sideways timeline like "The Matrix": sure as hell feels real, but it's simply a smokescreen (pun intended), a false world that masks the real one.

Theory summary: The sideways world is one dreamed up by Flocke with Eloise's help, unwittingly executed by Widmore, with Sideways Desmond now the wild card about to show some of his Oceanic 815 buddies a thing or two about what it feels like to be truly alive, to truly live in the real reality.

Eloise seems keen to keep the timelines totally separate, as evidenced by her brooch of the parallel lines and the twin stars… the lines do not intersect. See attached photo.

Another theory re: what Eloise and Widmore want/ are trying to facilitate:

Look at the way Widmore speaks to Desmond in his office. He talks about being blessed to "have him in his employ" and speaks about how "indispensable" Desmond is. He even goes normal praise, making sure to reinforce how happy Desmond should be to be free from commitments and attachments.

Widmore is pulling the wool over flash-sideways Desmond's eyes. He needs him to not question things, and to not dig too deeply into any emotions that might remind him of his prior life with Penny. This gets reiterated by Eloise later during her own conversation with Desmond. Flash-sideways Widmore and Hawking remain on the team that wants to keep things status quo.

Like Widmore, Eloise is doing everything to keep Desmond from remembering things. Eloise continues with something even more revealing: that Desmond should be happy because he has a "perfect life" and the one thing he always wanted: her husband's approval. The idea that she would know this seems to span both time lines, because it's within the island-based universe that Desmond sought Widmore's blessing. It also shows a serious error in judgment in thinking this was the one thing Desmond wanted most of all. Naturally, that honor would go to Penny.

Charlie stepped beyond the scope of the rules to show Desmond. He didn't allow Desmond the choice to see things for himself, he flat out took control of the situation and gave him the answer. There is another life they are supposed to be living. This overt display by Charlie was the violation that Eloise spoke of.

Does this verify that people outside of the 'game' - people who've died or gone over to the other side - are somehow in the know about things (Christian Shepherd, Richard’s wife Isabella)? Up until now, we've only seen these people permitted to push or nudge things in the right direction. Here however, Charlie wipes his ass with the rulebook. He shows Desmond his hand, sits back in his seat, satisfied that he conveyed his message, expecting to die as he knows he's supposed to. And for one last time, Desmond saves him.

So let's deconstruct this for a moment. The fact that Desmond's pre- flash-sideways needs have been taken into consideration seems to indicate we're seeing a manufactured reality. Someone or something has constructed the flash-sideways universe based upon what it thought Desmond - and possibly every other character - would want.

Just take a look at Daniel, now a musician. Certainly his mother would remember her young son's only desire was to play the piano, and now we see him placated by having grown into a talented pianist. The only problem is that Daniel is not happy or placated, because running into Charlotte has reminded him of his past life. This causes him to go physics-happy all over a perfectly good notebook, prompting an investigation of his own.

So who created this new universe? We've assumed Juliet facilitated it, setting off Jughead with that rock. Yet someone has definitely stacked the deck here. Someone with intimate knowledge (or scanning?) of our main characters has tried, in a very Matrix-like way, to create the perfect utopia for each and every one of our heroes.

In a careful, calculated manner, someone has been trying to give our flash-sideways characters exactly what it thinks they want, but at the same time, keep them completely in the dark about what happened in their previous, island-based lives. They're using happiness to suppress past memories, but love is the one thing that wasn't counted on.