The mid-season break was very very good for the writers. The last two episodes have easily been better than what’s come before this season.
oh yeah. it gives me hope the rest of the season will be this good.
poor charlie…
OK, what are the 3 mysteries “answered” next week?
Jack’s Tattoo (not a big mystery IMHO, but nice to know)
What happened to the kidnapees (this one is legitimate)
Whats the 3rd?
This week’s episode is a variation of the destiny theme.
I like how it was the wrong night.
Glad I wasn’t the only one who thought LOTR when the ring fell in the water 
(will it show up again? will a pair of short fishermen find it ?? )
Brian
Bravo! I loved this episode!
I was getting tired of the same old flashback routine with Lost, and this episode shook it up just right.
Fantastic! I felt like I was watching season one again.
Alright… I’m already starting to form a hypothesis based on this single episode. I’ll put it down here so I can laugh at how wrong I was (much to the chagrin of myself) later:
This cements the fact that the universe at large has a fate roll. I’m presuming the Dharma Initiative has finally gotten down to the nitty-gritty in their experiments, and discovered a way to see into the future. Much to their dismay, they find that no matter how hard they try and change the seemingly “wrong” things in the world, the universe will intervene later and make sure that whatever consequences where supposed to have happened from the changed event, will remain on course. We’re all connected. If I had knowledge that my wife was going to break her leg from a spill down the stairs, I’d have to take her to the hospital. But before I do that, I’d have to call someone to watch the kids while we were in the ER. But if I STOPPED it, whatever consequences that were supposed to happen by those events… say our entrance into the ER displaced someone else who needed care, which caused them to make other decisions, for the patients, for the doctors, for their families, and so on and so on. So, if we never showed, because I stopped my wife’s fall, the universe would try and course correct the entire chain reaction of different destinies and eventually get everybody back on track. The show has been consistently pointing out how everybody is connected. Every decision we make, no matter how tiny, ripples throughout the entire population exponentially. I’m guessing that the DI, maybe using the numbers*, found out there is some ultimate event that is going to happen, and they need to figure out a permanent way to change it. Time is of the essence… and they may or may not be getting any closer… because one way or another, the world is destined to end. And soon.
Thanks for listening. I feel better now.
*Or perhaps the numbers somehow predict the doomsday event?
I like it.
It also explains why the Others are chooses some people specifically. Some people are keystone people. They may not directly cause the event, but they’re tied in more than others. Any plan to alter things must work through them somehow.
I’m assuming it’s what happened to Locke’s legs? Maybe? I have to say this episode brought a lot of my love back for Lost.
Now my question is why wasn’t THIS episode used as the cliff-hanger at the end of last season? Would have eliminated a lot of the Lost frustration everyone was feeling, including myself.
I guess I’m the only one who wasn’t a fan. I was expecting answers, and yet again, just got more questions.
OK, I guess it sort of told us why at least some people are on the island, cause fate does exist. But why did Desmond and that lady have the future seeing ability? Why did he briefly go back in time after switching the fail-safe? Was it just in his head while he was unconscious? And still no reason for him to be naked.
Well, clearly the reason he came back naked was so that Hurley could say, “Duuuude. The hatch blew off your underwear?”
The mention of why he’d be naked in the jungle just brought a crazy, half-baked idea to mind. This episode brought to mind the Terminator films right away, wherein the first two were James Cameron’s statement that the future isn’t set and can be changed by our actions, whereas the third film invalidated that by taking the popular stance of predetermined fate being unavoidable. In Terminator, mankind’s predetermined fate lies in its nature to destroy itself via its own technology, but that was told through means of a time paradox. At first I was thinking nah, Desmond isn’t travelling through time … that’s too farfetched even for Lost. I figured he was simply losing track of which reality he was in because of his precognitive visions interfering with his sanity. Now I’m not entirely sure. I have two whacky theories to explain his jungle streaking.
Firstly, playing off of cmyk’s idea a bit (in that some higher power is overseeing the actions and outcomes of these people as part of some grand experiment), I think the study of precognition was amongst Dharma’s big research objectives. Clearly, Desmond has been a puppet in this experiment, but to what extent? Certainly Dharma must have been keen on using him as a precognitive subject to some degree, probably unbeknownst to him. I think it’s obvious to many fans that the button-pushing deal wasn’t a real experiment at all, but a cover for something deeper. We can’t trust Ben a whole lot, but even he said to Locke that it was “all a joke”. We don’t really know how much time passed between Desmond turning the key and waking up, so perhaps the “higher power” which is conducting this grand experiment intervened and saved him and Locke from the hatch, sans Desmond’s clothing.
The other theory is actually another striking similarity to Terminator that sprung to mind … no non-living tissue could survive time dilation in the Terminator story. Never made sense really, outside of being an interesting sci-fi plot device, but the similarity certainly raises an eyebrow, no? Perhaps it’s an esoteric nod to Cameron’s time-travel story, a thinly-veiled suggestion by the producers that Desmond really is travelling through time? :dubious:
Yeah, they’re both a stretch, but you tell me why you think his clothes were missing then!
Final Destination meets Quantum Leap came to mind.
May I say again how awesome Henry Ian Cusick is? He just breaks my heart repeatedly. I wished he could go back to Penny as much as he did.
Your theory fits pretty well with what has been revealed through the “Extended Experience” stuff.
-FrL-
I thought it was a lame episode. I never was a big fan of Desmond, and an entire episode dedicated to him was too much to bare.
The only good thing is that it looks like Charlie’s going to die soon, which is awesome because I really despise that twat.
Well, if anyone still doubted that this show is largely about fate, this episode will shut them up.
No wait, probably not.
The notion of “course correction” reminded me of the Time Machine remake. No matter what the time traveler did, his love stilled died on that fateful night. It was a great concept in an otherwise mediocre movie.
That bit with the jewelry lady was kind of over the top, but oh well. I’m guessing that Dharma tried to play with time travel but discovered it was a really bad idea, so they patched up their time anomaly with the hatch. The entire island must have been wrapped in a sort of time bubble, which is probably broken now since the hatch asploded.
Aging wombs, aging Walt, flashbacks, flashforwards – I sense some serious time travel stuff is coming our way. I can’t wait till we get our first paradox. Prepare to lose sleep thinking about it too much.
Wouldn’t it have been fun if Desmond woke up covered in paint and said…
“Oh boy…”
I’ve been bitching about the show a lot lately, and I thought this episode was quite good. I liked how the changed up the format, and it showed us new things and characters we haven’t seen much lately. Good solid entertaining TV.
Really loved this episode. Of course love Desmond and Penny so seeing them again was nice. Loved that all the dialogue had double meanings. Was stunned by the ring lady revelations. And that Charlie is the one in danger. Although the ring lady and Desmond made a big deal about not being able to change fate, Desmond’s friend made a comment about the unpredictable outcomes of experiments that hints at the possibility to change fate. Making the flashback the focus of the episode with the island just as bookends was fun. The the photo background was fake and taken just before they broke up was interesting. The various easter eggs. Was that a real football game? Plus, the story was really touching, and very well acted.
As someone pretty strongly dissapointed with most of season 3, I rather liked this episode. Well, at least, superficially. I got caught up in the moment as I was watching it, anxious to see what happened next - which is something that we haven’t had with the “let’s see how the idiots can screw things up/gee did you know sawyer used to be a con man? We’ll show you for the third time” episodes.
However, I hate hate hate stories that rely on magical fate fairies to drive the plot. Someone brought up the Terminator movies, and that’s an interesting comparison. The first two were cool stories, I thought. At least consistent and mostly logical in how they handled time travel. The third one, however, story-wise, was absolute garbage, because it relied on magical fate fairies - that there’s some intelligent, unimaginably complex force working to influence the universe in incredibly complex and subtle ways to achieve a certain result.
And it’s utterly ridiculous. It sounds nice, superficially, if you give it no thought whatsoever - that there’s some sort of fate, and that you’ll end up getting what you deserve, that things happen as they’re supposed to or whatever. People like to believe in supernatural things that give them a sense of purpose and order. But if you even begin to consider the logistics of such a thing, it becomes utterly absurd. To influence events in the way that the show suggests - the universe course-corrects, would be so complex that humans couldn’t even begin to comprehend it. There would be a nearly infinite number of tiny things that would have to be changed - by the hands of magical fate fairies, apparently - to influence an event to happen by some sort of supernatural, intelligent fate.
So, if this is where the story is going - magical fate fairies, I’m extremely dissapointed. The show might as well have invisible pink unicorns become the driving agent in the story.
The Greeks didn’t seem to mind it in their dramas.
I’m wondering if Charlie will ever remember being accosted by Desmond (“I’m already on an island” / “This is why we don’t do drugs”). Did it really happen, or was it just Desmond having a conscious fever-dream after being at the epicenter of a massive magnetic spike? I thought it was a little heavy-handed that Desmond asked the package guy to repeat himself when he said “…for eight fifteen.” Overall, a hell of an episode. Right now I’m not bothering myself with the implications of the plot, because any twist could make it all irrelevant.
Whew! i’m glad I’m not the only one who had that thought.