sight
She said she heard them whispering about taking the child. Not sure how that works, but let’s assume she knows their intentions somehow. She decided to be proactive and capture the child herself… so she sets the fire, has an excuse to show up at the beach, to warn them… then takes the child and runs for the smoke, hoping that they’d come there to meet her. Turns out she has the wrong child in mind.
I’m guessing.
But, but…
Claire scratched CFL when she escaped or during her captivity. I don’t think this episode answered that issue.
cite?
Sorry, just had to.
Seriously, though. My answer to everybody who has raised questions about things like how a slave ship could be in the Pacific, etc. is "What island are you on?
Specifically my theory is that the island is in a ‘Bermuda Triangle’ type zone and that this zone is connected to other zones, throughout the world, in some unusual (perhaps extra-dimensional) way. It hasn’t been discovered, despite its size, because it’s on the other side of the space-time rift or whatever. Anyone who flew or sailed into any of these areas might (if the stars are right and the Invisible Pink Unicorn wills) be sucked through the portal into this realm.
Thus you can have Pacific airline passengers, polar bears, Nigerian dope smugglers, French scientists, slavers from whichever coast of Africa they turn out to be from, and quite possibly some genuine space aliens thrown in for good measure all marooned in the same not-quite-existant-in-this-world island.
Passing through to this ‘other side’ could damage planes/ships and interfere with their navigation causing them to crash/beach. Either you are killed by these malfunctions or you are marooned. We only see the stories of the survivors because, of course, only they have stories.
Sometimes when the window is open radio transmissions (consisting of strings of numbers, perhaps?) can get through.
p.s. I’m thinking that this scene had to be from Exodus, Part I - it makes no sense being from Part II.
Question: Why is Hurley worried about making this flight? He can buy every empty seat on every remaining flight that day, and the next few days besides, without making a dent in his wealth. Unless they said this was the last flight that day and I missed it.
Look more closely. As the camera descends into the shaft, we see there are six or seven rungs of ladder, and then it ends, and then there’s a whole lot more ladderless space underneath it. Ain’t nothing to climb down on.
I kinda made that assumption, but it is possible we are wrong. On the trek to the Black Rock, the scratches looked fresh. Maybe CFL made some attempt to take TurnipHead in Exodus, Part I, which Claire didn’t consciously recall because CFL has some weird ability to suppress peoples’ memories.
The scratches-incurred-during-captivity scenario is also why I wondered about a connection between CFL and Ethan. What the hell - maybe Ethan abducted Claire, and CFL made a deal to keep her until TurnipHead was born, but Claire escaped, her memories suppressed by trauma or CFL.
He was concerned about missing his mother’s birthday and was already unsure what day it was because of the international date line.
It’s hard to see the ladder rungs as the shadows lengthen, but you do see more than six our seven rungs. It looks like one of the rungs may be broken, though, but that may be a trick of the torchlight. I’m not convinced it ends.
You raise excellent points, with which I agree. A bigger hole in the story for me is that the smoke, from the point of view of the survivors, rises straight up. I have very little experience on islands, but my experience on ocean fronts is that the wind is always blowing, which you note.
Speaking of Hurley’s sweat stains, a guy his size would have enormous stains under his man-boobs. Something that has always annoyed me about makeup artists. They think if they apply a little glycerine to the face and spray some water on the upper chest and back areas, they have done a good job. Maybe if they spent some time looking at real people and how they sweat they could do a better job. (I can guess what you are thinking, but I am 6’2", maybe 200#, and even I get man-boob sweat stains.)
You aren’t the only one…
Even on my crappy TV and VCR, I could swear that at one point I could see a smoky tendril pulling Locke.
She looked much older than 16 on my crappy TV - maybe 35.
Shoulder shot? Remember the Bronze Age guy they found in the Alps? Last I heard, he died of an arrow to the shoulder from the rear. Seems there are a lot of big blood vessels in the area, Matt Dillon notwithstanding.
That would be me. I don’t see Locke as deranged - I think he is in tune with the island. They are obviously in a place where the normal rules of logic do not apply - sometimes you gotta go with “faith”, as Locke himself put it.
“Human sacrifices”? Have you never heard of a situation when a young mother of 30 dies of cancer, and the child is told that “God moves in mysterious ways”?
Shit happens, and that’s what I think Locke meant.
I dunno. You are probably right. Jack’s point of view is “this guy doesn’t think like me, therefore he is a danger to everyone and everything” - which point of view is what is behind most of the world’s problems.
The ladder definitely ends after maybe 20 feet. The camera descends another 30 or 40 feet, though…
I just rechecked. I counted 8 (hey, 8) rungs, the last three of which are broken, then the ladder ends. In total, it stretches about a third of the way down the part of the shaft we’re shown.
It looks like there may have been a ninth rung, but I think that was just a shadow, and besides, who cares?
Smeghead. WHO CARES?? In this hallowed haven for speculation and nitpickery, you dare to gloss over things impatiently of seemingly minute signifcance? How. Dare. You. > Grin <
Somewhat over the top request for those so inclined: is there anyone here who can freeze-frame, slow down and enhance and maybe resize the image inside the shaft so we can determine if the ladder does, in fact, end? Maybe it’s my crappy eyesight (more likely my crappy Winamp and Windows Media players), but I’ve looked it over several times now and I still don’t see the ladder ending. I bet I’m not the only one.
I personally think Locke is a dangerous wacko, and that bled into my reply. Mostly my intent was to paint the picture of Locke from Jack’s perspective, which would supply a motivation for his comment, which I did not feel was forced or contrived. (Unlike when Kate mentioned the $23k bounty, which I agree [with whomever said that it] sounded contrived.)
As a followup, the specific thing that makes Locke dangerous, in my mind, and likely Jack’s, is his charisma. When I see Locke, especially after hearing his faith speech, all I see is David Koresh.
I have a HD DVR and ran that scene (as well as the previous scenes with the monster in the show) in slow-mo because, well, I AM a geek for Lost. 
Definitely smoke-like tendrils around his feet and what looked like TALONS of smoke trying to pull him into the hole.
I would disagree strongly with your characterization of it. Jack’s problem with Locke, as stated in the finale, is Locke’s faith in the good intentions of The Island and his willingness to put them all at the mercy of it.
Not to mention that whole “the island demands a sacrafice” thing.
I did just that, my curiosity raised from the thread. I stepped frame by frame, using Nero Showtime, and the thing is… you can’t tell.
The light from the torch flickers (on purpose) which helped with the editing. When no more rungs are visible, there are still hints of the rails to the side, to which the rungs are attached. I don’t really think it’s meant to be obscure for any other reason than shrinking the image of them looking down the shaft, while adding CGI to give the impression of a very long shaft.
I might have missed it in this thread, but there was light coming out of the glass window of the hatch when Locke broke down. How strong would it have to be to come out with that intensity from a shaft that deep?
I think the fairy of misdirection is working overtime in many places in this show, we just haven’t caught them all yet.
As for X-files / Twin Peaks. JJ and Damon are on record (but I don’t have the energy to look for a cite right now) as saying that they do have a clear idea about what the Island’s about and why the castaways are there. It’s just that the success and pressure for another (indeterminte amount of) season(s) forces the to stretch things out. If all mysteries were revealed, what would pull in the audience next week (season)?
The hinjts of BOP, Walt and the Shaft can easily move the first eight eps of next season along, without really explaining a whole lot more to us. Look for big cliffhangers, some true answers and even more riddles around November sweeps. Some answers around christmas and a new dramatic/action cliffhanger to carry us into January.
Me - I watch it because it’s not rushed, shows multiple sides of each character, forces us to consider the grey zone between good and evil, is an ensamble show where I’m never disappointed if one of the major characters is a no-show.
When the gate attendants talk to Locke about the missing wheelchair, Locke says something about the next flight being tomorrow.
On the other hand, the flight is leaving noonish if not earlier (judging from Jack’s question to Michelle Rodriguez about why she’s drinking so early in the day), and I would imagine that there would be another airline somewhere in the airport with a flight to LA later that afternoon and Hurley could’ve bought a ticket for that.
When they showed Hurley running late for his flight, I thought they were going to explain why he was taking a plane whose flight number involved his “cursed” numbers: he’d miss the flight he was meant to be on, buy tickets for the next flight out, and be in such a hurry that he wouldn’t notice the flight number.
I can confirm what **The Gaspode ** has written about the ladder. I noticed the rungs ending when I first saw it, and ran it back frame by frame to confirm. There are no rungs the lower 2/3 of the shaft as far as I can see. At least one rung is broken, and it appears that they are made of rebar.
If Sawyer got hit in the shoulder, then he will be seriously messed up. Way too many bones, nerve bundles and blood vessels in the area to miss. Shoulder wounds are some of the worst non-lethal wounds you can get as far as long-term functionality.
If the BOP don’t fuel the plot next year, you also have my predictions:
Michael will drift ashore in the remains of the raft…right back to the beach he left. Jin will save Sawyer, who will only have a flesh wound, and they will land on a beach near the BOP. Or vice versa, it really doesn’t matter. They have also set up major conflict between Michael and Sawyer for the next season, because it was Sawyer who insisted that they fire the flare. Michael will blame him for Walt’s kidnapping.
Of course, if JJ and company are reading this…all bets are off!