Well, keep in mind that the Others have all appearances of a high control cult - reality and what they are told are probably two very distinctly different things.
Yep – Cindy seemed a little confused.
Oooh, I know!
Cindy: “We’re here to watch…”
Jack: “You’re too late. Kate and Sawyer already got dressed and left.”
Yep. Cindy’s a voyeur. 
True. Because, really, killing Ethan and questioning Ben was more or less in self-defense. The Others attacked first, dragging the kids away from the Tailies on the very first night, kidnapping Claire and drugging her, stringing Charlie up…
I guess it’s possible that the Others truly believe that the plane crash was an invasion of sorts and they’re just defending their territory, but that’s qute a stretch for my imagination.
Oh, and in other news: Isabelle is creepy. I think she out-creeps Ben, even.
I’ll never tell!!!
I didn’t get why Jack was such an ass about the tattoo, forcing her to give it to him. Seriously, it seems like common sense along the same lines of “don’t piss off the guy who can spit in your food” that you don’t intimidate and freak out the person who is going to be putting a foreign-language tattoo permanently on your body. If I was her I would have made it say “I diddle sheep with my tiny penis” just out of revenge.
Eh, none of that made sense, even by Lost standards.
It’s a serious stretch to find the 3 big mysteries solved.
-
We learn what Jack’s tattoo means. Actually, we learn what the translation is, which tells us hardly anything. We don’t know why it’s sacred to the Thai. It apparently has no significance to the Island or why Jack was “chosen”.
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We learned that Cindy is still alive. That was never much of a mystery. Few people cared about her, frankly she was just a Redshirt, and the Others had been kidnapping people so I can’t see that many of us expected her to turn up dead. The kids too I guess, but seeing them alive isn’t exactly a “mystery solved”. We didn’t learn why they were kidnapped and brainwashed.
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That Ben’s promise of “home” referred to the main island. I suppose this little double cross wasn’t totally obvious, but it’s not much of a “mystery”. I suppose the reveal that the second island is their “lab” could be notable, but again it seemed like a pretty obvious deduction.
On a unrelated note, bravo to Bai Ling’s boobs.
A couple lines I couldn’t hear… Sawyer referred to Ben as “Captain Benny-ko” ? I couldn’t have heard that right.
And the little girl wanted Cindy to ask Jack how (something unintelligible) was doing. ?
Jack needs to get a lot more specific during negotiations; that's one thing I remember from having negotiated contracts. Instead of wanting to be taken home, which could mean just about anywhere, he should have said exactly where he wanted to be taken--back to the States, the mainland (though certainly not Phuket).Captain Bunny-killer. How is Ana Lucia doing.
Nope, not a single question answered.
What Jack’s tatoo sez could have been an answer BUT:
- Jack said “that what it says but that’s not what it means”
- Them beating the shit out of him
3.All the mumbo-jumbo mystery stuff
ABC lied.
Are you a fan of Entourage? I’m pretty shure she taught Vinnie Chase how to Kung Fu for his Chinese commercial.
Random thoughts:
Is anybody else wondering if that boat they were on at the end is the same one they gave to Michael and Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalt?
I think Jack’s comment that “…that’s not what it means” refers to its personal meaning to him. You know, the–Losing the girl–Getting the shit beaten out of you–Chased out of Thailand–Trip you’ll never forget–thing.
Just when did Jack go to Thailand? It had to be before Dad died, and I’m thinking after his marriage ended. And why? Was it just the usual reason that rich, lonely, single guys go there?
Locke’s eventual rescue mission is doomed to failure. They’ll be looking on the wrong island.
I’ll probably come up with more right after I hit ‘submit’.
See, I told you.
I was thinking that the ‘kidnapees’ seemed even more lost and out of place than even they should have been. Also that the lighting seemed weird (sorry, I can’t pin it down better than that). I’ll have to go back and check, but I thought I saw a teddy bear that was clean and in remarkably good shape.
So–could this have been a dream or even a visitation by the dead? “We’re here to watch” sounds kind of spooky-ghostly to me.
Dammit, back on board - what can I say, there’s nothing else on and I have nothing better to do.
Sick of Sawyer’s nicknames. Still can’t figure out if Juliet is a great actor, or is only capable of the half-smile ambiguous smirk thingy. OK, those were both negatives. Let’s just say I’m being cautious with my viewing now.
Although I have a theory that I think is pretty decent. It’s a long read, but I’m rather proud of it.
[spoiler]Hanso somehow by accident figured out a way (through magnets and number theory or whatever) to see the future. They were able to isolate and identify several dozen people that interact in such a way as to steer the future in such a way as to cause some catastrophe.
Recognizing their failures, they then used the magnets or something else maybe perhaps to go back in time to try and change the course of those lives to alter the outcome, but like Desmond said it didn’t matter much. (They’ve been cagey about the involvement about God until tonight - more on that later*).
So they figure out the entire group of people (through math or whatever) that are all somehow responsible for this timeline, and keep going back in time to steer them onto the same airplane so they can all make them crash on an island, certain that this will prevent the event. They then want to monitor these people to see what made them so special.
And here we are. Maybe the Others are just employees convinced that their job is to maintain these people that steer this cataclism. Maybe going back as far as that first Schooner ship.
*The one God reference was that thing in the sailboat about God choosing Jacob. I think. I have naught a religious bone in my body, so forgive me if that line from the Bible means nothing that I think it means).[/spoiler]
So that’s my theory. Crazy? HAH! What am I, some Internet crackpot with a theory? Bwaaaaaa ha ha ha ha! YOU’RE crazy! Ha ha ha…ha ha…heh…[sub]heh heh…ugh. Time for bed.[/sub]
Midway though season 3, and I’m still looking for some MOTIVATION here. . .
I know, we get a clue here, an allusion there, we get flashbacks galore. . .but I would like to know, SOMETIME before the show is canceled, why these fairly-to-highly intelligent ppl are acting so secretively, and being so ruthless/violent to a group of ppl who are the unwilling VICTIMS of a traumatic accident!
It was interesting for awhile, but at some point, they really need to give with the reveal, and move the story forward. . .hey, THERE’S an idea, move the story forward! Ppl have died, been taken prisoner, a lot of background has been given for most of the characters, but I feel like this show has given me about a half-season’s worth of plot development, and 2 seasons of background.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been watching faithfully since the plane hit the beach, and like many, I was intrigued, all caught up in the mystery. I’m not about to stop watching or anything. . .but at some point, I’d like to get some motivation for what’s going on.
This is reminding me of a Stephen King novel. I’ve read most of his books, and some of his nonfiction about the writing process. King remarked once about the ‘monsters’ in his stories, and how he tried to keep from revealing them for as long as possible. Once he did reveal it, the reader will think(and I’m paraphrasing here from memory), “Oh, a 10-foot tall monster. At least it wasn’t 50 feet tall!” or “Oh, a 50-foot tall monster. At least it wasn’t 100 feet tall!” It seems like “Lost” is taking this to the extreme, almost as if they don’t trust what they have in mind to hold our attention.
I suppose, however, it’s just how things are done at “Lost”. They won’t just come out and say/show anything when they can suggest it instead for 2 seasons. They should know, however, that too much of even a good thing is too much. Like a teasing person that you desire, there comes a point where the teasing needs to replaced by some real action, or you take your frustration and move on.
I hope you don’t mind the venting, and that this isn’t viewed as being too negative. I love the show, and since the break I’ve been enjoying it, but I **really **want some of that hot mystery-revealin’ action.
Not half-bad. Given what we’ve seen so far, it seems reasonable that your theory is very close to what’s going on. I haven’t heard of, or thought of, anything better.
Certainly there’s some form of future-seeing/controlling going on. It’s just a matter of what they’re averting, why, and how.
Hmmm, maybe my ‘motivation’ rant was a bit premature.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines, especially in light of what “The Lost Experience” told us about The Numbers. Think “Foundation Trilogy”, but with The Numbers being a calculatable measure of whether actions taken have had any effect on predicted future outcomes.
I suspect that at least some of The Others (those, like Ben, who have lived on The Island all their lives) have developed a warped sense of morality due to Skinner Box type conditioning. When Tom says they were giving the kidnapped Losties a better life, he really believes it-- those who haven’t yet been thru the proper conditioning are somehow inferior, or are leading morally inferior lives.
I think they were there to watch their first serious “Island Justice”.
However, if you’re right about the teddy bear then we could be looking at Lost Time again.
-Joe
After thinking about it for a while I am quite disappointed with this episode. I am not one of those the whines “I want some answers!” every week. I don’t care if I get answers, I just want good episodes. However if you promise me answers you better give me fucking answers. Don’t tell me there is going to be a big reveal and then pull the rug out from under me. We find out where Cindy was. Great, we knew she was taken last year. The commercials showed just about her whole part this week. We find out where the children are. Didn’t we already know that? Eathan was a surgeon. He is also Tom Cruise’s cousin. So what? The whole flashback about the mysterious orient was a bunch of contrived nonsense. I don’t remember being this frustrated after any other episode.
I interpreted that this way:
What it says – the literal translation that Sheriff Isabel read to him: “He walks among us but he’s not one of us” or however it was phrased.
What it means – the thing that Me-Love-You-Long-Time told Jack. He’s a strong leader, but that aspect of himself ends up making him feel isolated, alone, angry.
Of course the irony of the tattoo to Isabel was simply that Jack walks among the Others (or rather, sits in a cage mostly), but he’s not one of them.
But you’re right on the bit about ABC’s promo promising to answer 3 big questions. The only question they really answered was “What does Jack’s tattoo translate to?” Although I don’t think any of us really cared about that one too much.
The only information about Cindy and the kids was really revealed in the promo beforehand – just the fact that they are still alive. Big whoop.
I think the boat they gave to Michael was much smaller than this one. Looked like Michael’s escape boat was the one that the Others used to grab Walt in the first place?
The boat at the end of this episode – was that maybe the boat they stole from Jin, Sun, and Sayid (in the raid where Sun shot Colleen)? Formerly Desmond’s boat?
Or maybe the Others just got a fleet.
I’ve been a fairly patient *Lost * fan so far, I think. No major rants (well, maybe a minor one last week) regarding the overall development, or that Season 3 has been a big “letdown,” etc. The quality of the best shows–or maybe even our *perception * of that quality–can ebb and flow.
But I’m sorry. That thing was one pointless pile of suck.