I’m not sure they said exactly that, but I wondered about it too. So you take the sub out and fly back, what’s the big deal? I think it has more to do with the beacon being down. Maybe the island’s properties make it impossible to locate without the beacon.
BTW, who thinks Jack knew that the beacon was down when he told Kate he’d come back for her?
Well, a boat is a hell of a lot less expensive (And requires a far less-well-trained crew) than a submarine. What if their sub pilots, assuming they only had so many, got eaten by a polar bear. “Oh well, looks like we’re gonna starve.”
-Joe
I think the producers intimated that Michael did really escape. I think any boat can leave the island if it knows the right heading as they told Michael. The problem is getting back to the island. I’m guessing they have to use the sub because they follow the underwater beacon. I guess you could rig a normal boat to follow the beacon. It might be also that there are some weird currents that prevent surface water ships from making it.
But that doesn’t explain why they can’t just leave on their other boat(s). And clearly DHARMA found the island somehow before they built the beacon so there must be another way to find it. And hey they could always just drop back in on the island on a pallet drop, since the food supply always seems to find them unless the Swan destruction has screwed that up somehow too.
So Locke’s father is a con man, huh? I seem to vaguely remember that another character on the island is a con man. Now who was that? Darn! Hopefully they’ll take another hour to remind me who that is.
And it looked like that was a new tattoo on Jack’s arm. Oh boy! That means another hour explaining how that happened. Can’t wait.
And isn’t there a fat guy who has bad luck? I’d sure like to have 3 or 4 more hours depicting that. Maybe even a wacky comedy relief episode featuring him where any relevant plot development crawls to a halt. Hey, there’s plenty of time.
And Kate appears to care for Jack. But she did it with Sawyer! They should make the whole fourth and fifth seasons about only that.
Who cares what the mysteries of the island are? Just give me some more of that fascinating back story stuff. I’m especially curious about the two new Lostie’s with dialogue. Please tell me everything about them both, from the day they were born until they landed on the island. Either of them have a tatoo? I’ll lay odds that the guy is a . . . con man! I want every detail of every con he’s pulled. That’ll take up seasons six through twelve.
I don’t know about you, but when they start to explore the dull island mysteries my interest starts to lag. But then I hear that roaring sound that indicates a flashback is about to start, it gets all exciting and interesting again. I really hate it when we cut back to the island with the monster and polar bear and hatches and color-changing sky and hatches and skeletons and dead people walking around and death rays and stuff. Hey, I saw a guy we haven’t met on the beach fishing in the background. Please, God, let him have a strange tattoo.
What a totally bizarre time you chose to rant about this. The episode currently in discussion answered some island mysteries, and the flashback scenes were really, really interesting and answered a big question a lot of us have cared about from the very first episode.
While I agree that most of the flashbacks are irrelevant and redundant these days, this was actually a very thorough and well-done episode. So far I think it’s one of the only episodes this season to NOT deserve your rant, and yet here it is. Weird timing. Were we watching the same episode?
I liked how when Locke dropped down into the sub composer Michael Giacchino played a few notes from his Medal of Honor theme.
That’s nerd perception.
That’s kinda’ why I posted it today. Don’t you know that with “Lost” any step forward is followed by 6 or 7 steps back?
That’s kinda’ why I posted it today. Don’t you know that with “Lost” any step forward is followed by 6 or 7 steps back?
One step forward, seven steps back, and two posts to make your point? 
-Joe
Perhaps the “magic box” Ben spoke of is a “magic room” that somehow
???
Hey, I’m just following the example of the “Lost” writers.
I’m guessing that the plot advancement, so as it was, from this episode is all we’ll get this season. They will pad out the rest of the shows with irrelevant “character development” and end on a shocking cliff-hanger. That’s three years of shows and one giant Homer Simpson foot and I still don’t know what the fuck is going on.
Whatever it is, it still gave me my favorite line of the episode. “I hope you can wish up a new sub” Badass!
Hey! Some of you guys are seriously messing with my squeeing fangirl buzz. Sure you can critique the show but can’t we just bask in the glow of the old Lost for a little bit first?
This didn’t occur to me until Kristin Veitch mentioned the possibility in her column, and now I can’t think of anything else:
We can’t believe anything either Ben or Anthony Cooper says. Therefore, we shouldn’t assume Cooper is really Ben’s prisoner. That whole scene, including the gag and the facial injuries, could simply be a show for Locke’s benefit.
I’m now going to assume this is the case, in fact, until we learn something at odds with this possibility. Something that Locke himself doesn’t know.
I tend to agree. As Alex said, her dad is good at manipulating people. He’s had an awful lot of practice, at the very least.
Very good ep. this time. We actually learned a thing or two, some secrets were revealed, and we got more dirt on Locke and his old man. I thought Michael Emersen did a great job as Ben, also.
Maybe next week Sun punches out Sawyer to get him back for the time he called her “Betty.” 
He’s a peninsula.
Why is the Dharma Initiative still dropping food on the island?
-Kris
Does anybody else think that the contents of Ben’s “magic box,” and what appears to be Locke’s father, are both the smoke monster?
Think about it. In Eko’s death episode, he met his brother in the jungle. Only, at the end of their encounter, this being appearing as his brother implied it wasn’t really his brother. Then the smoke monster appeared and killed him.
Furthermore, many of us probably remember hearing about the podcast or interview where the producers said thatduring a stretch of time in which we hadn’t seen the monster for a while, we actually had seen it, we just didn’t know we were looking at it. This clearly implies that all those appearances of people who aren’t supposed to be on the island–Jack’s dad, Hurley’s Dave Eko’s brother, and maybe Kate’s horse too–were really the smoke monster.
So, it’s looking like the smoke monster can take on the appearance of different people. This also fits with Ben’s statement that what was inside the box can be whatever you imagine it to be. It would also seem from this that the Others can control the monster; for example, when Ben said “get me the man from Tallahassee” maybe he was in effect saying “go program the smoke monster to appear as Locke’s dad.”
More importantly, HOW are they doing it. Unless that thing Locke blew up was a 1920’s Style Flying Submarine, something airborne is doing that.
How good are high-flying planes (or blimps or whatever) at detecting underwater sonar beacons?
-Joe
The Others are not Dharma. The Others may only know how to get to the Island by using the beacon but Dharma may have their own ways of knowing how to get there.
I’d like to know the basis of Danielle’s hatred for Ben. If he’s telling the truth about her “currently” hating him, then she must have loved him at some point, or at least didn’t hate him.