That was Alex, not Danielle.
-Joe
:smack: Crap. Character name overload (my newest excuse…)
And she hates Ben for what he did to her twu wuv.
My guess is that once Alex and her BF (can’t remember his name) became teenagers, they started to rebel against the conditioning they had been subjected to. That would be the source of her hatred of Ben.
So, kidnapping and torturing her true love had nothing to do with it?
He said “currently hating” because right now she’s mad beyond your standard teenage rebellion.
-Joe
I worded that badly. I’m guessing that the reason they punished Karl was that he (and possibly Alex, too) started to rebel, as most teenagers do. So the rebellion wasn’t the cause of the hatred, per se, but it led to actions by Ben that caused Alex to hate him.
It was pretty obvious from the moment Ben asked for “the man from Tallahassee.” Nothing else would have been as suitably preposterous.
I think people are taking the “magic box” comment too literally. Ben knew that had Locke’s dad in a room and that when they opened the door to Locke it would appear to be magic. That’s all.
Exactly. It provided exactly what Locke’s little heart desired - because Benry had set things up that way. The trick isn’t that Daddy was in the Magic Box, the trick (illusion - tricks are something whores do for money), it’s that Benry knew Locke’s biggest wish.
-Joe
I like the smoke monster theory.
I knew it was gonna be Cooper the moment Ben asked for the man from Tallahassee. However, I was convinced Evil Dad was gonna run Locke over, when he left his VW in the parking lot. Excellent acting by O’Quinn when he was in the hospital bed and then later in the wheel chair.
Why was Bluebeard warning Jack about being bugged? Was Blonde Woman leaving the island with Jack?
Haven’t we abandoned the cute nicknames? They have real ones! I guess we can excuse Tom since he’s had so many nicknames, but isn’t it easier for everyone to understand (and for one to type) Juliet than “Blonde Woman”?
Juliet’s leaving the island because Ben had also promised to let her go after his surgery. She told this to Jack several episodes ago. Tom voiced a concern over Jack being secured for exactly the reason that happened in the episode … one would imagine he wanted to ensure that his friends wouldn’t come looking for him.
[/quote]
It looked to me as though, when Tom let Jack into the gameroom to talk to Kate, Tom said “Be careful” and made a motion as though to indicate “They’re listening, the room is bugged.”
I couldn’t understand what was being communicated here. Who is supposed to be listening? Well, I guess the Others themselves. But then, why does Tom wish to warn Jack to be careful regarding that fact?
-FrL-
Yes, she was supposed to be leaving with him. And I assumed that Bluebeard was “reminding” Jack about the monitoring device, not “warning” him-- ie, telling him not to do anything foolish since they were watching.
Well, but Tom’s warning to Jack seemed like more of a caution along the lines of “people are listening, so don’t say too much.” It implied to me that Tom and Jack (and Juliet) perhaps have some sort of understanding or plan that goes beyond the basically simple plan Jack expressed to Kate. I mean, Jack says - out loud, in such a way that the Others can hear on their magical listening devices - that he’s going to leave in the sub, and come back. So either he disregarded Tom’s warning altogether about being careful, or there’s some wrinkle he didn’t tell Kate (because of the bugged room).
Of course, Locke shot all that to hell either way with his play, but I firmly believe there’s something going on with Jack, Tom, and Juliet that we haven’t yet been shown.
So, now that Sayid is captured, along with Kate, Jack, and Locke - who will rescue them? Is Sawyer up to the task? Desmond? Penny? Danielle? Will Juliet somehow mastermind an escape she couldn’t for 3 years? I’m short on reasonable speculation on where the writers go from here. Have they truly written themselves into a corner?
Ben told Locke that letting Jack and Juliet go presented a big problem. Only those in the inner circle*, like Blue Beard (Tom?) were let in on what was happening.
*Not the inner inner circle of course. 
Well, excuuuuuuse me. You seemed to know who I was talking about anyway, and yes, with the multitude of names, I was too lazy to start digging around for the names of the characters.
IMO, using cute nicknames is part of the fun. Or aren’t we allowed to refer to M’boy as Waaaaaaaalt anymore?
well he’s back:
Good question - though I’m sure the writers didn’t, of course.
No way on Sawyer, at least not as leader - this job requires a team, and no one would follow Sawyer.
Maybe that question is where we find out why the writers introduced Nikki and Paulo; we know that next episode focuses on them. Or maybe Desmond sees another death for Charlie in a rescue attempt, and Charlie decides he wants go out as a hero and leads a team there. We know Jin is strong and can be brutal if necessary. Sun has shot an Other, so we know she’s capable of being part of a strike team. Desmond has military experience.
Much as I love Hurley, he’s seen way too much action for someone so physically unfit.
The talk of a magic box reminded me of the ‘eternity’ passage from the Third Policeman.
Don’t read this if you want to read the Third Policeman! I’ve condensed the relevant parts:
[spoiler]…The narrator is led, by a policeman, into a vast underground network of rooms beneath the real world …
‘Is this eternity?’ I asked. ‘Why do you call it eternity’?
‘Feel my chin,’ MacCruiskeen said, smiling enigmatically.
‘We call it that,’ the Sergeant explained, ‘because you don’t grow old here. When you leave here you will be the same age as you were coming in and the same stature and latitude. There is an eight-day clock here with a patent balanced action but it never goes.’
‘How big is all this place?’
‘It has no size at all,’ the Sergeant explained, ‘because there is no difference anywhere in it and we have no conception of the extent of its unchanging coequality.’
…
‘Could you not bring your bicycle and ride through all of it and see it all and draw a chart?’ I asked.
The Sergeant smiled at me as if I were a baby.
‘The bicycle is easy,’ he said.
To my astonishment he went over to one of the bigger ovens, manipulated some knobs, pulled open the massive metal door and lifted out a brand-new bicycle.
…Now they walk out of the room and reenter the same room (to the narrators horror). The policeman then proceeds to produce shapes from the machine which the narrator cannot find words to describe…
‘What else is there?’
‘Anything’
‘Anything I mention will be shown to me?’
‘Of course’
…The narrator gets greedy, and asks for loads of stuff (i.e. whiskey, gold, a suit, etc) from the machine - which is duly given to him. Then they leave and travel through more underground rooms until they reach the way out - a lift…
The simple thing is, MacCruiskeen said calmly, 'that you cannot enter the lift unless you weight the same weight as you weighed when you weighed into it.
…So he can’t take his loot away with him…
[/spoiler]
Food for thought, anyway. Perhaps the losties cannot leave the island unless they are the same way they were when they arrived - something along those lines?
But, Waaaaaaaalt isn’t a nickname, it is his name.
I just thought it was a bit generic to be calling Juliet “Blonde Woman”. Not much of a nickname. How about Blondie, Barbie, Goldilocks, etc. ? Speaking of which, did she even have any lines in this episode except, er, “thank you” to Ben?
Shooting someone and being a member of a strike team is like saying you’ve ridden a bicycle once to prove you’re capable of participating in the Tour de France. I don’t think any of these people are strike team material, and even if they were, they’ll always be outnumbered. This isn’t an action movie rescue, it’s a plot driven who-can-out-manipulate-the-other rescue. I think Danielle will finally swing into action and save Sayid after having seen Alex. She may have made those comments to Kate before about wanting not to interfere in Alex’s life, but the look on her face upon seeing her probably indicates a change of heart. They really should just send Charlie so he can get killed and we can wrap up the subplot about how fate has it out for him. It isn’t a particulary exciting subplot with any potential, and revisiting it yet again will be boring. Nobody likes Charlie anyway, right?
I recall Desmond saying he had none when Penelope’s father asked him if he’d served in the armed forces.