The cable running to the Looking Glass was hooked over the outrigger, so presumably the boat wasn’t going anywhere. Although considering this show, it probably will anyway.
Well, no surprise that Ben lied… but Charlie’s swim doesn’t seem to have gone how Desmond had foreseen it. Unless that part’s actually going to happen later, and Desmond didn’t see the “captured by hot chicks with guns” part inbetween.
Yes – it was.
I don’t think Desmond knows the exact time frame of his future flashes. He just sees stuff – bits and pieces. In fact, the “Charlie dying” flash could come well before the rescue part of it. Or maybe Claire is the only one who will be rescued soon – maybe the chopper makes one trip then something else will happen that prevents a return trip? Guess we’ll see…
Wasn’t it Juliet who reported Ben’s story about the offshore station being flooded?
So it could be Juliet was lying, or that she was knowingly passing along Ben’s lie. I still don’t know if we can trust Juliet.
Wow, Ben has really crossed all the way over to La La land. Jacob said, “Do it tonight. Take the women, kill the men.” “OK, Boss.” Is Alex the only one who has an independent thought in her head? What a bunch of losers.
One thing that wasn’t addressed was the condition of Locke. Didn’t see him in the previews either. Interesting.
Perhaps Ben was saying “Jacob told me to do it!” so that the Others would go along with his dictates? That means… in order to get them to attack the Losties, Ben was conning the Others! 
That’s what I’m saying. Ben isn’t following Jacob’s orders which leads me to question the very existence of Jacob. I think Ben has a split personality and he’s losing it big time.
Then what did Locke see and hear? Something trashed that cabin and said “HELP ME!” Unless Ben is some sort of Carrie-like psychic… there was a flash of a guy sitting in Jacob’s chair, though, so…
OK, I got nothing. No idea what’s going on with that or what we’re supposed to think. But I definitely think Ben is lying about Jacob telling him to kidnap all the Lostie women and kill the men. Why they all follow and believe him, that I don’t get.
The other tip-off was that we weren’t shown Desmond’s psychic flashes as we usually are, lending further doubt as to the authenticity of what he told Charlie.
Well, she didn’t seem to be using her “I’m lying” smirk, she actually wasn’t using any of her smirks so that made it really hard to read her.
Perhaps Desmond did see Charlie’s death, but made up the “you drowned” story – to keep secret how Charlie really dies. (From exhaustion after nonstop 48-hour threesome action with the chicks in the underwater station…)
which also explains why Des wanted to take his place…
Does anybody else think that Jack’s plan to keep everybody in the dark about what’s going on and then one day drag them out into a field and dramatically introduce CFL from behind the bushes and then have her blow-up a tree (everybody knows about the dynamite) seemed sort of like something you’d see on a overly melodramatic television show?
Oh. Yeah.
Do you think Desmond is just confused, or is he manipulating Charlie? Because a sure way to get me to do something is to tell me I’ll die doing it. 
Have all of Desmond’s visions involved Charlie dying? Has he had any other kind? I can’t remember.
I’m confused about the cable in the sand. I think I remember Hurley finding it awhile back, but I don’t remember if he really found it or if it was part of one of Des’s visions.
ETA: Never mind about the cable. I found the info in Lostpedia.
Actually, it seemed to me like something that a Golgafrinchan would do…
Um, we’ve only seen Charlie die in 1 flashback. The other times he’s saved Charlie (from the lightning, saving Claire, and the bird thing) we just had to take his word for it.
Wait a minute. From the “Desmond’s flashes” section of Lostpedia:
Charlie drowns: Desmond again predicted Charlie’s death when he saw Claire drowning in the ocean, and Charlie running to save her. As Charlie does not know how to swim, he drowns in the water. Desmond instead ran for the ocean, and saved Claire himself. This flash marked Desmond’s second successful attempt to change the future as he saw it.
(Bolding mine.)
Charlie doesn’t/didn’t know how to swim? Or did Lostpedia get this wrong?
I’d say Lostpedia jumped to conclusions after that episode. I don’t remember them ever saying that Charlie couldn’t swim – just Desmond saying that in his vision, Charlie drowned trying to save Claire.
I’m guessing Juliet wasn’t knowingly lying to the Losties about the Looking Glass station. Ben probably told everyone that it was flooded in order to control them and make sure no one had any ideas about going to explore it. Same deal as Jacob, just a convenient lie to keep him in control of important info.
Also, was anyone else wondering why they didn’t think of just cutting the cable to the underwater station? I mean, it’s either the power cable or the transmitter cable or both, cutting it seems like a hell of a lot safer plan to disable the station. Worst case scenario it doesn’t work and they swim out later. Baffling I tells ya.
I’m not sure there’s any reason to think Desmond is lying to Charlie either. He didn’t see everything that happened in the one in which Naomi crashed, so it seems fair to believe that he only saw bits and pieces of this one.
My pet theory on what happens…
I wager that Desmond comes to on the boat a while later and realizes that Charlie hasn’t made it back and that there’s activity in the underwater station. He decides to go down and slips in unnoticed and rescues Charlie from the bi-sexual amazon women. In the struggle a gun goes off and ruptures the moon pool letting the air out until the water rises. In a scramble Charlie remembers to disable the jamming signal and sacrifices himself while Desmond gets free of the station.
Oh, and Rose and Bernard are back!
I’m thinking that maybe Desmond didn’t lie, he just assumed. Does he see everything that there is to know in his visions, or does he just see what he, personally, would see at that point in time. (Me speakums good english!) In other words, maybe he had a vision of Charlie swimming down and not coming back up, and assumed that he dies based on his earlier visions…
Of course, that wouldn’t explain how he would know that Charlie had to flip a switch down there. Never mind.
I really hate Jack after these last few episodes, by the way. Unrelated to the rest of my post, I know, but I just had to vent. He just looks so… smug.
Next week, somebody is tied to a chair and roughed up. I only glimpsed it for a second. Must be Charlie, eh, brother?