Lost season 4.1.b.2

[Xanrn]

How the hell are they going to stretch "Why they need to go back" for 16 Episodes of Season 5.

They are going to end Season 4 with the same ending as Season 3, people saying "we need to go back".

Here I thought Season 4 finale would be them going back.

[Werthead]

I was thinking that Season 5 would be the story of what happened on the Island whilst Jack & co were off it.

But would Fox, Lily, Andrews, Garcia and the two unrevealed 815ers really just take a year off from the show and come back afterwards? Hmm.

I'm hoping Lindelof & Cuse have something more in mind than that. What is interesting is that they also said that Jacob, the shack and the Purge are 'Season 5 answers' rather than Season 4 ones (although further info will be revealed on them in Season 4), suggesting there will be plenty of on-Island action in Season 5.

[Kat]

Just in case anyone is interested, down in Forum Games, the next Mafia game is going to be based on LOST. Here's a link if you're interested.

[Jaxom 1974]

I was thinking that Season 5 would be the story of what happened on the Island whilst Jack & co were off it.

But would Fox, Lily, Andrews, Garcia and the two unrevealed 815ers really just take a year off from the show and come back afterwards? Hmm.

I'm hoping Lindelof & Cuse have something more in mind than that. What is interesting is that they also said that Jacob, the shack and the Purge are 'Season 5 answers' rather than Season 4 ones (although further info will be revealed on them in Season 4), suggesting there will be plenty of on-Island action in Season 5.

It's gotta be some sort of combination of both, right? Jack and company trying to get back, in current time. And the ones who were left behind also in "current time" so we get flashbacks for them over the course of the last couple of years of time we didn't see...

Something like that...

[Shryke]

I'm guessing S5 will be the O6 trying to get back with cuts to wtf is happening to the people ON the island.

[Zulofritter]

I'm guessing S5 will be the O6 trying to get back with cuts to wtf is happening to the people ON the island.

I'm wondering what the flashbacks are going to be like in that season. At some point they'll probably have to go back to flashbacks to keep from spoiling the ending, and this looks like the place. This is also most likely to be the time-jump season, so we could see entire episodes about how the O6 adjust to post-island life over the years.

[Fatuous]

I'm hoping Lindelof & Cuse have something more in mind than that. What is interesting is that they also said that Jacob, the shack and the Purge are 'Season 5 answers' rather than Season 4 ones (although further info will be revealed on them in Season 4), suggesting there will be plenty of on-Island action in Season 5.

That's kind of a curious assumption. While the Purge incident and Jacob/shackslide are on site Island happenings, I wouldn't say that their explanation is necessarily confined to the Island.

I would go as far to say that's impossible to definitively answer either one while on the Island.

[Shryke]

Both are related to "The Others", who I'm imagining we're gonna see alot more of next season.

[Werthead]

This week's podcast has been leaked early, so obviously spoilers for this week's episode. However, if you skip to about ten minutes into the podcast you avoid the spoilers and get the very interesting Q&A which sheds some light on some questions. For example, the Others, Richard and Cindy will be back at some point and we get a good idea of where they've gone possibly as soon as Episode 6.

In other news, ABC have reversed their prior decision to end the first chunk of the season on Episode 7 and will now go an extra week to Episode 8 and pause there.

[The Stranger]

Important mythology confirmed? Check.

Properties of the Island elucidated? Check.

Most tear-jerking moment in the entire show to date? CHECK.

proper, proper episode.

[HokieStone]

How the producers can claim that they're doing the time travel thing without the paradox issues is beyond me.

Multitude of questions from this one:

1) Were the scenes set in 1996 were after Desmond & Penny met and took their photo together? 8 years seems like a long time. Someone refresh me if that works from Desmond's previous flashbacks. I remember that he met Jack while running in the stadium, prepping for the boat race, to try and win Penny back. That was what 2 or 3 years prior to the 815 crash (because he's been on the island that long). So what was he doing in the 5 or 6 years after last seeing Penny, but before setting off on the boat race? Is that the time he was in prison (for what, we still don't know)? Now, did he enter the boat race, because he'd had these visions of the future, so he knew he was going to end up on an island and then a freighter?

2) If he's already been having visions of the future (starting in 1996), why is he surprised when he started having his future visions of Charlie's deaths after the hatch blew up?

3) Who's on the phone with Penny at the end? 1996 Desmond, "jumped forward" again, or 2004 Desmond, who's gone through the intervening years (and would presumably now remember who Sayid is). Where was 2004 Desmond during all this jumping around anyway?

4) Why doesn't Faraday know who Desmond is when they meet on the island? And vice-versa for that matter? This is classic paradox stuff.

The producers seem pretty certain that they're avoiding the paradox stuff, but I don't see how. I'm guessing we'll see more of this stuff, but right now...bleh...time travel always screws things up.

And my biggest Lost pet peeve returns...the characters not asking the obvious questions. In this case, the conversation between Jack, Julitte, Faraday and Charlotte on the beach. Faraday starts explaining things "your perception of how long ago your friends left may not be accurate" - and when Jack questions that, Faraday moves on to talking about side affects and how he hopes the pilot stays on course. That's where Jack needs to say..."Stop! What EXACTLY do you mean that our perception of how long ago our friends left may not be accurate? And when I say EXACTLY...I mean EXACTLY!!!!"

[Demonblade]

I think you're over-thinking the whole time-travel paradox. It's easy to get around it if you try and grasp the concept that time might not be linear in the Lost world as it (apparently) is in the real world.

And again, the reason why Jack didn't ask EXACTLY...EXACTLY!!! is because if he did then people like yourself would be complaining about how the answer wasn't good enough, not to mention throwing all of your eggs in one episode just doesn't seem like a good idea for a show that plans on sticking around for two more seasons.

...Edited for clarity

[HokieStone]

I think you're over-thinking the whole time-travel paradox. It's easy to get around it if you try and grasp the concept that time might not be linear in the Lost world as it (apparently) is in the real world.

You can't throw in time travel and not expect the paradox questions to come out. Sorry. The producers seem to feel like they have a logical way around the paradox issue - we'll see if that pans out in future episodes - right now, I'm not sure how they can avoid it.

And again, the reason why Jack didn't ask EXACTLY...EXACTLY!!! is because if he did then people like yourself would be complaining about how the answer wasn't good enough, not to mention throwing all of your eggs in one episode just doesn't seem like a good idea for a show that plans on sticking around for two more seasons.

That's not a reason, that's excusing the writers for a less than stellar job, IMO. I want some of the answers just like everyone else, but my gripe isn't that we're not getting answers (certainly understand that the main driving force of the show is the ever evolving mystery) - it's how we're not getting them, if that makes sense. It just seems that whenever the main characters go down the trail of trying to get some of their questions answered, they just kind of forget their train of thought and stop asking any kind of follow up questions...and thus the mystery can continue...yay! It's become the defacto way for Lost to hint at the mysteries, but not really tell you anything.

Take the smoke monster for example...a few episodes ago when Locke finally flat out asked Ben what the smoke monster was...and Ben simply said "I don't know". That's much better, in my opinion than if Ben had started rambling about something else and Locke simply forgot that he was asking about the smoke monster. I actually took from that scene that Ben doesn't really know what it is - maybe it's some Dharma thing that Ben doesn't know the details of, or something like that. Or maybe Ben does know what it is, and lied. Who knows. The point is, the mystery is still preserved, but we saw one of the characters asking a logical question, and hitting a stonewall, as opposed to just kind ...of ........forgetting ......about ..............it....

[Demonblade]

You can't throw in time travel and not expect the paradox questions to come out. Sorry. The producers seem to feel like they have a logical way around the paradox issue - we'll see if that pans out in future episodes - right now, I'm not sure how they can avoid it.

You can't expect the paradox questions to come out when you're trying to grasp whether or not it's possible. Once you let a story tell you that it is, then it really loses its importance as an issue. At least it does for me. I mean, I thought those Back To The Future movies sucked balls, but that was because they didn't age well and Michael J. Fox is unwatchably annoying, not because of some logical inconsistency regarding the explanation given of time travel.

That's not a reason, that's excusing the writers for a less than stellar job, IMO. I want some of the answers just like everyone else, but my gripe isn't that we're not getting answers (certainly understand that the main driving force of the show is the ever evolving mystery) - it's how we're not getting them, if that makes sense. It just seems that whenever the main characters go down the trail of trying to get some of their questions answered, they just kind of forget their train of thought and stop asking any kind of follow up questions...and thus the mystery can continue...yay! It's become the defacto way for Lost to hint at the mysteries, but not really tell you anything.

Either that or there were more pressing concerns at the moment, like Jack talking to Desmond. I mean, did you really expect Jack to put Desmond on hold so Faraday could elaborate on his answer?

[Kat]

3) Who's on the phone with Penny at the end? 1996 Desmond, "jumped forward" again, or 2004 Desmond, who's gone through the intervening years (and would presumably now remember who Sayid is). Where was 2004 Desmond during all this jumping around anyway?

4) Why doesn't Faraday know who Desmond is when they meet on the island? And vice-versa for that matter? This is classic paradox stuff.

3) I think as soon as Penny answered the phone, 2004 Desmond started to drift back again. Before that, 2004 Desmond got stuck in a time warp/shoved into an alternate universe. By the end of the conversation, 2004 Desmond was back completely--at least that's how I interpreted. All that "you answered!" stuff at the end was "I haven't spoken to you in 3 years because I've been lost on a desert island, you still love me" surprise.

4) I think Faraday is or was caught in his own time warp which he went into after Desmond "left" 1996. That would explain his memory problems and general spaciness, and also the note in the journal at the end of the episode. "Desmond Hume is a constant". Maybe he's now out of the time warp.

At least that's how I interpreted it.

Ok, now for a question. I still haven't seen the first two seasons of Lost, so maybe this was explained somewhere. Was there ever an explanation of what caused 815 to crash? I thought it was something having to do with the hatch with the numbers and an EM pulse, but maybe I imagined that somewhere?

[Kat]

Also, here's a link to a Entertainment Weekly producer interview from today. The interviewer mentions at the beginning of the article 'Though may I suggest you bone up on Philip K. Dick's ''Valis Trilogy'' in preparation for tonight's episode'...has anyone read that? Anyone know if the time travel-sans-paradox is apparently explained in there?

[Tb0ne]

Potential time paradox issues aside that was a very entertaining episode.

How the producers can claim that they're doing the time travel thing without the paradox issues is beyond me.

Multitude of questions from this one:

1) Were the scenes set in 1996 were after Desmond & Penny met and took their photo together? 8 years seems like a long time. Someone refresh me if that works from Desmond's previous flashbacks. I remember that he met Jack while running in the stadium, prepping for the boat race, to try and win Penny back. That was what 2 or 3 years prior to the 815 crash (because he's been on the island that long). So what was he doing in the 5 or 6 years after last seeing Penny, but before setting off on the boat race? Is that the time he was in prison (for what, we still don't know)? Now, did he enter the boat race, because he'd had these visions of the future, so he knew he was going to end up on an island and then a freighter?

2) If he's already been having visions of the future (starting in 1996), why is he surprised when he started having his future visions of Charlie's deaths after the hatch blew up?

3) Who's on the phone with Penny at the end? 1996 Desmond, "jumped forward" again, or 2004 Desmond, who's gone through the intervening years (and would presumably now remember who Sayid is). Where was 2004 Desmond during all this jumping around anyway?

4) Why doesn't Faraday know who Desmond is when they meet on the island? And vice-versa for that matter? This is classic paradox stuff.

The producers seem pretty certain that they're avoiding the paradox stuff, but I don't see how. I'm guessing we'll see more of this stuff, but right now...bleh...time travel always screws things up.

And my biggest Lost pet peeve returns...the characters not asking the obvious questions. In this case, the conversation between Jack, Julitte, Faraday and Charlotte on the beach. Faraday starts explaining things "your perception of how long ago your friends left may not be accurate" - and when Jack questions that, Faraday moves on to talking about side affects and how he hopes the pilot stays on course. That's where Jack needs to say..."Stop! What EXACTLY do you mean that our perception of how long ago our friends left may not be accurate? And when I say EXACTLY...I mean EXACTLY!!!!"

1) Definatly before. Here's a timeline as far as I can see:

-Leaves Ruth at the marriage alter. Get's shitfaced and joins a monastery.

-Breaks into wine cellar, dismissed from monastery.

-Meets Penny when leaving the monastery.

-Lives with her for 2 years and take the picture of Penny and himself together.

-Visits Penny's father and asks for permission to marry Penny. Breaks up with Penny when he can't afford a photograph.

-Joins the Royal Scots Regiment in an attempt to prove himself to Penny's father.

-Tonights episode's events.

-Gets arrested for going AWOL (while trying meet Faraday, Penny etc) or failure to follow orders (that's what Wikipedia says).

-In jail for 4-5 years.

-Gets out of jail and finds out that his letters to Penny were stopped by her father. He pays him off to leave Penny alone.

-Travels to America, meets Libby and gets the boat.

-See's Penny in LA, she's angry he didn't contact here when he got out of prison.

-Meets Jack.

-Leaves on the race and arrives at the Island in 2001 after traveling through a 'ferocious storm' (he was knocked unconcious when traveling to the island, so perhaps that's why he didn't have these time travel problems before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Hume

2) Maybe it's like a dream? the memory sort of fades away unless you write it down. Maybe he just thought he was crazy before?

3) I got the impression that when he finally spoke to Penny it started to bring future Desmond's memories back. As for where future Desmond went.. that's a very good question.

4) Perhaps Faraday ruins his memory by trying that future conciousness experiment on himself?

And keep in mind he had that Desmond Hume would be his constant written down in his notebook. Perhaps he just pretended not to know him?

[Shryke]

Ok, now for a question. I still haven't seen the first two seasons of Lost, so maybe this was explained somewhere. Was there ever an explanation of what caused 815 to crash? I thought it was something having to do with the hatch with the numbers and an EM pulse, but maybe I imagined that somewhere?

Yes, it was the hatch. Or, specifically, what was in the hatch.

Basically, they were doing research on .... something. Some sort of magnetic anomaly or something like that. Anyway, something went wrong, and they filled in the accident area with solid concrete. The anomaly is all screwed up now too, so someone needs to press the button every certain number of minutes to "relieve the pressure".

Desmond almost misses this one time, and the anomaly starts overloading, and pulling anything metal towards it. This causes the plane crash.

[Zulofritter]

Desmond's episodes never disappoint.

[Shryke]

The phone call with Penny had me chocking up.