All these Characters act like they are drugged at times..
In a trance, Numbly going along,
and at times behaving in a non-logical manner.
Drunks and Impaired individuals are slow to react.
This Island has Snatched Many Peoples ,free will.

They are behaving oddly in Odd circumstances …
Alice in Wonderland Like, Acid Trip Like.
Rocky Horror Picture Show Like.
It is a nasty cycle that Everyone on or near the Island is sucked into
Look at Rouseau, she stumbles along like a Zombie at times and….. Then HyperActivates..shooting People..Torturing Sayid….
Actually I think that She Drugged and Programed Sayid way back when she got him at her place….then Rouseau wonders off and stares at the Block rock /Smoke and Zones Out..She’s Programed…. and Addicted to Island.

sayid is Strongest on Island He has been Trained & Totured by Best and worst, Been to War 2-5 times Iran/Kurds/USA/Kuwait/USA and may be only one remotely able to resist……But this is a Strong Addiction…..
I think NO One Is Immune

But why does Locke feels like he has to destroy any possibility of rescue?

He could just see everyone else being rescued and taken away “to the real world”, and he could very happily stay on the island with anybody else who wants to stay.

I am still upset at how Sayid reacted (or did not react) to any of Locke’s acts of odd behavior. It took Locke, for instance, 26 seconds to come out of the “computer room” after Mickhail started attacking Sayid and Kate in Enter 77. And Sayid never confronted Locke about that, or anything else.

Sayid needs to speak up and stop Locke before it is too late.

Curiouser and Curiouser

However, I’m afraid I’m going to have to shoot this one down. When Mikhail is listing the flaws “the John Locke I knew was para……” he was interrupted by Danielle when she spoke.

http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2007/03/jacks-new-tattoo.html

On another note, I feel flattered for all the responses mentioning my small theories. I am aware that there are flaws and holes in all of these ideas, but there were some things worth noting, such as the possibility that Danielle was somewhat invisible to Mikhail — but remember I said he also seems to be aware of when the Losties are interacting with her. Other holes in my theory have to do with why Danielle has expressed a few times that she has not been in certain places of the island before (i.e., the Flame station). it seems strange given that she has been there for sixteen years not to have extensively explored the island. How come she never came across with any of the Dharma stations or even the Dharma people? And she still has not taken anyone to the radio tower, maybe to update or change her transmission.

As to the Dharma Initiative vs the Others (or Hostiles), I do not know how much of The Lost Experience (TLE) material we should incorporate to the show’s storyline. I say this, because in TLE we learned how, when and why the Hanso Foundation sponsored the creation of the Dharma Initiative and the building of the stations on the island, and it was clearly in the mid to late 70’s. They never encountered a Hostile community. On the contrary, they used some of the “native people” for their experiments until almost wiping them out (by killing them in the experiments). These “natives” (I truly beleive) are the ones who originaly built the Four-Toed statue Sayed encountered at the end of Season 2, and I hope our Losties will face them eventually. I also want to think that they are the ones who The Others consider Bad Guys.

In any case, there is something else most of us have not paid much attention to (connected to the mystery of the Hatch implosion ). In enter 77, Sawyer is the only one wondering why and how the ping-pong table survived the implosion (explossion?) of the hatch, but his comment is ignored when Hurley replies to the effect of “I just found it in the jungle, and I don’t care how it came to be there”. I do not think the writers put that there just to fill in conversation. I think they are teasing us, and pointing out to us that the imposion was something weird in which the Swan station disappeared, but some items (and the four lucky ones) made it out somehow. this is, I believe, a way to let us know that there is much to know about it (and we actually kow nothing). Hopefully, they are also telling us ‘this will eventually be explained’.

Peace.

This would explain the creation of the “list,” why so much is known about the Losties, and why “fate” directed the Losties to get on the doomed plane. Every effort is being made by Others to try to make the right sequence of events happen, so the Time-Loop will be broken.

I think Locke knew a lot about Flame station (the direction clue on Echo’s stick might have triggered Locke’s faint memory), obviously more than his friends realized.. he’d been there many times before in past loops.

Locke’s actions were direct and forceful.. such as lying about not knowing where the Flame floor hatch was, taking explosives, beating the computer at Chess just to enter 77, pushing Patchy into the force-field fence to kill him. Btw.. Patchy didn’t seem to mind being killed, he knew he’d be back after the next reset of the Time-Loop.

When Patchy told Kate that she wouldn’t “understand,” he meant that she would have no way of comprehending what had happened during the multitude of Time-Loops that had occurred before. And he really had no patience to give her the short version and then spend hours answering all the questions that were sure to come up. I’m just surprised that Patchy waited for Locke to push him into the fence, rather than running in by himself (unless he needed to turn Locke into murderer).

A question for Ryan..
If someone unfamiliar with the show asked you what was Lost all about, wouldn’t “Flashes Before Your Eyes” be the beginning of the explanation?

I also agree, there’s a lot to suggest that the Others are a rebellious offshoot of DHARMA — but either way, Ben’s existence on the island would still be a mystery since I think it’s reasonable to assume (or conclude maybe) that he was there long before DHARMA. So how can he be a former DHARMAnian?

Regardless of all of this, I feel reasonably sure that there is some Military aspect to all of this and also some connection to WWII, either directly or not. And the whole “good” vs. “bad” people thing seems to me to smack of some sort of “master race” plan. But who knows? At least, we’re getting enough answers now to posit some theories that might actually make some sense. I’ve never bought the supernatural theories, and I’m not sure I buy the time-loop thing either. Like Star Trek, it would be a cop out in my opinion. I hope it’s something more creative than that.

I think Jack is being set-up to play a major leadership role with the others as part of their (or Ben’s) plan too. Don’t know why. Just seems like they are testing him to see how sturdy a character he is. Anyway, can’t wait till the series is over so we can all finally know. That day will be fantastic and awful all at the same time.

I have to watch the episode she appears again with that in mind…

Thank you for that theory.. :D:D its a good one

(sorry for the english.. im from Quebec)

I like a lot of what you have to say. The “Sixth Sense”-esque idea that Mikhail can’t see Rousseau is a very inteersting one… I’d have to look into it more and re-watch the episode.

I guess there was no Thanksgiving because many of the main characters are not American. Claire, Charlie, Sayid, and others wouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. If there is a Christmas episode I think we may also see that the Others have a motorcycle and Jack perhaps will use it to shoot over the Dharma-logo-emblazoned shark.

Also, for those who have mentioned it, Lostpedia.com does NOT have a particularly precise timeline. Comprehensive, yes, but as of Friday morning there is no indication that Claire Littleton is a child of Christian Shepherd’s, of when in “September 2004″ anything happened.

For Eric and Fernando (and what a delight it is to read smart, long, and well-thought out posts!), and the other readers, I have a few questions. Mikhail speaks of a war between the Others and Dharma, which I think is likely enough using the scenarios described above. But if Ben has been on the island his whole life, and assuming no “accelerated aging” type scenario, he’s been there far longer than Dharma. We assume he has contact with the outside world. So how was Dharma able to build to much on the island asnd establish such a presence without the Others immediately stamping them down? Did they just take a “don’t cross this line” approach the way Tom initially posed to the Losties?

How did Juliet get to the island? We can safely assume Ethan was involved, yes? (He was in her lab in Florida.) Ethan is an Other. But I believe that there was some Dharma signage in the “Not in Portland” episode? (Maybe I am misremembering.)

So maybe the Others grabbed Dharma’s subs/transportation system. But then how did Mikhail get to the island eight years earlier?

The shark and presumably the polar bears are linked to Dharma as well (the shark by tattoo). But the Others have been living in the Hydra station (where the sharks were stored).

I just can’t understand why, if the Others are so vicious and so powerful, they would allow the Dharma folks to build things up so extensively only to completely stamp them out and then take over some, but not all, of their stations and equipment. I can’t help but think that the Others are a faction of Dharma that revolted.

And in the meantime… Desmond and Juliet arrived on the island around the same time (3 years ago). Desmond’s arrival maybe had some connection to Mr Widmore and his labs which are maybe connected to Dharma. Juliet clearly had some biotech linkage but presumably was brought to the Others. So are they the same group, or different? Was Kelvin part of Dharma, or an Other? He sure seemed to have some secrets but also spoke of the “Hostiles” and my presumption was always that said Hostiles were the Others.

I’ve heard a lot of theories on this which are all strong, but none definitive… each has a few holes in it.

Peace

Then 30-40 years later, here comes DHARMA, bred of late 1960s phsychology and hippie culture, conducting social experiments of all kinds, and finding what they thought was an empty island in the middle of nowhere to do it. The original inhabitants (The Others) see this as an invasion and defend themselves against this perceived threat, discover DHRMA’s “evil” social experiments, comprehend this as something not dissimilar from what they originally came to the island to do back in WWII, they try to rescue those they regard as innocents (children), and a war erupts — which Mickhail specifically said was the case. As far as we know, Desmond is the only living survivor of what was once Dharma. The Others take DHARMA’s facilities and resources for their own use. As far as the Others know, our losties represent the next DHARMA offensive and the fight is reengaged. But they have gotten rusty and cannot go on offense the way they did back in the early days of DHARMA. Some DHARMAnians converted to The Other side during the course of this war (Juliette?), most were killed or driven off, and all of the children that could be rescued, were rescued.

Add to this the conversation with Mikhail from the episode last night (March 14) and I got a creepy feeling that somewhere in all of this is the rebirth of genetic engineering intended to breed perfect humans in terms of intellect, strength, talent, etc. Not sure which side would be doing this, but when Mickhail was talking about why Kate, Sayid and Locke were not on the list because they were flawed, I got the feeling there was something sinister in his words as well.

Now to my thoughts — if Rose, Locke and probably a few other Losties that I’m forgetting have found some sort of healing power on the island (Locke can walk, Rose’s cancer went away), then why is it that Benry’s tumor required an operation? Is the part of the island where our Losties are the healing part of the island for some reason (DHARMA’s research results?)? Is this an inconsistency on the part of the writers and producers (doubtful)? So curious, must be something.

Also, I’ve stopped reading spoilers and looking for advanced info. my guess is the big item in this episode was not Locke, or finding the other’s town, or whatever. Pretty clear to me that it was the revelation of Claire and Jack being siblings. My two cents…

As for next week, I am trying not to be too excited. After all, how Lock ended up paralyzed APPARENTLY does not add anything to the main story. But I will be very excited if we find Mikhail in Locke’s flashback. From what we gathered last night, Mikhail Patchy had met Lock while he was paralyzed. But Mikhail said he’s been on the island for 11 years (and he was recruited by Dharma when he was only 24), and Lock was not in a wheelchair 11 years ago. Well, we will see. Let us be patient.

If there’s one thing we know about the Others, they delight in deception and are expert liars. Both Benry and Mikhail were great deceivers, the former moreso than the latter. The Other Others such as Tom and Bea (Ms Klugh) and Juliet and Goodwin and Ethan seem to be a little less adept. But I guess what I have come to recognize is that we should believe nothing that the Others say unless explicitly shown to be true.

My interpretation of the “the John Locke I knew was pa…” (presumably paralyzed or paraplegic) is that that’s the intel they gathered initially. I don’t think this is a cloning thing.

Have we come to a consensus on whether the Others = DHARMA = Hostiles? Ryan posted something sorting this out last week and the more I discuss it with people the more confused I get.

One more spin on the “time loop” theory, which I think is cool but I hope isn’t true, because it’s a bit of a cop-out… evolution itself is a series of chance happenings that eventally hit just the right sequence. There are a lot of allusions to this, from Desmond’s precognition/”Groundhog Day” flashback and abilities to Sawyer in the bear cage to Hurley winning the lottery. Sometimes the right set of circumstances just happens to fall into place…

BTW, throwing my guess into the ether that Locke, and not Charlie, will be the next one to die. I’m hoping not because of the complexity of his character and great acting by Terry O’Quinn, but I am fearing that he will be given his behavior this week.

Finally, I may be the only person hungering to see more of the others, especially Ben. There is such tension in any of the scenes where MIchael Emerson plays him that any episode with him in it becomes enthralling for that tension alone. With Ben lies the answers!

“the Locke I knew’ comment threw me too. They do know an awful lot about people..they still never answered the questions about where the first survivors they took are (did they? The kids, the other passengers..)

The defense systems have been there for ages, so the threat from the ‘hostiles’ makes me think that they’re different groups-that have been around for years, way before the 80 days our folks have been there. Also, they’re powerful enough to kill a t-rex or something. Obviously, going over it with a tree was simple-any thinking human could figure that out.

As for Jack, who wouldn’t want to stay w/ the others once they’re not locked up and forced to provide medical care?? I mean, they probably have t.v., good food, couches…

To add to that, Jay and/or Jack were saying that maybe Ben wants Alex to stay away from Carl because they’re siblings. Kind of far fetched to imagine that Danielle would have been carrying twins without knowing it.

BUT it is plausible that the Others are messing with DNA and they used Alex’s DNA to create Carl. Hmm?

I think whatever the Others are up to, it is to save all of mankind and they will ultimately be proven to be the good guys.

If it is a time-loop gone out of control they may need to kill people that were supposed to die in the crash to set things right. So in thier minds at least, they aren’t murderers. Maybe if they can set things right, time will reset and all the people they killed won’t be dead in the new time-line.

Xtremdelt’s possible explanation doesn’t work because Claire wasn’t pregnant when she first met Christian, which would be when he told Claire’s aunt (if that’s who was at the door in the Ana Lucia flashback) “Let me see her.” So, way more than a few days had elapsed between that encounter and Christian’s death.

Can ANYONE figure this out? I can’t even explain my confusion well!

If I remember, he kept saying “Let me see her” At the time, I thought “her” was Claire, but it must’ve been the mom who was in the hospital. Right?

And where is the “big mind blowing twist” that Lindeloff and Cuse promised for around this episode? Was it Kate, Locke and Sayid finding “Othersville”? I mean that would blow her mind - but not ours - we knew about the place and that Jack was going to be there. Was it Jack playing football with Tom?? Maybe it’s me - but I haven’t seen it yet.

Speaking of characters we haven’t seen, where did Rose and Bernard go? They must have moved to the other side of the island!

As for Locke, last week I thought he just made one bad decision after another. I’m no longer sure. Could he be doing all of this intentionally? No one is really that stupid. I’m pretty sure he knew that he would kill Mikhail Bakunin when he pushed him, but why? What does he know that we don’t? Whose side is he really on?

My teachers way back long ago in school would say that all of the losties lack any degree of intellectual curiosity. Every time they get a chance to get some answers they ask one or two questions and stop. When Locke and Kate were asking Mikhail questions, Sayid interrupted them and like good little soldiers they dropped the conversation and followed. I would have looked at Sayid and said “shut up” I want to hear the answers to these questions!

I can’t imagine that the rescue squad thinks that they’ll be able to take on a whole armed camp of Others/Hostiles. Guess what, I bet they can. The Others will be like the indians in the old cowboy movies. They probably can’t shoot straight.

Now for something interesting. I read this theory on EW.com:

“You guys should really check out Farmer’s Riverworld series, because it’s loaded with Lost resonances. Does reincarnation explain it all? Do ”the Others” = ”The Ethicals”? Does ”The Mysterious Stranger” = ”Ben”? Is it just coincidence that Mikhail Bakunin is a character in the third season of Lost AND the third Riverworld book The Dark Design? And how WEIRDLY COINCIDENTAL is it that the recent Jack episode ”Stranger in a Strange Land” is also the name of a sci-fi book by Robert Heinlein, which was dedicated to… Philip Jose Farmer! C’MON, PEOPLE! There MUST be a CONNECTION!” - Interesting eh? I’m a fan of the Riverworld books and I should have picked up all the similarities.

John

P.S. Ryan:

Where do you think they filmed the scene where Desmond and Claire found the bird? It doesn’t look like anywhere near Police Beach and it’s not China Walls or Portlock. (I explored them pretty extensively last October.)

The connection to Christian Shepherd just seems too obvious and easy, but man, was that a big reveal. It seems like the writers are forcing the parallels w/ Jack and Claire (she works in a tattoo parlor? blonde mother in a car accident?) a bit. Or is this a “let’s not mistake fate for coincidence” kind of thing?

Can someone with more time or a better memory PLEASE give a rough timeline for Jack and Claire? Ana Lucia was with Christian the night he banged on a blonde’s door in Australia. May have been the aunt, but if that was Claire’s mom’s place, that was before Claire got pregnant (or barely into it) and thus Ana Lucia was in Australia a LONG time. Looking for some rough timeline on the whole Jack confronts Christian/Christian goes to Australia and starts drinking again/meets Sawyer/meets A-L/confronts blonde/dies.

Curious to see what’s going on with Jack and the others. I also like the harkening back to the uber-Other (Jacob?) by Mikhail. And I am so happy to see a strong Sayid and a less sissified Locke back. Now if only we could get back the Kate of season 1…

This is probably one of the few episodes this season that I can say had an important flashback story. Not only was the flashback important, but it tied in to the island story really nicely.

I actually had low expectations for this episode but was pleasantly surprised. Definitely one of the better ones this season.

Can certainly see Locke fitting the role of Stephen King’s morally ambiguous traveling man now. I guess next week may show us where he stands.

Did anyone else catch that Kate did NOT seem at all happy when Sayyid forced her to stop before the security perimeter? The writers finally allow Evangeline to stretch her acting range beyond the sad and worried expressions she had for two seasons (and have her finally break out of - as Jen put it- the Kate trifecta) - yay!

The ending scene with Jack, even though I had heard/read about it in a spoiler (I think from Ryan?) still had me stunned. Jack seemed so…. happy. A nice nod from the writers to Matthew Fox’ college career as a wide receiver for Columbia.

A decent storyline for Claire. She certainly wasn’t all roses (Aussie punk?)

Both the Sheppards continue to impress me. Has Jack fallen into cahoots with the Others, or is this just a trick? Can’t wait for next week: Locke, wheelchair, explanation, wheeeee!