I liked when Mrs. Hawking rolled her eyes while Desmond gave his rant about being done with the Island. This is how all the trouble in the world happens, when people start exercising their pointless free will.
Otherwise, what a weird episode.
Jack Shephard is the undisputed king of not questioning the glaring plot holes that comprised this episode.
"Sun, what're you doing here?" The normal person would ask what about her daughter? She's leaving him behind forever? Not Jack Shephard.
"Kate, why are you mysteriously lying in my bed? Don't ask about Aaron, ever? You don't have to tell me twice. I'm Jack Shephard. I don't want to know."
"Hurley, good to see you." Perhaps Jack wasn't aware Hurley was arrested and was last seen in county lock up. He probably wasn't. That would presume he had conversations about logistics and events with Ben instead of what we saw him do, which was threaten to kill Ben. Which seems to be pretty much all Jack did.
"Sayid, you're in irons. Whatever." (The observant person would note that Sayid under armed guard replaces Kate's role in the Oceanic 815 plane crash, but Jack Shephard likely didn't connect those dots. Why would he?)
"Ben, what the hell happened to you?" Is a question that will not pass through Jack Shephard's lips.
"Suicide note from Locke addressed to me? Jack Shephard reads no such things until the last possible dramatic moment."
What else was weird was Jack's visit with his granddad Ray. It reminded me of Jack's mother meeting him at the airport when the Oceanic Six returned from the Island. Jack at least had a conversation with his old folk's home escapee grampa, which is more than his mother got.
Poor random Middle Eastern Man on Ajira flight 316 who got a couple of lines.
I guess I'll just heed Mrs. Hawking's advice and "Stop talking about how ridiculous it is!"
Also: It seems that once we're done being side-tracked with the John Locke story, we'll be digging into the DHARMA mythology. That van was almost off the lot, and I'd imagine that was Geronimo Jackson blaring out the speakers.
i could have sworn that every one that left had to go back? didn't that in clude Desmond and the 2 kids? actualy the rules don't apply to desmond. But sill Aaron and sun's and jin's baby would have to go back to, seeing as they both left the island, true the girl wasn't born yet but she still was alive. So why didn't they have to come back?
Originally posted by yamchai could have sworn that every one that left had to go back? didn't that in clude Desmond and the 2 kids? actualy the rules don't apply to desmond. But sill Aaron and sun's and jin's baby would have to go back to, seeing as they both left the island, true the girl wasn't born yet but she still was alive. So why didn't they have to come back?
I'd presume Ji Yeon didn't want to go back since she was conceived on the Island, and Desmond is the temporal 'wild card' so the rules probably don't apply to him. Aaron, however, is a glaring omission. Perhaps he did go back, just not on Flight 316, and he was taken by someone which is why Kate was all shook up. Remember, the Others have been able to get on and off the Island for years (Richard and Ethan to recruit Juliet, Tom to bring back Michael) without resorting to plane crashes, so there must be a much easier way to return.
Also, Ray Shepherd looked pretty damn young for a guy with a grandson in his mid-thirties.
(edited by Big Bad on 19.2.09 0041) Kirk, crackers are a family food. Happy families. Maybe single people eat crackers, we don't know. Frankly, we don't want to know. It's a market we can do without.
Are they really glaring plot holes when we're pretty obviously going to get episodes about how each O6 member ended up on the plane? I think Jack was just so happy that everyone somehow showed up to go back that he just didn't question any of it.
Not only did Sayid fill Kate's role, but Ben filled Hurley's by showing up late. I guess the guy who played the Iraqi torturer from Three Kings was cast to fill the ex-Iraqi torturer spot, haha. But seriously, I'm curious as to what role that guy has to play, as they hyped up their casting of him leading up to the season.
I really hope it was Desmond who beat the crap out of Ben. He's well over do for some comeuppance.
Originally posted by yamchai could have sworn that every one that left had to go back? didn't that in clude Desmond and the 2 kids? actualy the rules don't apply to desmond. But sill Aaron and sun's and jin's baby would have to go back to, seeing as they both left the island, true the girl wasn't born yet but she still was alive. So why didn't they have to come back?
Because they weren't born yet? That's the best I have, that Aaron "doesn't count" because he was born on the island and Sun's wasn't born there. Or maybe Kate and Jack's little one night stand will turn out to have provided Aaron with a proxy...
Episode seemed really slow up until Jack got to the airport. That whole part with his gramps was just ZZZZZ.
I loved Ben's "I made a promise to an old friend," which sounds so innocent, BUT ITS NOT!!!! I'm hoping that the frantic phone call from the dock can only imply that his plan didn't go down as hoped. Still, whatever he did is going to cause Desmond to go back to Hawking and then search out the island.
I liked Hurley as Charlie with the guitar, although I don't know if a denim vest is the best in island wear. Kate's point about bringing hiking boots instead of dress shoes was a smart comment no one seemed to follow.
Locke's suicide note was so sad. I liked the call back to "Orientation" with Hawking talking about a leap of faith. If only Locke knew then that to bring Jack around to his side, he had to die.
After everyone picking up on Carter-Ranier, Ben's speech about Doubting Thomas was rather blatant.
I wonder if, now that we've skipped a pretty eventful 36 hour period for at least five characters, this means a return to the flashbacks of seasons past. The way they set that up, this almost felt like if the writers had gone with five seasons instead of six, this would have been the season five premiere.
So Jack, Kate, and Hurley are in the 80's? I would have to guess everyone else is in the future, as SOMEBODY from that flight left the Ajira Airways bottle at the camp. My money is on Sayid II or Sayid's handler being an agent for Widmore and being the person who shot at the canoe.
Did Ben tell anyone other than Jack that this was a one-way trip? According to the writers, Desmond's vision of Claire and her baby getting on a helicopter is still in play, and I'd like to see Jin have a chance to meet his daughter. Plus Juliet still needs to meet her neice. I know Jack and Kate and Sawyer really don't have anything to go back to, but those characters do and I want to see them get off the island. So I'm not too concerned about Sun being on the plane without her daughter -- I'm thinking she expects she'll be back soon enough.
If the island's always moving, does that mean the wheel is always turning, and all Ben and Locke have done is just force it to move faster?
Agreed on the Ben and Lapidus money quotes.
So much to digest. I can't wait for the rest of the season, let alone next week.
You believe me, don't you? Please believe what I just said...
Did Ben tell anyone other than Jack that this was a one-way trip? According to the writers, Desmond's vision of Claire and her baby getting on a helicopter is still in play, and I'd like to see Jin have a chance to meet his daughter. Plus Juliet still needs to meet her neice. I know Jack and Kate and Sawyer really don't have anything to go back to, but those characters do and I want to see them get off the island. So I'm not too concerned about Sun being on the plane without her daughter -- I'm thinking she expects she'll be back soon enough.
Let's see, there's Aaron, Ji Yeon, Juliet's niece, Sawyer's daughter, Walt, Charlie's nephew, Desmond and Penny's son....wouldn't it be a mindfuck if the next 'window to the island' brought these second-generation Losties in search of their relatives?
Kirk, crackers are a family food. Happy families. Maybe single people eat crackers, we don't know. Frankly, we don't want to know. It's a market we can do without.
After some thought, I put my finger on what turned me off on the episode:
Since the season began, Lost has been in Answer Mode, doing some pretty awesome reveals about a lot of the ongoing mysteries. Still a lot of questions, but answers seemed to be the focus. "316" suddenly halted that and shifted into Mystery Mode again, with a focus on Jack at the expense of all the other Oceanic Sixers who frankly had more interesting circumstances on how they ended up on the Ajira 316 flight. Yeah, we'll get the episodes filling all the blanks in, but I guess I just wasn't in the mood to shift back into what was almost entirely Jack's POV of How We Got Back to the Island.
I've just been spoiled by all the time traveling goodness on the Island the prior few episodes. An entire episode about just the Oceanic Six -- not even, mainly Doubting Jack being difficult and thick headed AGAIN -- was kind of annoying.
Final Thought: Since Jack knew he was supposed to recreate the conditions of the Oceanic 815 crash as best as possible, he should have stopped at the barber's and buzzed his hair again.
Plot holes aside, and I know many fans are bored with the O6, but I liked this episode. Mostly because my brain didn't hurt after watching it. Time travel can get convoluted in heavy doses.
I liked Brian Vaughan sneaking in a Y The Last Man cameo, even if it was the Spanish version.
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
After snooping around, Desmond finds Faraday's lab where he experimented on Eloise in "The Constant". The door is sealed, but Desmond ignores this. The lab is now dilapidated and abandoned. His old attic laboratory, including his rat maze and chalkboard, is now covered in burlap tarps.
That was one busy episode! Rather than drag out the "Do they really go back to the Island? And if so, how?", they just whooshed right to "Yup, it happened, & here are the basics." I'm actually more interested in this format: retroactively filling in the blanks, while simultaneously advancing the ongoing story of "now what?"
I agree that Jack-centric is one of the least interesting perspectives. But at the same time, it's one of the most factual & unambiguous viewpoints. Since they wanted to provide a framework, that's a solid starting point. And now we've pretty much seen all of his return story, so it's done with. :-)
There was something about Desmond stomping right through the pendulum space, not running into it & seemingly unconscious of it, that I just loved. Other than that, what was the point of Faraday sending Desmond to find his mother? She looked slightly surprised at "Daniel Faraday, your son", but other than that, what was the point of him having to trek all the way over to LA? And there was that comment from Widmore, to the effect of "she won't want to see you", that didn't turn into anything.
That comment about "the Island is always moving" is huge. Not "the Island moves from time to time". Interesting.
Lapidus looked better scruffy than he does all tidied up.
I love Ben. I don't have that edition of Ulysses -- mine's older -- but I'm sure somebody will look up what's going on on page 316. :-)
Not so much Daniel's chalkboard (gallery.lost-media.com). Are you thinking of when we've seen her chalkboard in "The Lie"?
------------- At the beginning of "Because You Left", at the very beginning of this season, we have Candle/Chang filming the Orchid station video. The camera operator looks very much like a tidied-up Sawyer. Most of the discussion I saw concluded that it *wasn't* Sawyer & wasn't it nice that they gave his stunt double a bit part. Which I don't buy. Now that we've placed Jin among the Dharmites during their prime time, is it reasonable to say that was indeed Sawyer running the camera?
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For a transitional episode, this one went by pretty quickly, and Jack even racked up another kill. I guess that makes sense since they had a lot of ground to cover because Jack needed a "So... I thought you were dead this morning!