"As anyone watching the show has noticed, many of these events repeat themselves. But why? Is this all the island knows? Lacombe plays violin, Charlie plays guitar... were they both lured there specifically for the same purpose: because a musician was needed to disable the jamming equipment in the underwater station? And if so, did the island kill the both of them in order to remain hidden? Because it sure seems like it did, or at least in the case of Charlie it was trying to kill him while Desmond kept on preventing it."

Things I Noticed - "This Place is Death" by Vozzek69

"It's not a coincidence (because remember, nothing's a damn coincidence on Lost) that this doomed group of Frenchies consisted of a pregnant girl, a sarcastic blond tough guy, a string instrument player and a guy who leaves no one behind. Ok, there were no incestuous siblings, no lame man finding his sea legs, no angry little boy with a dog. It's not exactly the same. But there is a befuddled Korean man trying desperately to comprehend a foreign language. In fact it's the exact same befuddled Korean man, more confused now than ever."

Which leads us to the grand question - why all the coincidences? Why the parallels, the repeated lines, the six-degrees-of-Hugo-Reyes? Are these artistic touches by TPTB or is there some reason for all the interconnectedness?

Robert seemed a bit too quick and easy with "It's not a monster, it's a security system guarding that temple" - like that explains anything - IT'S A GODDAMN HOWLING, CLANKING, MURDEROUS PILLAR OF BLACK SMOKE.

And Robert looked kind of murderous when he pulled the trigger.

Me, I'm going for possessed dead people - because how cool is that? The Zombie season is looking a little more likely.

Island - Unknown Date

Too Much Fun = Creepy Grin

"Where would be the fun in that?" - I think the stress of doing the Island's bidding is beginning to push Locke around the bend.

We never heard Christian tell Locke that Locke had to move the Island:

• Christian: "We don't have time for this. The people from the boat are already on their way back, and once they get here, all of these questions won't matter one bit. So why don't you ask the one question that does matter?"
• Locke: "How do I save the island?"
• ......
• Ben: "Did he tell you what we're supposed to do?"
• Locke: "He did."
• Ben: "Well?"
• Locke: "He wants us to move the island. "

Christian didn't tell Locke how to move the Island! Sweet Jeebus, even the undead masterminds on this Island can't communicate worth a damn.

And of course Locke didn't bother to ask. That would make to much sense. "Move the Island? Sure thing, no problem, do it all the time, I'll get right on it. See you later."

On the other hand, Christian says that Locke has to get all his "friends" together.

"Locke lived his life with hopes of becoming a great leader. At the end of Season Four, his dream appeared to come true. The Island had cast out his two rivals, Jack and Ben, and chosen him to lead the people left behind. The ending of This Place is Death reveals the true nature of the destiny he had been seeking for so long. He was chosen not as a leader, but as a martyr, the sacrifice that the Island demanded. His whole life had been pointing him towards his one great accomplishment, his death. In possibly the most heartbreaking moment of the entire series, Locke accepts his fate, without a single complaint. He loses everything in one scene, more than any character in this epic story called Lost. Locke loses his friends as the Island buries him under its surface; he once again loses the power to walk, in a remarkably painful fashion; he loses his beloved Island, never to return to it in living form; and ultimately he will lose his life. In return, he gains nothing, except the assurance that someone believed in him."

I think the "time skips" are controlled and purposeful. The Leftbehinds are being moved around in time in order to accomplish specific tasks.

1. First shift: Between 2001-2002: Tells the Leftbehinds that they are time-travelling.
2. Second shift: 2005 or later: Locke has to get the watch and partial instructions from Richard.
3. Third shift: Between 2001-2002: Faraday tells Desmond to find Faraday's mother in the future. ***
4. Fourth shift: 1954: Widmore has to meet Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte, so that he picks them for his freighter's science team. Locke has to give Richard the watch and tell him Locke's birthday. Locke has to disappear in front of the Others, creating his "specialness". Faraday has to get his mother interested in time travel.
5. Fifth shift: Monday, 1 November 2004: Locke sees the column of light from the Swan hatch and Sawyer watches Kate help Claire deliver Aaron. I admit it, I see no purpose for this skip beyond fanboy coolness.
6. Sixth shift: January 1, 2005 or later: There are boats on the beach they can use.
7. Seventh shift: Friday, 18 November 1988: Jin is moved so he can be rescued by the French. Jin takes them towards the Radio Tower, so that the French can be attacked by Smokey. Jin saves Rousseau from going down the hole.
8. Eighth shift: Between January 3-17, 1989: No task I can see, though maybe Jin needs to know about the "sickness" or Rousseau needed to be made more crazy.
9. Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh shifts: Unknown : Disconnects Charlotte from time so that she can remember the Well and tell Locke.
10. Twelfth shift: After the Orchid greenhouse is destroyed: The Orchid has to be there so that they know they've found it.
11. Thirteenth shift: Between the time the Well and the Orchid are built: Locke has to go down the well to get to the FDW.
12. Fourteenth shift: Before the Well is built: Locke has to be cut off from the Leftbehinds. Maybe his injury serves some purpose and/or this is the time that Christian is waiting for him.

***Big Prediction Time:

This is the exception that proves the rule. Faraday DID NOT talk to Desmond in the original "supposed to happen" timeline. If he had, Desmond would have remembered meeting him at the Swan when he meets him again at the helicopter. Why Desmond "remembers" the meeting 3 years in Faraday's (non-time-travelling) future instead of only a few hours after escaping the Island I have no idea. But if this meeting was the reason for this time skip then I THINK THAT FUTURE FARADAY AND/OR DESMOND IS CONTROLLING THE TIME TRAVEL: Faraday because of his scientific knowledge, Desmond because of his "unique" properties. One or both of them is making sure that the Leftbehinds go to the times in the past they have to go to (because they did go, it did happen) because if they don't then the past they came from won't exist, and that would be bad. We know Faraday spends time working at the Orchid station, so this is where the time skips are controlled.

The way I see it, at the very least Locke (and probably Jin and the Science Team) and maybe all the Leftbehinds (and probably the O6 too) were "destined" to go time-travelling, whether Charlie killed the jamming and let Widmore know where the Island was or not. Even in a timeline where the Losties don't find Naomi and don't contact the freighter, and don't get in a escalating conflict with Ben and the Others, some or all of the Losties would have to time travel in order to "create" the past that underpins the present. I've made my brain hurt very much imagining the alternative plot that allows them to time travel without Ben turning the FDW. I do know that if they didn't leave Sun would have died in childbirth. And the lightning that was supposed to kill Charlie should have killed Claire and Aaron too.

I think that the reason the O6 have to return is that they are needed to do their own time skipping tasks. And if Faraday/Desmond are controlling the time skips, using the Losties to properly create the past, then they themselves are creating their past - not just mirroring, but a hall of mirrors.

"If I'm right, this will create the fifth confirmed predestination loop on the show:

1. That the time-skipping Lostaways themselves assured the crash of Oceanic 815 by giving the Others 50 years to plan for it and ensure its occurrence.
2. Locke was the one who first made Alpert interested in Locke, eventually precipitating his arrival on the Island and his seeming ascension to Others leadership.
3. Daniel cemented his own grooming as a temporal troubleshooter by demonstrating to his future mother, Eloise Hawking, that time travel was possible.
4. Charlotte confirms that it was Dan Faraday whose warning to stay away from the Island on pain of death no doubt had the reverse effect, guaranteeing it.
5. It was Hurley's own voice heard by Leonard Simms and Sam Toomey at their listening station broadcasting the Numbers which found their way to Hurley, allowing him to win the lottery and secure his place on flight 815.

This would also strongly imply that 1) the O6 will get back to the Island, and 2) that they're going to spend some time with the DHARMA Initiative in the past. I'm also betting that we'll see at least a few more of these loops before we're done.

Again, I put it to you that the big question we all need to be asking about time travel is, "from how far into the future have time travelers come back, leaving a warning of their existence?" I'd be willing to bet that at least the Island and Eloise Hawking have knowledge from farther in the future than the O6's departure on their return trip to the Island."

"Welcome to the messy divorce season of Lost. See: an Island separated from its place in space; souls ripped from their designated points in time; a fellowship of castaways pulled apart, a band break-up of such unholy wrongness in the eyes of almighty destiny that unless they are reunited...well, "God help us all," as we've repeatedly been told this year. (If only someone had used that argument on the Beatles 30 years ago...) "This Place Is Death" brought out the theme of dissolution in bold relief, as unions of all sorts were dissolved in various ways. Charlotte died on Daniel. Danielle Rousseau and her French dude, Robert, decoupled with shotguns and madness. Jin turned in his wedding ring. John Locke split from the Island. And good lord, did you see that arm get ripped off poor Montand?! Did you heart the wet icky splooge of his limb being shorn away?! "Put asunder," indeed."

Thoughts on Smokey:

• For a entity of such stealth, speed, and power, Smokey hasn't shown itself to be an effective killer. I suppose a lot of this is due to dramatic considerations - you don't have much of a story if Smokey kills off most of the characters.
• Also, if Smokey is too powerful, Widmore wouldn't pose a threat.
• But even considering this, I think that Smokey deliberately "played" with the French to lure them to the temple. It could have killed Montand just like it killed Nadine and then gone after the rest of the group. If it is just a "security system" why does it drag some people into holes instead of just kill them?

• "The Great Radzinsky used a different name for the creature, Cerberus, which offers another clue as to its purpose. In Greek mythology, Cerberus was name given to the three-headed canine beast which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent souls from escaping. No one who crosses into the Underworld is ever supposed to return to the world of the living. Lost's version of Cerberus seems to serve that same function for the Island. It possesses other abilities as well: the ability to re-animate corpses (Yemi and perhaps Christian), and to infect living bodies (Montand and Robert). In the seminal episode Walkabout, John Locke stared down the Monster face-to-face. Since that point, Locke has taken it upon himself to perform the task designated to Cerberus: to ensure that no one ever leaves the Island. It was Locke who eventually smashed that same transceiver, who detonated the Flame station, destroyed the submarine, killed Naomi, and turned a gun on his friends as they trekked to the radio tower. Locke may not be 'infected' in the same manner as Robert, but he has been acting as the willing agent of Cerberus for some time. John himself has become another security system of sorts, assigned to protect the Island."

  Lost 5.05: Die Together, Live Alone

The theme of the week was HOLES. Holes in the head.

Holes in the heart.

Holes in space.

Holes in time.