The Sci Fi Guy

[Warning: Spoiler-ridden… If you want to watch the episode online visit ABC.com and click “Watch Episodes”] So episode 9 of our 16-episode broken-in-half Lost Season 4 is titled, “The Shape of Things to Come”, and I gotta say there’s plenty to chew on for this one. The flash-forward this time around features Ben himself - lost in the African desert. He lands there with a parka on, and appears to be a little confused as to where he is. I’ll be honest, this is starting to make the “Dark World” theory more and more plausable. Let’s not forget that when we were introduced to the characters that made the landing on the island (from the ship), the woman was digging up Dharma-tagged polar bear skeletons in the middle of the desert as well.

Wha the episode provides is a good look at not only the future that JJ Abrams and company are creating (after all, they’re booked for the rest of this season as well as 2 more on top of that) - a war between Benjamin and Charles Whidmore. For some reason they cannot kill each other (or won’t for some strange reason), but towards the end of the episode Ben makes a chilling statement to Charles that Penny, Desmond’s love and Charles’ child, will be the target of Ben’s revenge for the death of his own (not-entirely his) daughter.

Now that we’re starting to integrate the flash-forwards a little better - I’m starting to get that classic “answers-are-giving-me-questions” thing that Lost is so good at creating. First and foremost (and perhaps the key to this entire thing) is who does Jack visit in the funeral home at the end of Season 3? I was swearing up and down that it’s Benjamin, but now that’s not so clear. It can’t be his father ’cause dad’s already dead. It must be someone that has some sort of knowledge of where the island is, and pissed Kate off (pretty sure that still leaves Sawyer out of the picture). I’ve got friends that are saying it’s John Locke… Could be? He’s got no family, really no attatchments, but his death as an Oceanic survivor would be important enough for at least someone to show up. So… Who’s death makes enough news to get in to the LA Times, but is so unpopular that nobody attends the funeral?

As always, more questions, even with the answers. I hate to say it, but that outrageous “Dark-World” theory is starting to honestly sound more and more believable. Stay tuned.

Well, somehow I missed the boat up until now, but my friend just sent me a text message reminding Lost is returning tonight for the rest of Season 4! Glad someone is paying attention to these things, so I figured I’d pass the note along to you fine Scifi-Guy.com readers.

So where were we when we left off? Michael is alive and on the boat as a spy for Ben. Ben is wanted by Penny’s father for who knows what reason. The island’s time-dilation can make people go mad. Oh, and Russo - who waited 16 years to be reunited with her daughter - is dead.

So far I’ve been really satisfied with the pace of this season - they’re finally giving us some answers and closing some loops that have been open for far too long. Compared to Season 3, this season is a definite winner.

So, there’ve been lots of Lost theories. They’re in a dream. They’re all in purgatory. The island has a force field around it. There’s nothing special about the island nor anything else that’s happened and can all be explained by common phenomena. Etc. Etc. Etc. Probably since the first episodes, theories have come and gone in quick sucession. Some have survived rigorous scruitiny, others have easily been obliterated by totally obvious glitches in their foundation.

Then there’s this new theory that my buddy sent me. It’s called the Mirror Matter Moon theory, and I’ll be honest, I can’t figure out what I think of it yet. The creator has done a lot of work to sort out this theory, which basically implies that the island is actually a snow-globe dark-matter world that ocassionally intercepts points on the Earth during it’s tour around our planet… Like I said, I can barely even get where this guy is going, so don’t waste your time on this site - go check it out and see what you think.

Could this be the definitive Lost secret? We’re dealing with something that theoretical physics only mustered up in the last decade or so? I’m curious to see as episodes develop if there are further strengths or weaknesses to this theory, because I tend to believe Occam’s Razor will apply to Lost in the end - the simpler explinations will be the right ones. This Mirror Matter Moon theory is actually pretty simple in it’s fundamental premise… It just requires a dozen pages of explaination to sort out the little details.

Season 4 of Lost, ABC’s survive-on-an-island scifi drama is in full swing, and I’ll admit, this season does not disappoint. They’re practically giving away clues and revealing the nature of not only the island. Last night’s episode features Desmond, our favorite Scottish drunk/hero doing another dance through space and time. Personally, I believe Desmond is the key to numerous mysteries in Lost, for several reasons:

• Desmond has been the only character to demonstrate precognitive powers as we experienced in the famous season 3 line, “Charlie, you’re gonna die.” While his powers may have been limited to visions of Charlie, it does demonstrate that somehow Desmond has powers beyond most of the other characters. Even Locke has been hard pressed to keep on the island’s good side.
• Desmond experienced that flashback episode where he was actually transported back in time - this is the episode where him and Penny get their picture taken together. At the time, I thought it was a stand-alone episode - something along the line of Hurley seeing his made up friend in slippers or Jack seeing his dead father. But the elderly woman that was with him in that episode demonstrated forecasting and precognative capabilities - could Desmond really have been traveling in time? I think, thanks to Farraday’s comments (the physicist now on the island), it’s clear to understand that there’s a power in Lost that has to do with the time traveling and time dilation capabilities of the consciousness.
• And of course, last night’s episode provided us with a really amazing look at the powers of the island, and the complexities of traveling to and from there. If I had to guess - something about Desmond’s trip to see Penny has to do with him getting sent to military prison… We’ll see if that one plays out.

My biggest point in the importance of Desmond to the Lost story has to do with his relationship to Penny - and Penny’s father. Mr. Whidmore was seen last night purchasing the ship’s log for the Black Rock - the TNT-toting vessel trapped in the middle of our island. The seller? Hanso. I’m just saying - I think Whidmore set up the trip around the world and knew Desmond would go through with it just to prove his worth to him - and Whidmore used Desmond to (a) get out of his daughter’s life and (b) discover if the island really did exist.

Desmond is the key to this whole thing people. I’d say comment away and let me have it, but thanks to the spam army, comments are disabled. Drop me a note at dave | at | evokemg -dot- com if you’ve got some thoughts on this, or post up a response on your own blog and I’ll dialogue with you there.

20 minutes to go… I’ll be posting up my thoughts on tonight’s episode later on.

My DVD-watching habits of the last few weeks months have been dominated by re-watching the first 3 seasons of Lost on DVD. Fortunately it’s not a total loss since those crazy island dwellers will be returning January 31st on ABC, with a 2 hour episode.

Check out some early preview photos here: Lost Season 4 Preview Photos [ warning: have popup blocker on ]

So here’s the clues the previews have provided so far:

1. Some will get off the island, some won’t. Interesting. Straw poll to see who gets off the earliest? I say Jack gets off next season - he’s too central to what’s going on. Claire might be allowed to leave. So far no signs of Charlie - could it be that he’s actually deceased? No preview photos of him. . . But Michael does appear to return.

2. The passengers of flight 815 aren’t the rescue freighters‘ “primary objective“. Well, we all know that the island itself is powerful, in both its post-2004 technology (floating nano-cloud security system anyone?). So the question becomes what is on the island that is most valuable? Something we’re already aware of that we haven’t connected the dots, or some new object of imporantance? Jacob obviously is a crucial character - could it be that his presence, the island’s powers, are all intertwined to a long lost episode of Alias?

3. Do we get 8 weeks or the 16 we’ve been patiently waiting for? As of this minute, we get 8. The Scifi Guy supports the Writer’s Strike, even if it means a few delays in some good Spring shows. The web is the next media profit center for the major production organizations, and I think it’s appropriate that the writers be compensated for their work in all distribution channels, not just the ones that have been agreed to so far.

… more to come as I find out more!

Here’s some screen grabs from the Lost Season 4 Trailers…

So our favorite Lost mystery man, JJ Abrams, is just putting the finishing touches on his new feature film, temporarily dubbed “Cloverfield” after the studio code name leaked on the web.

Note: Of course we all know that NOTHING JJ Abrams does is “leaked” - rather it was “let out”.

So what is this film about? Well, it’s your typical New York City monster disaster flick, but I’m sure with a twist. So far there’s a pretty decent list of what it’s not:

• It’s not a Voltron movie. However, there is a Voltron movie in development, tentatively slated to release in 2010. Considering the huge success of Transformers as a proving ground for whether or not we’re ready for big robot blockbuster movies, I’ll bet Voltron’s stock just moved up these last couple months.
• It’s not a pure-play Godzilla movie.
• It’s not going to be named Monstrous.
• It’s probably not a movie about Cthulu, a mythical tentacle creature. However, this last rumor has been around the longest, and as far as I can tell from searching, there’s no official denial that this is our main baddy.

So, there you have it. A long list of speculation.

JJ Abrams, always playing games with his audience, continues to keep this one well in the dark, as well as the next season of Lost. What are we, the innocent audience member to do?

Hang tight.

For those of you who haven’t been, Paul Levinson has a great blog and podcast that he’s titled Infinite Regress. His latest few posts have been on the topic of unanswered questions from Season 3, and more specifically from the season finale. I figured I’d take a stab at some of his questions and see what theories I like right now.

Question Number 1: How far in the future?

Let’s begin with this - how far in the future was the action with Jack and Kate in Los Angeles?

It’s clear that it’s at very least not just a few days or even weeks since Jack and Kate (and whoever else) got off the island. Kate had a lot of make-up on, which did make her look older than her fresh-faced frecked self on the island, and in the flashbacks… (Read the full post at Paul’s Blog…)

Well, I have to say, in regards to this question, I think the Lost producers flashed us forward to present time. There weren’t any hints that were were in any sort of advanced future. Jack’s cell phone was a current model, the airplane was normal, there weren’t any noticeable modern improvements in the hospital or on the roads… Not only that, but some very keen observers pointed out that this paper was actually a modified re-creation of a paper from April 5th of 2007. So, I think with all the pieces of evidence, the Flash Forward is actually a flash to April of 2007. That includes being on the airplane, the several days later that Jack was in the hospital and trying to get doped up, and leading up to his meeting with Kate.

Also, Jack mentions that he’s using his “Golden Pass” every Friday trying to find the Island again - hoping that the plane will crash and he’ll be back on the island. The fact that he had a place to live, a current job, a car, and that statement make it clear that Jack’s been back for at least a few weeks, if not more like a few months (6 months maybe?)

Question Number 2: Who’s in the Coffin?

Well, in true Sherlock Holmes fashion, let’s start with the obvious which can’t be the answer. And once we remove it, we’ll see what’s left.

It can’t be Jack or Kate in the box, unless we’re dealing with time travel or alternate intersecting (not parallel) universes. But let’s assume for the sake of this post we’re not… (Read More from the original…)

In many respects, I’m less interested in who is in the coffin as I am in the reasons Jack would be the only one to visit it. Later in the episode, we learn that Kate also knew the person that was in the coffin, and she had no desire to go to the funeral. So… Here’s what we know about the person in the coffin itself…

The person has to be of enough import to warrant a front page obituary note in the LA Times. That alone is no small feat. Even more notable, is that it profoundly impacted Jack - but who else would be interested in the news if there was only 1 person in the world that cared that this person is dead. Even infamous people have others attend their funerals out of anger - in this case it seemed like Kate (and presumably other survivors) found this person detestible yet they didn’t have to vent any further frustration on their passage.

The name itself may be completely meaningless, because anyone coming back from the island might change their name (or we may not even know their real name or residency as it stands). Lots of Lost survivors have pasts and backgrounds that they may want altered. Even Kate is driving a new Volvo - but she would presumably be in prison if she’d come back to “the real world” as a plane crash survivor. (I’ll get more in to this factor in just a second…)

Question Number 3: Who’s waiting for Kate?

One of Infinite Regress’s readers - muneeb - brought this up in a comment he made to Question 2, and it’s certainly something I - and I’m sure most of you - have been thinking about:

Who is Kate talking about, when she tells Jack that “he’s gonna be wondering where I am,” in the very last, heart-rending scene of the finale? (Read more from Paul’s blog…)

Okay, this is where I go ahead and extrapolate some information and make my own choice about what goes down… Honestly, I think Kate returned from the island either unknown to the rest of the world, or under a false name. Just because that one marshall was dead on the island doesn’t mean that her arrest warrant for murder wasn’t valid. Yet… Jack mentioned to her that he used his “Golden Pass” in a way that implied that she too had this golden pass. Just because you crash in an airplane and survive doesn’t mean you can avoid serving prison for murder.  Well, that’s kind of a tangent, but I think Kate may be operating under an alias… Yet even Kate, the queen of false identities, would have a hard time not getting caught during a presumably public and very media-heavy return.

So, returning to the question at hand- who is waiting for Kate? The obvious first choice is Sawyer. Jack, Kate, and Sawyer have had a love triangle of intrigue since day one, and I can’t imagine that it ends with Jack telling Kate he loves her, right after he finishes kissing Juliet. Sawyer, however, would probably understand why Kate and Jack would need to see each other, and so I’m not convinced that Kate would keep that from him. They’ve survived thus far on the island in awkward sexual and romantic tension. Not only that, but like I commented on Paul’s blog, I just can’t see Sawyer and Kate going out Volvo shopping.

To me, it seems like Kate is off running a new life post-island, and Jack is just off his rocker enough that she can’t be near him anymore.

Question Number 4: Who is Naomi’s Boss?

This is another way of asking, where did Naomi get that picture of Desmond and Penny? It may not be as fundamental as some of the other questions, but it’s still fun and important to consider.

Let’s begin by assuming that Penny is not playing some kind of game and lying to Charlie when she tells him she doesn’t know Naomi … (although I wouldn’t rule that out completely). (keep on reading…)

Okay, here’s where we’re getting to the meat of the upcoming season, I think. At first Ben explains to Jack that Naomi works for someone that will kill “…every living person on this island…” We, the audience, are left to believe that Ben is doing what Ben does - lie about things, or twist the truth to his own benefit.

However, in the final moments of the episode, when Penny appears, it becomes clear that not only does she not know who Penny is (which, could simply be explained by the fact that not every boss knows the people they hire), but more importantly she remarks that she doesn’t know anything about a boat.

So. That leaves us with wondering whether or not the boat is an enemy of everyone on the island, an enemy of Ben’s (… which might also imply that it’s an enemy of Jacob’s), or nobody’s enemy: Ben would rather just keep the island and its powers safe from outside knowledge. Paul seems to be leaning towards the idea that Penny’s father is somehow involved in the whole ordeal, including whatever brought Desmond to the island, and that Penny and her father are reaching towards the same thing but for vastly different reasons.

One thing worth noting was that the voice on the radio that Jack had contacted seemed enthusiastic - not menacing or threatening. But it also loops back to question number one - if Jack and the rest of the survivors get rescued, how do they lose the island again? Wouldn’t someone, somewhere, keep a record of the location of the island?

Question Number 5: Is Mikhail (and Locke) Immortal?

Desmond killed him with a dart to the chest - or badly wounded him - right before our very eyes in the Season 3 finale. This about a few weeks or whatever after Locke shoved him through the perimeter fence, and Mikhail received a massive jolt that left him smokin’, literally, not in a good way.

And yet Mikhail came back from that, almost as good as new, with a story about the voltage not being set on kill. And in the finale he’s out there leering in front of Charlie’s hatch window, grenade in hand, as if the dart that had just been in his chest were no more than a sticky paper star. (Read more of the original here…)

Paul has 3 theories… The island’s healing powers continue to heal Mikhail and Locke faster than anyone else, Mikhail somehow has access to time travel, or Mikhail is actually a clone of himself. Since cloning has never been an issue brought up before, I too am going to sort that in the “not exactly likely” category. That leaves really two possible options - Mikhail is immortal similarly to Locke, or Mikhail has some sort of premenition or time travel powers, perhaps similar to Desmond’s preminitions.

Honestly, I think it has something to do with Jacob. Don’t ask me what gives me that specific sense, but it seems like Mikhail and Locke, along with Ben, are working to serve another purpose - something that I think revolves around the mystery of Jacob. Perhaps Mikhail is visited by a mysterious being that shouldn’t be there same as Locke sees Walt and Jack sees his dad (from Season 1) and Hurley sees his nut-house friend with the numbers (Season 2, I believe).

Obviously, Des did enough damage to throw Mikhail off for a while, but perhaps Mikhail had a premenition that he’d be hit and so was wearing some sort of armor or protection from the spear that Desmond shot him with. When we see Mikhail in the water later, as he is about to detonate the grenade, it appears that he’s uninjured - he smiles and there’s no pool of blood following him around. Another question worth noting is - does Mikhail survive the grenade explosion? Any explosive set underwater causes a violent pressure differential - even if you can swim away from it. That sort of intense pressure would at least have to knock a guys’ eardrums off - if not do some serious damage to his body.

Oh well. Lots of time to keep considering questions about Lost. I’ll look forward to the season premier next year - keeping my fingers crossed there will be lots of answers!

Well, ABC’s Lost has had some cliffhanger finales in the past, and this one is defintely on par with the previous two.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the Lost Season 3 Finale, you might not want to read the rest of this post!

To backtrack a little, we have essentially 3 simultaneous stories to follow coming in to the finale: Jack & the main group of survivors heading up to the radio tower to disable Russo’s message, Sayid, Bernard, and Jin staying back to ambush the Others that are trying to kidnap the women of the island, and Charlie & Desmond’s quest to disable the radio jammer.

The finale began with Jack on an airplane, sporting a beard to rival George Clooney’s in Syriana. He is obviously shaken up and trying his hardest to get another drink, when the stewardess hands him a newspaper. He reads a headline that obviously affects him, although there’s no revelation of what that headline is. He touches down in Los Angeles, and drives around, eventually reaching a bridge (which, to me looked like one of the Long Beach Port bridges, but perhaps that’s just my affinity to Long Beach). He makes a phone call, and then gets out of his truck and stands on one of the sides of the bridge - about to commit suicide. Suddenly a car screeches behind him, and an enormous accident occurs - to which Jack runs to help.

Returning to the island, the characters are all essentially rip roaring ready to go on their adventures. Charlie is getting beat the hell up by the two women, who break their “radio silence” with Ben to communicate Charlie’s appearance. Apparently, all the Others thought the Looking Glass Dharma Station was flooded, and as Ben has to admit the situation, it becomes apparent that his leadership is based on quite a few lies and mysteries to his force of Others. He send Mikhail to the Looking Glass to stop Charlie and to regain control.

Meanwhile, we get some more flashbacks, including Jack in the hospital being stitched up and his ex-wife showing up in the ER. His ex-wife is pregnant, and when he asks for a lift home she says it “wouldn’t be appropriate,” and Jack carries on without her. It was a strange cameo, to say the least - I’m not sure if we were supposed to infer anything more from that interaction.

On the island, the ambush of the Others goes 70% right and 30% wrong. Unfortunately, they needed 100% success to pull it off, and Jin, Sayid, and Bernard are now the unhappy hostages of the 3 others that they weren’t able to kill. One thing about this episode, it actually reinforced some of the characters’ strength. Sayid tells Jack earlier that he’s willing to die to ensure the rest could be rescued from the Island, and Charlie even admits his acceptance of his future watery-grave to his captors.

As the main contingent of survivors walks towards the radio tower, Kate decides she wants to head back to help rescue the hostages (even though they don’t know for certain that rescue or help is an option). Sawyer, meanwhile, has obviously been a different man since he was given the opportunity to kill the real Sawyer (Locke’s “father”). There’s a lot of tension between Kate & Sawyer, and finally he approaches Jack in an effort to return to the beach to attempt a rescue. Juliet chimes in that she can show him the way to a cache of firearms, so she invites herself along too. Kate tries to come along, but both Sawyer and Jack won’t let her. Shortly the clearest answer yet from Jack emerges. When Kate asks him why Jack was so quick to concur with Sawyer, Jack responds simply, “I love you,” and walks away. Thank god that cat is finally out of the bag!

Anyways. So, where was I? Right - so Charlie had knocked Desmond out, and Des wakes up on the canoe. Suddenly bullets start whizzing past him as Mikhail is trying to shoot him from the shore; so Des jumps in to the water and dives down to the Looking Glass. When he arrives, the two captors are having a chat behind closed doors, so Des is able to find a hiding place until his chance arrives. Some time passes, and Mikhail arrives in scuba gear. He gets on the horn with Ben, and Ben convinces him to kill the women and keep that jammer running.

So many stories going on at once! So now Ben is walking to meet the main survivors on their way to the radio tower to talk them out of contacting the ship. Sawyer, Juliet, and Hurley are on their way to save the hostages on the beach, and Charlie is still held captive with Desmond waiting for his time to save him.

Returning to the flashbacks, Jack’s job is on the line as his drinking and pain-killer drug use gets worse. He visits a funeral home (apprently in a Los Angeles ghetto?) to respond to whatever he read in the paper. The casket is closed, and no name is provided by the funeral attendant. Jack walks up to the casket, doesn’t reveal a thing! and walks away.

Meanwhile, on the island, Ben intercepts Jack on the island and tries to talk him in to handing over the sat-phone, with the argument that Naomi is not from a rescue unit, but rather part of the “bad guys” that, when they arrive, will kill every “living person” on the island. I don’t know if there was anything to catch in adding the “living” on there, but I caught it anyways. To attempt to persuade Jack, Ben contacts the beach and tells the remaning Others to kill them - and Jack is forced to let the walkie talkie announce 3 gunshots (presumably the death of Sayid, Bernard, and Jin. Then Jack pummels the hell out of Ben, and brings him back to the group and starts getting on the move.

Meanwhile, down at the Looking Glass station, Mikhail had previously gotten the order to kill the women and secure the station for himself. He shoots and kills one of the women, and wounds the other one, and as he’s about to make the kill shot - Desmond emerges and shoots him with a speargun. Now Charlie must get the code to disable the jammer - to which the dying woman states it’s the key-tone combination that creates the notes to “Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys” Interestingly, she also states that it was programmed by a musician, which makes us wonder - as the only certified musician on the survivors, was Charlie’s appearance at the Looking glass even more fate than just Desmond’s prediction.

Back at the beach, Hurley saves the day by driving the VW bus and surprising the Others, letting Sawyer and Juliet rescue the hostages. And Jack and Russo disable her radio signal.

Okay, now the big reveals:

• Mikhail is essentially immortal, as far as I can tell. He disappears from the Looking Glass’ moon pool (after being shot by a freakin spear gun!), only to set a hand grenade outside of the room Charlie was in. However, that’s not before Charlie was able to disable the jammer to reveal: Penny! Desmond’s lady luck is live on the air and she reveals a startling bit of knowledge: The ship off the coast is not hers, and Naomi is not one of her team. The grenade explodes, and Charlie is forced to shut himself in the room - sealing his fate just as Desmond had predicted. But before he can drown, he writes one final message to Desmond - “NOT PENNY’S BOAT”. And then Charlie drowns, trapped in the room exactly as Desmond had envisioned.

• Locke is essentially immortal too! After being shot and lying on the mass Dharma grave, he awakens to find that his legs aren’t working again. He finds a gun and immediately tries to kill himself (second suicide attempt in the episode by the way). Before he can put the gun to himself, he is visited again by a voice and character long since forgotten: Walt. Walt tells John that he has things to do, and that his legs are fine.

Naomi announces that the satellite phone works, and she dials to the outside world, but then is suddenly shot. Lo and behold, Locke has arrived, and aims the gun at Jack as the satellite phone continues to ring unanswered. Locke threatens that he’ll kill Jack, but as Jack picks up the phone, Locke lowers his gun - he can’t kill his friend. A voice answers, and Jack joyfully announces to the person on the other end that they’re the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, and asks if they can triangulate their position (which they respond that they can). Are they truly a rescue? According to Ben they’re not, and Penny had told Charlie that it wasn’t her boat either (even though Naomi had a copy of the famous Desmond and Penny picture, and also knew who Desmond and Penny are).

• And of course, the super-reveal. Jack makes a phone call, asking someone to meet him even though they obviously asked that he not call them. He arrives at an airport, and another car pulls forward. A woman gets out and walks to Jack.
  It’s Kate.
  It’s not a flashback. It’s a flash-forward. These two are off the island.
  Jack tells Kate that he’s been using the “Golden Pass” that he recieved (obviously some form of reimbursement for their crash) to fly out of LA every Friday night to travel to destinations across the Pacific, in the hopes that the plane would crash and he would be returned to the island. Kate tells Jack that she has to get back “to him” - are we left to infer that off the island Kate is with Sawyer? Or someone else? Jack can’t stand the world - he is miserable that he was taken off the island, and yearns to return there. We still don’t know who was in the coffin, but one potential is that it was actually Ben’s funeral. Jack might have been the only one to attend under the circumstances as we see them presently.

So, there you have it. The finale ends with Charlie dead, Penny is alive and still trying to contact the island, Naomi is shot (and presumably dead), Locke is alive, Walt is still in some way on the island (although it could be a familiar form for Locke and the character is actually Jacob), rescue is presumed to be coming, and they have communication abilities. Oh, and lets not forget that we’re being told what future is in store for Jack and Kate.

I was left pretty satisified with the episode. Cliffhanger as it was - it provided a new direction for the survivors and made it very clear that the future of Lost will not be the same as the past. Too many cats are out of the bag - including now the ability to communicate with the outside world. However, there’s plenty of questions left outstanding. My top 5 questions are:

• Does Naomi’s rescue mission mean a new enemy is approaching?
• Is Jack’s fate sealed by the flash-forward that we viewed? Is it a possible future - and not the future?
• Now that Charlie is dead, are Desmond’s predictive powers gone?
• Who was in the casket?
• What is Walt? There have only been a couple characters that have seen visions of other people from their past - as far as I can recall it’s Locke (of Walt), Jack (of his dad), and Hurley (of the guy from the insane asylum).

I’ll be sure to update this post as I find some other information from other fansites - especially the all-important easter eggs.

Edit: For those looking for some of the easter eggs, there’s the great Lost Easter Egg screencap site: http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/

Here’s some of the latest rumors that I’ve been able to find:

Apparently, the newspaper that Jack is handed is a modified copy of an actual LA times newspaper from April 6, 2007 (that’s right - present time). So, it appears that the flash-forward is actually the “present day” of our stories. The contents of the obituary mention seem to have many people thinking that the name mentioned is Jeremy Bentham, a reference to an 18th century philosopher.

Other connections to philosophers include: John Locke (another philosopher’s name) as well as Desmond Hume which might be a reference to David Hume, another philosopher. To make Jeremy Bentham’s connection even more intriguing is the notion that he theorized the Panopticon, “the concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.” In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”

• Was this the creator of the island? The founder of the Dharma institue? If so, the name would be fitting - and Jack would be maddened by the fact that it would’ve been one of the only people potentially left alive who would know where the island is.

Tonite! The Lost Season Finale! I’ll be on afterwards to share my thoughts about how Season 3 wraps up. I have to admit, they lost me for a while there, but perhaps the finale will redeem the season.

Oh, for those of you Lost fans that haven’t seen it, there’s a great (humorous) Season 3 summary over at LiveJournal. Check it out here:

Lost Season 3 Summary