Good old Dessie, he won’t let Faraday down knowing what he knows!

Maybe it has something to do with the vaccines?

Also, I think it’s obvious at this point that Faraday is Ms. Hawking’s son. No doubt about that. Charlotte was born in the island, so her folks may have been related to the island in an important way. Add to that the recent speculation of Miles being Pierre Chang’s baby (that would be an out of control kid) and you have the common denominator for the freighter three (not counting Lapidus here, I can’t figure him out yet). They are all princes, heirs to the big guns in Lost mythology. Even if Miles heritage is not this one, he certainly has an extra-sensorial skill that gets strengthened in the Island, which would be reason enough to send him there.

http://www.docarzt.com/wp-content/gallery/season-5-premier/lost_jan_21_faraday_notebook_04.jpg

But I definitely think something circular is happening here, in the same way that future Daniel told Des to go back to past Daniel in order to save future Desmond.

Great review but I have a theory that adds to it. I concur that Mrs H is Mama Faraday totally. Further to that though I think when Daniel was rifling through his notebook he couldn’t find the entry that said “if anything goes wrong Desmond Hume is my constant”.

So I think that he had to speak to Des, to tell him to find his mum so somehow his mum could tell him to write it into his notebook, so he would be saved from nose bleedyness? What do you guys think?

Everything about Faraday fascinates me: when he separated from Sawyer and the others, running back to check his pack and then start knocking on the Swan door – we watched him overtaken by a timeshift while talking to Desmond. When he reappears on the beach, Sawyer says he’s been gone for two hours. Two hours? Even taking into account the ‘twenty minutes’ he may have been hammering on the door (if indeed Desmond wasn’t referring to Sawyer’s pounding as well), what happened with the extra time? And, if that timeshift took him forward in time again, wouldn’t the survivors camp have been back on the beach when they arrived, presuming that they are skipping back and forth between the two time periods? Yes, my mind was blown by the season openers and I am clearly still searching for the fuse box …

What stood out for me in the opening episodes came right at the end of “The Lie”. What is this I see before me? Benjamin Linus dithering like a subordinate not knowing what to do next? This coming from the man who supposedly always has a plan? Brilliant twist if you ask me for us to see him like this. It was as though he’d become Henry Gale again. Can’t wait to find out more about Mrs Hawking/Faraday’s role in all of this (Faraday could of course be her maiden name).

I contend that “present time” is actually 2010, which is not coincidentally the end of the show but also the end of their timeline, that is, the furthest right they can go. Our viewer perception of “future” doesn’t mean anything. While it’s all theoretically impossible, time travel into the future doesn’t make sense, only time travel into the past. So if we assume everything on the show is actually in the past, those with knowledge of the furthest right point, ie Ben, have the most power.

The next big question is what is the left limit? I’m not sure if there is one. At first, I wondered if each person could only move within their own lifetime (akin to “The Time Traveler’s Wife” but I don’t think that’s the case. I bet they can move anytime into the Island’s past.

Now, the reason for the skipping. Ben may have enabled it but the Island is just doing what it needs to do in order to connect the dots. The drug plane ALWAYS crashed on the Island. The only way for that to happen would be if the Island was in the Indian Ocean somewhere in the late 1990s so Poof! It was there for a few minutes and jumped back to a time/place to meet the next objective.

I agree that the Others are not affected by the jumps because of their existing connection to the island. Maybe the island was moved with them on it previously.

One thing I found strange was that Richard seemed to know where John was going to jump next.

>Only when Daniel approached him and talked to him at the hatch does present-day
>Desmond wake up and have a sudden memory of this encounter.

I don’t think Desmond simply remembered. I think that Desmond’s “miraculous” thing is that he is somehow unchained from the normal time continuum and does have the power to change the past and the future.

>But in “The Shape of Things to Come,” Ben watches in horror as Keamy guns down Alex
>and he says, “He changed the rules.”

I think the rules are some sort of agreement between Widmore and Ben, not because of the rules of time travel.

I am not sure John told him in the future, but rather the past. This reminds me of the events that happen at the end of “Back of the Future Part II”. The Doc was hit by lighting and blasted to the past. In the past he writes a letter to Marty and gives it to Western Union and tells them to deliver it on such and such a date by such and such a time. In a matter of a few seconds during Marty’s time in the fifty and right after the Doc disappeared he (Marty) receives this letter written a hundred years in the past. Hence I believe Locke jumped back in time and told Richard at such and such a time on such and such a date he will be shot. Now in order for Richard to believe Locke, Locke must provide Richard the compass. Which would create an interesting Lost question and time paradigm. How could Locke send Richard to the site original without the compass? An alternative to this, but less interesting one, Locke jumps back into the not too distant past where Richard knows who Locke is and will be willing to save him.

Or could be he just has special powers now.

And, of course, I side with Ben being the one not meant to return. He wants to control the island (some would argue serve it, but like the Jewish/Christian God, I don’t put much stock in the holiness of genocide by Ben. It can be argued that “The Island” is simply trying to survive like any living creature would. But I’m human, not an island, so I side with humanity, not Islandity.

Daniel very clearly states that Des has some immunity to the rules of time. He’s the only one who can actually change the path. (his resemblance to Jesus is now less of a coincidence…)

I loved loved loved the return to true Sci-Fi, and the fact that they created plot holes and then immediately filled them in. It felt like they were expecting us to say “gotcha,” to which they replied “oh really?”

Why not? He’s affected as the other Others, i.e. he stays in place during the jumps. He even warns Locke that he might not recognize him after another jump (if the jump is into the past).
Desmond is the one whos conciousness is spread throughout time, hence Daniel wants him to come.

>Only when Daniel approached him and talked to him at the hatch does present-day
>Desmond wake up and have a sudden memory of this encounter.

Well, Desmond simply remembered. You can’t put a ‘when’ into that sentence, these events were simultaneous only in the narrative presented to us.

>But in “The Shape of Things to Come,” Ben watches in horror as Keamy guns down Alex
>and he says, “He changed the rules.”

I always thought that he referred to some rules in their fight for the island, like which actions are allowed and which are not. I don’t think that Ben can look into the future to know what’s going to happen.