[...] This information unquestionably tells it like it is. It’s right in line with my thinking and I deemed it worthy of a link back to it on my blog. Thank you. [...]…

Yes, the Magic Box was a metaphor, because if you rewatch the Man From Tallahassee, while Locke is in the closet holding Alex at gun point, Tom and Richard are in Ben’s room speaking with Ben in bed. Ben clearly orders Richard to “Go get me the man from Tallahassee…”

Later (in the Brig, I believe) when questioned, Anthony Cooper describes how he remembers arriving on the island. Goes something like this “I was driving on I-90 and a car pushes me into the guard-rail and as I come to a paramedic looked at me and smiled and then I woke up here” If that’s not Richard GETTING the Man From Tallahassee than I will eat my hat!

I’m telling you, there’s something to everyone being knocked out before they travel to the island by sub…. Mark my words… there’s something more to that and I’m not convinced that sub is really going to and from the island.

The difficulty that Dharma seem to have for making regular deliveries make me wonder how they manage to keep a contant supply of fuel to run any sort of power generation.

My guess is that we will never find out and this will be left as one of the unexplained mistery.

By the way, I love how you related Locke to Gandalf the Grey turning into Gandalf the White. I had thought of that comparison myself, and it’s an honor to see you made that equation too!

BTW: How do you explain Widmore’s and Tom’s off island excursions since there were times they couldn’t have used the donkey wheel nor sub? I think there is an as-of-yet unrevealed third way on and off.

Second, I doubt anyone will agree with you. As Darth Bubba already said, you can’t chalk up what may be a mystery as a continuity error. Just because you don’t understand it, and you havent figured it out, doesn’t mean its an error. It just means you need to sit back, watch the show, and wait to see how things play out.

And Brady Bunch is a bad suggestion. He’ll end up trying to figure out how Marcia breaks her nose in one episode, and is fine the next.

I’d forgotten how much religious imagery we’ve seen on this show, so I particularly liked your animation showing some of it – and how varied are the origins of it.

Like you, I was a little suprised that Smokey gave Ben a pass on all his other bad deeds. Apparently, the Island separates the personal from the political. His personal hubris led to the death of Alex. For the rest, it seems he was just doing his job. That seems bizarre to me, but I guess we’ll have to keep it in mind as we watch Locke’s behavior in future.

It was an episode giving us much to reflect on, and you’ve certainly done it justice in your very thoughtful recap. Thanks!

This passage really worked for me: Time has frozen since the fateful day that the Island’s Will (or Charles Widmore’s will, depending on how you’re reading all this) was carried out against poor, innocent Alex. This is one of your great strengths (in addition, of course, to animated gifs and the like ): stating what was clear in the episode but highlighting such that now the facts are inextricable. Ben’s Achilles heel for kids was made clear by the ep, but you strengthened that fact by tying Alex’s death to time freezing. *Awesome*.

Really interesting idea that on the Island, death isn’t such a huge issue, since the living and the dead can coexist fairly peacefully. I’d never considered it from that angle before. But it’s true that, as the writers say, being dead doesn’t necessarily mean you lose your job on this show.

I didn’t even notice that Richard’s words to Ben about living with them but not being ONE of them echoed Jack’s tattoo message about walking among them but not being of them. What will that ultimately mean for Jack? Ben was not “of” his people, and because of that he ended up massacring all of them. Presumably Jack is not going to go that route, but will he instead die to save all of his flock? Is that how he’s not really “of them” – because he’s only there to shepherd them, but not to remain with them? Moses himself never made it to the promised land, it was Joshua who brought the people that last leg of the journey. (Interesting that we don’t have a character named Joshua yet.. do we?)

Last but not least, that Wizard of Oz manip cracked me up. The ugliest Dorothy ever! LMAO. And I thought of that scene too during the episode. The cultural references were just stacked in layers for this one – which makes reading the recap almost more fun than watching the episode, for me at least. Great job!