OK...now the "Lost" story is clear to me (spoilers)

[Taverner]

OK...I'm convinced of two things. One: the smoke monster also appeared as Dave to Hurley, Yemi to Eko, Christian Shepard to Jack and the Horse to Kate (and Sawyer.) Methinks its testing them to see if they are "good" or "bad."

Likewise, Juliet's flashcard thingy is also a test to see if Jack is "good" or "bad." The one determiner seems to be whether one is a murderer or not. Sun became "Bad" when she killed Colleen. If Jack goes through and kills Ben, he will be deemed as "bad" and killed. If he does not, my guess is one of two things: (1) Ben, knowing he's dying, will choose Jack as his sucessor or (2) The Others do not, in fact, exist, but are apparitions of the smoke monster.

One theory I've toyed with is that perhaps none of it is real - the smoke monster, the others - all of it a hallucination brought on by the disease that Rousseau talked about.

[mainegreen]

1. Frankly, at this point the only thing that makes sense is aliens.

Four toed statue? Weird eletromagnetic thingy (possible crashed motor)? Space Folding? Nano-Monster?

Screams aliens to me.

[deucemagnet]

2. One thing I can't quite understand.

If the island cured Locke of his paralysis and Rose of her cancer, why wouldn't it cure Ben? Maybe he has to be on the main island to be cured, explaining why he was captured in the jungle by Rousseau and the Losties?

On edit: It also cured Jin's infertility.

[mainegreen]

3. Um, I thought that little one was a result of the affair?

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. The show wasn't really clear on that.

Maybe it's Jins, maybe it's not.

I think the main island does not actually cure people. It just makes the problems go away and stops the progression of the disease, while people on that island. So, when Ben goes back to Otherland, the tumor starts growing again.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

13. Remember when Rose visited the faith healer in Australia?

And he told her something to the effect that different people are attuned to different locations and types of energy to make the healing work?

Ben probably just isn't "in tune" with the healing energies of the Island.

(Maybe this has something to do with the fact that he was born there???)

[genie_weenie]

5. Do the characters exhibit the theories of their namesakes?

Locke, Hume, Rousseau?

This show is way overrated (now) because it started to believe it's own hype at how awesome it was, a similar thing happened to the Sopranos after their first season.

[Taverner]

7. They do, actually

Especially Locke last night - he gave who came with him the choice to do so, the choice to choose one's fate.

It's been mentioned that Jack represents Socialism (no choice, but benign and working for the equalization of all), Sawyer Capitalism (every man for himself), Rousseau like her namesake (move away from everything and start your own commune), and Locke, Political Liberalism (all about freewill.)

[ghostsofgiants]

6. About the last theory you mention...

How would that explain Desmond's girlfriend and the two dudes in the Antarctic or wherever they were?

[Taverner]

8. Good question

That's a very good question! ;)

Perhaps the hatch existed, but the Others don't?

[ghostsofgiants]

9. Could be, could be.

I'm pissed that next week's episode is the last until February. Argh! Fuck the naysayers, I'm hooked and still love that damn show.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

16. Same here

They even killed off one of my favorite characters last night, and I still thought it was the best episode so far this season.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

10. Jack already mercy-killed the US Marshall

So it can't really be about that.

I think Juliet is on the level and really does want Jack to kill Ben. No one has anything to gain by "conning" Jack into killing Ben.

[Taverner]

11. But that's not murder

It's killing, but mercy killing, not murder.

Killing Ben would be Murder

[Tyrone Slothrop]

15. Well, we could argue about that one all day

Regardless, Jack took his life.

One could even argue that killing Ben on the table would be a form of mercy killing; I'm guessing that a giant agressive tumor on the spine is going to be pretty painful.

It just doesn't make sense that you'd let someone kill your leader just to get a sense of whether they're "good" or "bad".

[LynneSin]

12. So basically season #2 is shot to shit

I mean, they got rid of the two girls and now they offed Eco, so why did they even have tailies? I mean, I figured they were going to kill those two red-shirt trekkies that beammed down with Kirk, Spock & McCoy.

Anyhow, Lost has so jumped the shark that the shark is back by the mainland Australia. Eventually I flipped over to watch the top #100 songs of the 80s on VH1

[Taverner]

14. It's because DUI's automatically make you a "bad" person

And you die :)

[Brigid]

17. This is a JJ Abrams show.

Or at least it was originally. Take it from a stll-disgruntled veteran of "Alias" fandom --For the sake of your sanity, do not -- I repeat, do not -- expect "Lost" to make any sense. It never will. I have been boycotting Abrams and ABC ever since the abysmal "Alias" series finale, and I haven't been missing a thing. It's nice to have my sanity back, such as it is, though. :D

[Goblinmonger]

18. I think To Kill a Mockingbird is more important

than a passing allusion.

The title comes from a line in the novel that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because they only sing and make people happy but you can kill all the bluejays you want because they are mean little bastards.

I think this is about people appearing to be good actually being bad. Something developed in The Bad Twin (the seemingly good brother was a prick and the slug-like brother was actually a good guy). Colleen wants to kill Ben (he is the metaphoric mockingbird in this instance) because she wants power. Ben seems like the bad guy but is actually good and Colleen seems like a good person but is really the bad guy. Remember the Sawyer/Kate in the field fight? "She would have killed me." Colleen's a bad one.

[fishwax]

19. of course, it could all still be happening inside hurley's head

i don't think that explanation was entirely shot down by that episode (which was one of my favorites, but, then, I'm a hurley fan).