Lostwatch: You Can't Make a Record If, You Can't Make a Record If, You Can't...

@James in response to two of the questions you raise -
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It certainly seems that the Losties move in time, but also because the island appears to disappear, it seems that it moves too. But not with them. Maybe those spots on Mrs. Hawking's compu-map are the places it moves to in space.
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Based on the fact that the Others (I'm assuming only the original inhabitants, 'cause clearly Juliet moves too) don't move with the flashes - and depending on when exactly the plane crashed don't age - I'm guessing that the Others are *part* of the Island in some way.
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And now here's my quick rain of flaming arrows... er, bullets until I'm able to process everything overnight:
*Sayid went rogue from Ben? But it was such a loving relationship.
*I'm happy Sun is still badass. Real happy.
*"Libby says 'hi'"... even as a ghost/hallucination, Ana-Lucia's a jerk.
*So the O6 has to go back to get the island and/or Losties to stabilize in time, and Des has to go back in order to help Charlotte (or so my memory tells me)... but what about Frank? Or Walt?
*Widmore waylaying Sun at the Oceanic terminal implies that he owns the airline. Iiiinteresting.

I don't know where to begin, so I'll start with what struck my funny bone:
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1) Richard to Locke: "It points north." Brilliant. And clearly the producers/writers messing with us, after all the preview scenes showing the compass in Locke's hand.
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2) Frogurt. After the Scott/Steve comedy bit (that lasted multiple seasons, and was a constant funny reminder -- particularly if you watch the episodes later on -- that there were other non-main characaters on the island)....well, Frogurt randomly appearing, becoming a big (complaining) deal, and then quickly getting an arrow to the heart? Well, I laughed. A lot.
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As for substantive stuff...it's not Ben that I'm not trusting anymore. I don't trust Sun.

"* So: Past Ethan does not recognize Locke. But Past Richard does"

I think that was actually present (relatively speaking) Richard.

I got the impression that the island was shifting back and forth between the past and present just like Desmond did when he became unstuck. If so, does the island have a constant?

Again, we should be following the Reverse Occam's Razor (rozaR s'maccO?) with this show: Just because Daniel eventually ends up in the 1970's doesn't mean everyone does (though there is nothing to stop that either). And since Candle is Dharma, it means they wake up at 8:15... Although it was odd to see that, unlike last year, where the Comic Con reveal sat unmentioned for the entire season (and did ruin the surprise for many of us), here they get it out of the way in the very first scene of the season.
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Also, there's nothing to indicate the Others aren't along for the ride as well into the past (more on that in a second) - we just didn't see any shots of them.
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Because you missed the point with Richard - that was the Richard of the Past - i.e., eventually Locke will end up in the past before that point and inform then-Richard of the details ("I'll be born on this date, and oh yeah, save me from dying on this other date too please").
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About Expose - Nikki's role was finished on the show in the last episode she filmed; she was killed off by their ally-turned-archenemy (store that for later).
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A couple random points before I get to the meat:
That Sayid was being attacked with non-lethal measures makes me think it was Ben's goons that were after them. As to why Ben & Sayid had their breakup, it could be that Sayid found out Ben was using him to kill people unrelated to Nadia's murderers - or that Ben's people killed Nadia themselves to break any connection Sayid had with the "real world".
As you said, same deal with Kate's sudden legal issues.
As soon as Miles went off to "hunt", I knew that he was just looking for an animal ghost to backtrack to its corpse. But doesn't that throwaway concept imply that animals definitively have ghosts, adding another wrinkle to the various mystery animals of previous seasons (Kate's horse, Hurley's bird, etc.)?
Amusingly enough, a couple months ago you joked Locke would be put on ice - and that is indeed his current status!
Err, Charlotte alone was getting nosebleeds - I don't think everyone is at risk for Constant-disease. Though it does make me wonder, just when is Charlotte having her bout of Constant pox - still in the future, or in the past when she (apparently) left the Island as a small child?
I am confused on one point - didn't Locke look up after the last time jump to see the smuggler plane in the tree (with smoke coming out of an engine, no less). Doesn't that stricly put the Islanders (and their double assailants) in the time period between Eko becoming a priest and 815 crashing, so only 10-15 years before 815?
And was I the only one that couldn't quite place the accent on their uniformed assailants? Are they Danielle's "science" team?
One interesting point in the Science vs Faith argument: some of the biggest universities in the world (Harvard, Cambridge) started out as religious seminaries before they turned to science.
Including Oxford. Ms. Hawking is Daniel's mother. (At least nominally - should could be a nun, and Daniel adopted.) What that reversal of the father/child dynamic of the show means is unknown.
And now the meat: Ben & Hawking working together. Wow. Now, lets get out of the way that they need not have always been allies. But if they have...
My Peace Treaty theory, The Rules - all of it is shot. If the two have worked together since before 815, then it explains numerous things on the show - Desmond was left alone because Hawking decreed he must not be interfered with; Kelvin was an Other and he and the food drops were staged as "Dharma" to keep Desmond in his fated role. And Ben then knew that there would be "pregnant women on that plane" not because he knew it was a trap, but because Hawking told him (thus Aaron moves back to being a pivotal plot mover). Ben just had no idea things would spiral so out of control after they arrived.
It also adds another winkle to just how dejected Ben is in the Season four finale - Ben gets exactly the help he needs when the anointed ones arrive (i.e. he will be present for whatever their great fate is), and next thing you know, he's being cast out to protect those anointed ones. Nothing like dropping out of the cool kids' club.
Of course, that leaves the biggest question of the season - why was Ben so eager to let them leave last season, when now he has to get them back. Was the freighter supposed to explode earlier, such that the chooper would have to go back to The Island (and thus never make it back?) Or was he given bad info in the past? This sudden change in motives makes no sense to me.
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All in all, this was the most intense of the season openers, raising dozens of questions and putting a massive chunk of the history in doubt. If the next 32 episodes will all be like this, hold onto your hats...

[...] Related reading: “Lostwatch” on TIME.com [...]

so...

I don't know about this guys

I think some of the time travel stuff is a bit consistent with what's already happened in previous seasons

For Example:

- The Losties need to return to the island as requested by Faraday to Desmond, Richard to Locke, etc. so they can become the people on the island's CONSTANTS

- Richard Alpert never ages, and hasn't since Locke was a kid... Maybe he has a constant already?

- It would be fitting if the two skeletons found in season 1, "Romeo and Juliet" were actually Sawyer and Juliet or more likely Charlotte and Faraday (as they both wanted to return to the island so badly).... maybe they got stuck without constants and died in the past (By the way how can the Losties be Miles', Faraday's or Charlotte's constants??)

Favorite two parts:

1. Obviously when Hurley throws the hot pocket at ben
2. Seeing the donkey-wheel on the picture shown to Faraday by the construction guy

That gave me a serious W . T . F . moment

Best moment? Without question, Sayid killing Intruder No. 2 by impaling him on the steak knives in the dishwasher. Sayid's fights with Keamy and with the beach strike force were pretty awesome, but nothing beats tonight.

Liked seeing Frogurt make a brief, annoying return. Loved seeing more of Black Widow Sun. Yunjin Kim does such a great job of conveying Sun's frightening, vengeful strength just by refusing to break eye contact. We saw it with Widmore and last season during her hostile takeover of Paik Industries. Quite a turnabout for a character who spent much of Season One looking at the ground, fulfilling every stereotype of the docile, submissive Asian woman.

I actually think that was a Richard of the future, the future being any point after the island initially moved "3 years ago". When Richard tells Locke that he will tell him I think he means that from Locke's perspective, not his own. At some point the island stops hopping around and settles back into 3 years ago time or some time shortly after that. At that point Locke will go find the others and tell Richard what happened. Shortly after that Richard will go off and find Locke, shot, heal him, and send him on his way.

This is also the only way for Richard to know that Locke had to die. That scene would have had to have taken place after the initial time jump.

maybe I need to watch them again, but I was kind of 'meh' about both episodes. There were great individual moments, like when Hurley told his mom what happened on the island and when Sawyer slapped Faraday, but all of the mythological/time stuff -- which I normally love -- just felt showy rather than necessary at this point. Sun FTW, though.

Richard of the future gave Locke the compass so that when Locke runs into Past Richard he will have proof that he knows him. I am guessing Richard and the Others can't travel to a time where they could possibly run into their past selves. Because that would most certainly be taking time traveling rules to a different level.

And I am pretty sure that the skeletons in the first season were nicknamed "Adam and Eve." And there was an article a few years back where the producers said they would be explained and they would prove that the writers knew what was happening in the story the whole time. It was after this interview where the time traveling theories really started to come out. Because a lot of people took that to mean that "Adam and Eve" might be Jack and Kate. Or Sawyer and Kate. Or maybe somebody else.

ahahah you're right

it was adam and eve, not romeo and juliet
sorry that was at like 2 in the morning

@Tom - I'm going to have to rewatch (aren't we all?) but I think the accents of the soldiers(?) who attacked Sawyer & Juliet were British. If Widmore did have control of the island in the having-an-army-on-it sense, they could certainly be his forces. Of course, last time he got mercenaries they weren't British, but maybe he exhausted the supply with this mission
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Also, I think the Others ARE along for the ride because they don't move through time the way the Losties do, they "revert" back to where they were *whenever* the island is.
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@brendons - I think Frank is the Freighter Folks' constant.
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Here's a mind-bender for y'all: Richard gives Locke the compass to give to past-Richard, who later gives it to Locke... the compass exists only within a time-loop. So it was never "made"...
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I'm going to under-the-radar rewatch during work, more to come then...

Did anyone catch the Cuse/Lindleoff recap before the episode? C or L said something to the effect of "Sun thinks that Jin is dead..." I took this to mean that Jin is actually alive. Which would make sense seeing as his "death" never seemed complete somehow, even with the ship blowing up. Does this now imply that maybe he was in the time warp radius as well and is now skipping along, albeit in the waters off the island somehow?

Along the same lines of my Jin comment before, it would make a lot of Lost-sense taken in the context of how Cuse and Lindeloff are setting up Sun's revenge tale - i.e. Sun is so angered over Jin's death that she is now willing to "cooperate" with Widmore and goes very far with the plan, sells her soul, yadda, yadda, yadda, only to find out a season later that Jin is actually alive and she has bought the island the brink of destruction for nothing. No way is Jin dead.

Well then... where do we start? I'll go off James' bullets:
*I don't think the Island moved. The place on earth where you can get to the Island (I really don't want to use the word "portal") moved, and apparently continues to move, but I don't think the Island itself physically moved. (Note to anyone shifting around the Island: don't sit on any tree stumps)
*Who's shifting: I don't think we have enough information to know much about the shifting. What we do know: Richard and his camp did not flash with Locke and the beach folk. Is there a camp of recruits (Ben's people, if you will) who are flashing somewhere? Are we going to see Cindy and the kids flashing on another part of the Island? Or are they somehow protected in a way that Locke isn't? Is that why Jacob makes lists?
*How many kinds of time travel? Good question. I'm sure the conversation will return to it
*Daniel is a great character, and I love it every time he talks, because he knows what's going on. Everything from him at the Dharma station (that rock was cut away when Ben walked to the FDW, and something must have put the wheel there, right? Right?) to him with the magic golden fishing reel to figure out the bearing.
*Miles is also a great character. I can't wait to find out more about what all he does. For example, how does he know the boar has been dead for 3 hours? Can he tell how ghosts age?
*My initial thought was the lawyers are somehow involved with Aaron's father, though that gave way to assuming they're either from Ben or Widmore. I'm thinking Widmore, though it's hard to say.
*I was also very happy to hear Daniel talking about the Island
*I can't help but both groan and grin at the 8:15 thing.
*I think the presence of the baby shows that the baby problem wasn't always there. I think that's a byproduct of the Incident. One detail I'll need to look back and see: did the guy who interrupted the Flame orientation call him Chang or Candle/Halliwax/etc.?
*I'm okay with the "God help us all" dialogue, mainly because we get those other gems.
*I'm more than fine with Daniel introducing the flash-skipping stuff. I try to soak in every bit of dialogue he gets.
*There were a few times where I thought they were showing unnecessary flashbacks and stuff, but at the same time, I guess it still contributed to the episode.
*It would have been funny to have the Zodiac disappear while they're riding.
*Do you think the flaming arrow attack was old-school Hostiles lead by Richard?
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Other points:
*I think the British sounding guys in what appeared to be military garb were guys who knew Sam Toomey (the guy who heard the numbers on the radio with Leonard, the guy from whom Hurley heard the numbers). Sam and Leonard heard the numbers, they sent some guys in that direction, and they never heard from them again.
*I'm not sure what I think about Hawking and Ben. (For the record, I also think that Hawking is Daniel's mother) I hesitate to think that they've been long-standing allies. It's possible Ben has known who she is for a long time, and when he moved the Island, she found him and told him what had to happen. That would explain his change of heart.
*The nature of the shifting is interesting (understatement of the century). If it took the O6 50 years to get back to the Island, in theory, that could be the next jump that the people on the Island shift to. If the O6 gets back to the Island within the 70 hours, the folks on the Island could be shifting for years before they coincide with the O6 returning. I highly doubt something like that would happen, but still, theoretically, it could work like that.
*It looks to me like Locke isn't going to learn much more before getting off the Island. It seems very Lockeish to go to such huge lengths off little information. I'm not sure if Richard will know to go to John with the first aid kit because John tells him before leaving the Island, or if BenthamLocke is going to fill him in on everything when the O6 gets back to the Island.
*So... was the freighter stuck in the radius, but considered like the camp and stuck in that point in time, or was the freighter outside the radius, leaving Jin floating in the water? Do Widmore's people go to the freighter after it explodes?
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So many more questions, but I suppose this is a good start. I probably should do some work today.

I didn't think of the soldiers being Widmorian. That makes perfect sense, too... he's always been saying everything Ben has he took from Widmore, and they were very possessive about the Island. Are those the first guns the Hostiles stole from people? We've never seen a flaming arrow attack, and in the Destiny Calls recap, L&C said that the Hostiles kill, take, and use. Maybe Widmore sells out his troops to lead the Hostiles the same way Ben sells out the DI to lead them. And by "sells out" I mean "kills."

something curious i just remembered - Ben tells Jack to pack up the things he wants most because he's not coming back.

I'm a little 'meh' about all the various time-travel plots (and I'm a huge sci-fi geek). I understand it's going to be there, but I don't necessarily want it to take over the entire show. It seems, at the very least, that it's going to take over S5, which is a little disappointing to me. The biggest thing, which is always a problem when a show starts doing time-travel, are the inconsistencies.
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For example, Daniel goes off at length to explain how Sawyer going to the hatch and confronting Desmond (or whoever is currently there) is a waste of time b/c Sawyer never met Desmond in the past - since it didn't happen before it can't now. But then 2 minutes later Daniel does exactly that - he confronts Desmond when Desmond never remembered meeting Daniel before. How does that work? Then Desmond wakes up in the future and suddenly has a new 'memory' about meeting Daniel? Why couldn't he have a new 'memory' about meeting Sawyer earlier? WTH is the difference? (Unless Daniel is somehow 'special' like Desmond - I'm w/ Tom Shaw that Hawking is Daniel's mom b/c that was my immediate reaction. But I'm not sure what effect that would have.)
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-I'm curious about Charlotte. That part about her forgetting her mother's maiden name reminded me about Daniel and the card/memory game he was playing on the beach last season. Obviously, he seems to know what's happening to her. I'm not convinced its the same thing that Desmond and Minkowski experienced though. (As James said, there seem to be various forms of time travel.)
- I got lucky and guessed Ana Lucia right, but I never saw Ethan coming. I was waiting for Yemi to get out of the plane. That would have been cool.
- 70 hours? 'Til what?
- Mrs. Hawking - if she is Daniel's mother, and Desmond is supposed to find her at Oxford, it's a little convenient she's with Ben in LA, no?

Wait -- crazy thought here.
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Is the whole season going to be 70 hours long?
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Follow me here: presumably (and this is admittedly perhaps a huge presumption), this season is about the Oceanic Six returning to the island. One would imagine that the return would happen close to the end of the season, with the final season being "saving" the island/the Losties/the Others/whatever.
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Ms. Hawking (wow, was that amazing to see her) just set Ben with a deadline -- he's got 70 hours to get them all back. We know that ALL of the Oceanic Six are in Los Angeles, thanks to Sun's curious visit to see Kate (why, by the way, was she going to Los Angeles? Was that ever explained?).
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So does that mean that all of the action for the Oceanic Six this season takes place in 70 hours, while the island folks' story goes on for however long they need? Did Cuse/Lindelof just add a "24-esque" ticking clock to the Oceanic Six? And if so, how AWESOME is that?

Oh, and I too need a code name.

@Chaddogg

I wouldn't be to quick to assume that the whole season is about the Oceanic 6 getting back to the island. That was everyone expects. But I've read an interview with Damon and Carlton where they said that they might be getting back sooner than most of us expect. I think they will get back before. Every season of Lost starts out with two groups being separated. And they usually meet back up during the middle of the season. So I am going to predict that they make it back around episode 8 or 9.

@Chaddog- Sun's being in LA confused me too. In the S4 finale, before she confronted Widmore, she was talking on the phone with Mother (or whomever was watching Ji Yeon). Didn't she say she was finishing up her business in London and then flying right back to Seoul? Did she say she was making a pit-stop in LA? There didn't seem to be any overarching purpose behind her wanting to see Kate (other than just to say hello). All the interesting stuff came AFTER Kate told her about the lawyers. (Who, BTW, either aren't real lawyers or the PTB REALLY screwed up the legal stuff, again. "I can't tell you my client." Uh, it's probably going to say right there on the subpoena buddy.)

@antilles13 - I'm not sure if you read Maureen Ryan's interview with Cuse and Lindelof before the premier, but she posted the questions relating directly to what we've seen in season 5, and they address your inconsistency directly. According to them, based on what Desmond did at the end of S2 (I'm assuming they mean when he turned the failsafe key), and his other experiences, normal logic doesn't apply to him. Remember, Daniel looked in his notebook, where there's probably a note there that he and Desmond crossed paths ("If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will by MY constant") at that skip of the space-time stone.
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@Chad - in the same interview, Cuse and Lindelof assure us that they're not going to take the entire season getting the band back together and getting back to the Island. I suspect the 70 hours will be up relatively quickly for us (2 or 3 more episodes? Maybe 4?).

@antilles - Charlotte's thing is not the same as Des or Minkowski, because she never blacks out during her "episodes," and the nosebleeds came along later on in the process, too.

@antilles13 - Sun was probably in LA because Widmore wouldn't let her go back to Seoul. He's probably either using her to get O6ers on his side, or else Hawking is playing him and Ben, using both of them to get everyone together back on the Island. After all, if the universe explodes, Widmore won't be able to use the Island