Lostwatch: There's a New Sheriff in Town

Dependably excellent episode. I think the most intriguing elements over the next few episodes are what the Losties do with their knowledge of the Dharma future (do they warn them? do they kill teen Ben?), and what does Ben's knowledge of the Losties in the '70s imply for what's happened in Seasons 2 through now.

Gotta try to keep my streak alive as first poster..
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- interesting how Ben is not the only survivor of the Dharma initiative (i.e Ethan).
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- We can pretty much think that Jack has some important interaction with Ben's Dad as a Workman.
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- Why is keeping the plans of the Swan station from the "hostiles" so important ??
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- I loved the outfits they gave Hurley, Kate, and Jack. funny stuff.
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- When is Sun and Frank?? It looks like they are there very soon after the Purge since all the Dharma signage is still there.
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- I thought the end of the episode was pretty lame. It was so ridiculously obvious that the kid coming in was Ben. They dragged it out and tried to make a big reveal out of it.. it fell waaaayyy flat.

Dangit!! #2!!!!

@jimmy.. I think thats a good point about Ben's knowledge of the Losties.. perhaps he had a premonition of their arrival or was told ahead of time..

actually more likely, Ben was told by Richard that he is going to be the leader of the Hostiles so Ben takes it upon himself to "look after" the latest captured hostile (Sayid) by bringing him food and speaking with him. Ben Linus: leader-in-training.
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Sorry for the multiple posts.. I'll be quiet now!!

Sun and Frank were in ~2008. The intertitle card said '30 years later'. And I agree that teen Ben would have a strong interest in any potential 'Hostile', considering that he's a Hostile-in-training.

I'm wondering if one of the Losties doesn't clue Ben into his future on the island. The only person devious enough to do something like that would be (maybe) Miles...?

If they were in 2008, why did the gym room have all the Dharma signs hanging on the ceiling? Or am I mixing up what room they were in? In the 2008 scenes of Othertown, those signs were long gone.

I'm going to preface my comments by saying this: I don't like being wrong. I really don't like being wrong. And this episode showed I was wrong on a lot of things. There are a lot of things that I really didn't like, and I'm trying to figure out if I don't like them because they prove me wrong, or if I don't like them because they leave an uneasy feeling in my gut lore-wise.
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First: James touched on it, that Sun was the only O6er to not go back. Does this mean the Island really is malevolent? The only one with a real reason to go back is stuck there? So the Island screws with them all and sends all the people back that will cause conflict?
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Second: The 2008 New Otherton has some huge implications. In season 3 (late 2004), New Otherton didn't have any DI signs up or anything. What we saw in 2008 didn't necessarily look more than 3 years abandoned (it's kind of hard to tell... is that 3 years or 13 years of dust built up?), but it seemed very clear that the 2008 they were in was one without Others living in New Otherton. Did Ajira 316 also flash into a freaky the-producers-said-they-wouldn't-make-paradoxes parallel universe? So much for whatever happened happened.
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Third: My timeline theory was straight up wrong (Losties get there, Incident happens, Losties leave, Ben arrives). That doesn't leave a bad feeling in my gut. I just don't like being wrong
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Fourth: Along with point 2, the implications of Losties being able to influence Ben is huge. Did this somehow shift into Back to the Future mode?
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I'm trusting that the producers will pull us out of this, but this episode did nothing to quell my recent fears of, "What if season 6 is terrible?"
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Side note: wasn't Jack's name called before Juliet arrived with the updates to the roster and manifest? Or did Juliet add Jack (with the sense of humor of making him a Workman), but not have time to add Kate at the same time? I'm also curious what job Hurley has
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@natego - Not only will Jack apparently rub shoulders with Roger, but we don't really know at what age Ben starts his Workman career. If we're going off actor age (which is probably the simplest solution), Ben's probably been on the Island ~2 years since we saw him meet Richard.
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I'm with the speculation that Ben is absolutely working with the Hostiles. The mustard question was code. He knew right then that Sayid wasn't a Hostile, and Richard will know something is up. He and Sawyer must have had more meetings, so perhaps Richard is keen on the time travel situation.

Another side note: anyone who caught the Numbers as Frank was landing the plane gets a nickel. In my mind, that seals the Alternate Universe. Sigh. Well, maybe not alternate universe, but a different world from the one they were in when they left LA.

I figured Sun didn't go back in time because she didn't return as she left; that is, with the baby inside of her.

Not a whole lot of forward momentum, but unlike some episodes in season 4/5, this wasn't padding, this was setting up the conflicts that are in play in the new setting.

I'm guessing Daniel isn't dead, but gone insane again from his experiments/grief.

Christian 2.0 sure seems just as corporeal as Locke 2.0 - so how'd he get into The Wheel cave?

The Others are still holed up at The Temple then? Just how big is it?

I've never been much of a Sawyer fan (nor was I a Jack fan - if I was on 815, I would have voted Sayid leader in a second, and still wonder what his character would have been like in the original Lostiverse where Jack got killed in the pilot), but even I have to admit that he is the man - which means his reign is about to come crashing down in four different ways.

And yes, by now Ben is certainly working for The Others and running recon on fake-Other Sayid. I'm pretty much convinced Ben learns what he needs to make Widmore use The Wheel from the 815ers.

As far as Sun goes... I think Jin was not supposed to survive the freighter. From Christian appearing on the freighter only once Jin was at a safe distance, to Ben killing Locke once he finds out Jin survived, to Ben's thinking Sun was the linchpin of getting the 815ers back, all the evidence seems to point out that "Whatever was supposed to happen with Jin... didn't."

Sun did not return because she had Jin's ring, providing a constant. Or at least that seems to be the suggested idea, as the first scene with Sun back in the beach is one of her playing with the ring.

One thing I found interesting is that Christian was able to move the photo, proving that he is somewhat corporeal. So back when Locke asked for his help and Christian said no, he could have helped, but decided not to.

Also, smoky was around before Christian appeared, is there some correlation to this? Is Christian the same as Eko's brother who could instantly turn into smoky?

How confused I am..

Concerning Sun not being sent to the 70s, my guess is she did something bad during the 3 years and is no longer considered one of the good guys by the island.
My first thought when Cristian said she had a journey ahead of her was that she has to redeem her self to the island before she can see Jin.
I know lapedus was there as well but I'm guessing the island only wanted the oceanic 6(-1) and everyone else is just along for the ride.

I saw Kate standing on the porch looking at Sawyer and couldn't help but yell out "Homewrecker, homewrecker, homewrecker!" Oy. Juliette just can't catch a break.

Speaking of which, as much as I don't want it to be true, do you think Juliette added Kate late as a subtle way of showing her who's boss (a less than honest mistake, I guess)? Or was it just a way to interview Kate herself instead of having Phil do it? Maybe both?

@walle1 - Lapidus is there because he was originally supposed to be there. If he had flown 815, theoretically, Smokey never would have killed the pilot (him) in the Pilot.
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@Tom - I don't think the Others are at the temple in the 2008 we saw. I think they either don't exist or aren't being led by Ben (therefore not living in the DI homes). Unless, of course, the Widmorian Others always lived in the temple... then yes, they're probably at the temple

@alfredandrew i'm thinking the reason sun isn't back in '77 has to do with jin's ring also. they played that up a bit and it makes sense....in a lost kind of "sense" way.

@Dave i like the mustard as a code idea! i didn't pick up on that.

ARG, once again, instead of telling each other everything, Sawyer leaves up in the air what happened to Daniel. I agree with Tom, not dead. As I've said before, my guess is he joined the Hostiles... UNLESS that opening scene from "Because You Left" occurred before '77, and he ended up traveling through time again.
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The biggest mind-bender is when exactly Ajira crashed. The timecard and runway suggest 2007, but then the numbers and the disheveled DHARMA Processing Center suggest both pre-Rousseau and post-Purge (which is impossible, as Rousseau was '88 and Purge was '92). Unless the numbers were re-recorded, then that would make sense. But then why would the Others keep the photos of the DHARMA staff from each year and not "redecorate" the Processing Center?
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Sawyer's smackdown of Jack was pretty neat. Man, he'd been bottling that in for a while, eh?

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that what we're seeing in 2008 is either a Benless Others or a non-Ben-led Others, where they still built the runway, but they didn't live in the Dharma buildings or use them. I think there was a hat tip in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham when they showed the old LIFE magazines stacked and gathering dust. The Others we saw used those buildings, so I doubt they'd leave old magazines stacked up.
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"But Dave," you may ask, "doesn't that contradict the whole 'whatever happened happened' that you've been sticking so harshly to?" Yes, it does. And that's why it ticks me off so much

@Dave - I really like that idea, but I just remembered something that's something of a monkeywrench - the mercenaries shot up New Otherton. THAT'S probably why everything is in such disarray. So, ultimately, I think things just progessed normally. And the magazines were probably just kept around because... it's sometimes fun to read old magazines?

Wow. Did y'all see Jacks eyes go COMPLETELY INSANE when Sawyer alpha-dogged him? He was twitching like a tweaker. It was like he showed up and expected Sawyer to update him on the past 3 years so that Jack could take back over and be The Decider again. I much prefer Sawyer and his methods to Jack and his methods, so it was extremely satisfying. Jack is such a control freak I can't imagine him just falling into line for a plan that he didn't personally contrive, and taking orders from Sawyer - so now I'm worried that Jack is gonna do something to screw things up for Sawyer on general principle, because Jack backed into a corner is a dangerous thing. Those crazy eyes really got me - both actors did fantastic in that scene.
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So - since the baby was Ethan, I'm thinking that that's another point for the "what happened happened the first, second, and only time around" theory - if Sawyer et al hadn't been back in the past, hadn't saved Amy, and if Juliet hadn't saved the baby, Ethan never would have been born. On the other hand, I hadn't caught that there might have been substantive changes in future Otherton - I'm looking forward to going home and watching the episode again tonite. It does make me wonder about the "list" that the Others had back in earlier seasons - was that the "list" of people who Ben knew had been in the past at some point? I re-watched the whole series some months ago, but still can't remember the exact context of list references.
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Poor Juliet. I did feel a little more sympathetic towards Kate this episode with all the sad staring at Sawyer, but I've officially suspended my Kate-Sawyer Shipper status until the point at which Juliet dies. At which point I will probably resume said status.

@shara - I was a Kate-Sawyer Shipper also, until I saw Juliet and Sawyer together. I realized that the only reason I liked Kate-Sawyer and Jack-Juliet was because Kate and Jack are both awful, and Sawyer and Juliet would theoretically keep them from hurting themselves. But then seeing the good characters together just made me want to let Kate and Jack have the forever destructive relationship. Let them go die in a cave a few centuries ago

The immediate question that comes to mind is why does Ethan align himself with the Others when they killed his parents (or maybe just his dad). also, the date of his birth makes him 27 when we see him post-crash, which seems too young for the actor, but whatever.
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I also wonder just what Sawyer's up to. Has he completely gone straight and given up the con-man life, or is he working another long con for reasons we don't know yet? I'm guessing he and Juliet have had a lot of interesting talks during their 3 year stay with the DI.

@archstanton68: "Has he completely gone straight and given up the con-man life, or is he working another long con for reasons we don't know yet?"
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I think that Sawyer's Strandaways do, indeed, have an endgame of their own, based on whatever Daniel's theories of time are. They know that the Incident and the Purge are coming, and they have some sort of understanding of how they're supposed to position themselves in the meantime. I assumed that's what Sawyer was talking about when he said "before they screw up everything we got here" - everything they 'got' is a path through the madness ahead.

Regarding Sun.. I like the Ring is constant idea..My original thought was that the island might think that her being back with Jin would distract Jin from the work he has to do in the past to get the course correcting of time to occur. But, it does seem more likely that she is being challenged.
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Regarding the Ajira time zone..it really seems like the original Purge was avoided somehow and the Dharma initiative continued for many years afterwards, and an entirely new purge occurred later in time closer to 2008. I really can't see those signs still being up unless a new Purge/Incident was much more recent. It really seems that the Losties changed the future from '77.