The one thing I didn't understand is this - if Sayid and Kate had seen the basement bunker of the building wired with C4, why wouldn't they have mentioned it to Locke? That seems like an important bit of info, and, had Locke known, he might not have accidentally blown up the building.

My only other gripe with the show over the last two weeks is that the flashbacks have been almost inconsequential. The stories they told could have easily been told in exposition by Hurley or Sayid in a sentence or two, but instead the writers draw the flashback out as much as possible. I just would like to see some flashbacks of actual substance, like we had for most of Season 1 and some of Season 2.

Yeah I didn't quite get the whole "let me heal your wound and serve you tea all nice nice... or you're on to me and my ruse? Oh well it's on motherf*ckers!" Just get a gun while you're out of the room and come back in firing.

Everyone on this island is retarded.

Rule #1 of the Island: Never tell anyone else something important that you see or do.

The computer still could have won if it used the Sposki Bishop Block.

Ms. Klugh and Patchy must be under orders not to kill anybody or something, otherwise wouldn't they have just fired away? She could've shot Kate in the basement, Patchy could've killed Sayid instead of wounding him and easily slit Locke's throat.

i havent looked through the entire thread but here's the russian translation of the coversation on the episode

Black Woman: Michael, you know what must be done !
Michael:No, it doesnt have to be this way! There is another way!
Black Woman: No, Michael, there are orders, you know what must be done!
Michael: No, no.. There can be another way!
Black Woman: You KNOW what must be done! There are orders !
*Michael Shoots the black girl

In honor of the death of Mrs. Clue, I ceremoniously shot my Clue Notebook after watching this episode.

I hated the last 2 episodes, so this episode was a good change for me. I loved it. Maybe the best episode of the season.

I loved Sayid's face when Locke told him that he entered 77. He could kill Locke with that look.

Too bad we didn't get to see more interaction between Mrs. Clue and the other Others.

I thought this was the best episode of the season. I actually enjoyed Sayid's flashback. I actually believed him when he said he didn't torture that lady. I do think that adds a little to his character development. Even though he feels bad about torturing her, he was very reluctant to admit to it... even to save his life.

Sayid is by far my favorite character right now. He asks the questions that need to be asked and he knows when people are lying. Hell, he even finds hidden passage ways without really looking.

I'm glad the ping pong game didn't take up much of the time. It was a nice touch to give the other main characters some screentime, without distracting from the main plot of the episode. Nicely done.

Wasn't someone here keeping track of Sawyer's insults?
He got off "Avalanche" & "Grimace"

Then there was "Crouching Tiger" and "Hidden Dragon."

Somebody may have already replied to this, but in case not, 1. Bf1 (1.Nxf1 Rxf1+ 2. Bxf1+ Qxf1#) 2. Nxf1 Qxf1#

As long as we're nitpicking the chess game, did you notice that the big messages displayed by the game were at a much higher resolution than the game itself?

Seriously. "Oh shit, this place is wired to explode... why... I don't know... we should tell Locke and get out of here... naaaaaah..." Between that and the focused, instinctive hunter Locke being distracted by a computer chess game, I think the sun is making these characters stupider by the day.




NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Not the clue notebook...

One other thing I had to check... the Iraqi restaurant owner who captured Sayid in Paris was indeed the same actor who played the Persian shopkeeper in "Crash"... Shaun Toub.

As predictable as it was, I enjoyed last night's episode.

I liked it last night. It wasn't mindblowing or anything, but it was interesting. I kind of disagree about Locke and the chess game though, it seemed to remind him of pushing the button and it just seemed off. It just seemed so out of place that there had to be something behind it, and he found it. It was idiotic not to tell Locke about all the C4 in the basement, but whatever. I also liked that the ping-pong diversion was just a little sidetrack for humor, the ping-pong certainly didn't cause anything to "jump the shark", for whatever the hell that means anymore.

I thought that the "no nicknames for a week stipulation" was horribly weak. If they said "no nicknames anymore ever", then at least it would be a funny way of making Sawyer be a bit more well rounded than being an ass and spewing pop culture nicknames. One week!? That will probably be over by next episode, I thought they could have done a lot more with that and lost a good opportunity to shift Sawyer's character a bit. But overall, good ep, I'm happy.

That is in character for her though, she's always been screamish around blood in the show. See when she has to sow up Jack's wound in the Pilot, and dealing with the Marshall in season 1 etc.

Just because she's killed several people etc. doesn't mean she can't have a weak stomach around blood in such situations.

To me it's not so much as a nitpick as the concept that the chess game is portrayed as serving as a secure entry point into a pretty dangersous portion of the computer system (self destruct option). Granted, how many people would think to play a chess game and win would open the access point to that programming? But it was put there for a reason. I would hope that a destructive operation is well guarded and actually ensures people complete the proper steps to access it. The computer "surrendering" on a clear non-checkmate is baffling. Either the writers just screwed up and do not know chess that well or they did it deliberately. Personally, I like the conspiracies, so I'll conclude it was done deliberately.

I suppose Bobby Fischer is behind the whole thing...

One thing that I found particular interest was that apparantly Ben was not lying when he said that he had spent his entire life on the island. It seems that the Others (assuming that Others=Hostiles) have been here for a long time. Possibly descendents of the four-toed statue makers.

Looks like there might have been a battle of sorts between Dharma and Others with the Others winning out. For some reason they weren't able (or willing) to defeat Kelvin in the Hatch. Kelvin did make a mention of the Hostiles last season.

I disagree with your assessment. Checkmate is inevitable in two:
1) White must block the check with either bishop or knight
Rook takes the blocker and king is in check (by rook) again
2) Remaining knight or bishop takes the sacrificial rook
Queen takes it, checkmate as king is trapped and in check.

As the king is always under attack, no other actions are permitted, no other forces can be brought to bear, although white has considerable strength, poorly placed. Perhaps seeing the opportunity, and not being distracted by the attack on the black queen is an intelligence test to separate the scientists from the hostiles (but maybe not a good one). Grand masters rarely play out an obvious and inevitable end game; once the opportunity for a fatal blow is seen, it is over.

No disagreement here. My point was that is was too early for the program to determine a "checkmate." Human players are of different levels. If Locke erred and used the queen to take the blocker, he goofs severely and checkmate is completely lost. If a grand master knew it was playing a fellow grand master, then yes, he would concede. Yet if he were playing an unknown, why admit defeat? Especially when he (i.e., the computer) is protecting a self-destruct mechanism.

I was wondering, so what happens if the place is about to be invaded and the resident Dharma guy is hiding in the control room? He needs to beat this chess game before he can intiate the security measures?

It is interesting that the Dharma video man is aware of the "hostiles" and the possibility off an "incursion."