I think midichlorians are the answer to all mysteries.

After rewatching the scene with Naomi and the "lawyer" in tonight's ep, I don't think Naomi was hired to locate the island. I think she is (was) a highly trained covert ops type agent, and was hired to take this rag-tag group to the island and do whatever they were going to do. Maybe they simply wanted an unemotional 3rd party leading the expedition to the island?

so, Naomi represented people who knew where the island was, and Penny was part of a group looking for the island. but naomi's people knew about penny's people.

Ben and the others had contact with the outside world, probably not naomi's people, since they want to kill him, and probably not penny's people, since they couldn't find the island.

just like Jack was to be dead in the first ep.

I understand that Jack is now an important character but now Ben has become the central character in the show. Especially since the reason for finding the island apparently revolves around finding him.

Great episode..this show may go down as the best television show ever.

Well, it's obvious to me at least that the Freighter people are either DHARMA or connected to DHARMA. That's the only thing that explains Miles anger at Ben and the age of the picture he showed them.

The spirits communicated with Miles to tell him that Ben killed them and to avenge their deaths.

No Desmond = :down:

Good point....where was Desmond??

Getting drunk brother.

I called the phone number shown on the TV for the Oceanic Hotline (1-888-548-0034). A recording says the following:

"Thank you for calling the Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 Hotline. Information is updated as the investigation proceeds. Investigations are thorough and as such may take a period of time to complete. At this time, we do not have any additional information regarding crash flight 815. If you are a family member or relative of a passenger on Oceanic Flight 815, we are sorry for your loss. Detailed information is given during the daily family briefings. This briefing updates families on the progress of the investigation and allows for questions to be asked of the medical examiner or coroner and other parties connected to this investigation. Please contact your [inaudible - action?] coordinator or call back later for more information.

This episode gave me a boner. So happy to have Lost back, this show just makes me smile. :)
Love most of the new cast members. Miles is a very interesting character.

Killer episode! That's my official review.

FWIW, I think the producers are officially fucking with us (or their past tricks have finally gotten to me), because the first thing I thought of when I heard the name Daniel Faraday was Faraday cage. But as far as I can tell, none of the other Freighters' names (Frank Lapidus, Charlotte Lewis, Miles ___) have anything to do with scientists. Then again, I might not be looking in the right places.

At any rate, did anyone notice the helicopter's number was M842N (or something to that effect)? All I know is that I saw an 8 and a 42 in the helicopter's ID number.

I think I'm leaning towards the time/space/continuum theory with alternate and/or crossing planes of "reality." Daniel's comment of the light not quite "scattering" right (don't remember if that's the exact term) on the island, as well as the boat being found at the bottom of the ocean makes me think that in one dimension the plane crashed, killing the passengers, and in another dimension the plane crashed on the island. It would also explain Walt being older and "bigger" all of a sudden as well as that one guy from the Others, Richard Alpert, who doesn't seem to age. The island serves as some sort of nexus or something where the dimensions meet.

Charlotte Lewis - they said her full name was Charlotte Staple Lewis. no doubt a reference to C.S. Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis.

Anyone think of the possibly in the flash forwards that Jack, Hurley, Kate and the rest of the "Oceanic 6" aren't really off the island?

I don't think it's a Matrix type thing but I just get the feeling that they aren't really off the island.

As for the rest of the Oceanic 6 it better be Sayid, Sawyer and Desmond!

Really good 2nd episode. The flash forwards are a little confusing, but I assume there will be a bigger payoff soon.

Nice to see Greg Grunberg back only in a photo. What was up with the mustache?

How did the last few minutes of this end? The last thing I saw was Ben telling Lock all about the four that landed on the island and that they were there for him. After that it cut out as Lock was walking toward Ben. Hope that was the end but if not what more was there?

I'm fairly certain they are flashbacks. What intrigued me most is Daniel getting all emotional at the start of the episode when he was watching the news footage, then when asked why he was so upset, answering "I don't know".

... what the fuck?

If Lost gets you to ask that question out loud, you know you've seen a good episode.

It made me blurt that out about twenty times tonight.

It's a safe bet that Desmond won't be part of the Oceanic 6 since he wasn't on the plane.

Locke asks Ben what the smoke monster is. Outright. Ben, of course, answers that he doesn't know. Then for about two minutes, non-stop, Ben procedes to vomit out information on the people in the team that has arrived on the island. Locke asks how he knows, and Ben reveals that he has a man on the boat. Cut to LOST.

It sounds like I'm joking, but I swear to God that I shit you not. This is a new Lost, indeed.

I'm kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the possibility that the 4 "rescuers" were sent by the Dharma Initiative. Am I the only who thought this?? Ben killed off the Dharma Initiative earlier in his career. It makes sense that members of the Dharma Initiative in the outside world would be looking to hunt him down. If the island is somehow masked, they would have great difficulty finding it. The upcoming "war" that's mentioned in the commercials seems to allude to a war between the Dharma Inititiative and the Others.

24 doesn't do that. And during season two, they had a character who was missing for a few episodes appear at the very last second as a surprise because it revealed the character knew a lot more of what was going on, but the credit at the beginning spoiled it.

I said the same thing on two occasions, and my mouth was hanging open at least twice also. Sounds like a cliche, but no other show today can get a reaction like that out of me. So far, this is the best season yet, and it is going to be excruciating after episode 8 rolls and we have the indefinite wait.

I am fairly certain that these new people are all related to the Dharma Initiative in some way. Perhaps they are related in some way to former Dharma members, though more likely they have special abilities that we have only seen glimpses of. I'm glad they revealed right away that the underwater plane is just a ruse, so we're not left wondering about that!