was he wearing his ring during the first episode?

Maybe they wanted to gas the others, just like Ben did to Dharma.

According to Lost Easter Eggs , yes.

Thats one possibility. The other is that they wanted to protect themselves from Ben, because of what he did to Dharma.

Jack: "there's people surrounding you with guns aimed at your head"

Miles (I think): "how stupid do you think I am?!"

:::::guns fire::: ::::Sayid, Juliet come into the picture with guns:::::

Jack: "I don't know............ how stupid are you?"

Loved that scene.
More intrigue, great acting. Sometimes I think people overlook the acting due to the story itself. Best show on TV, so glad to have it back.

End that WGA strike, write me some more LOST episodes!!!

"who's to argue with taller ghost Walt". classic Sawyer. I hope they focus on Penny/Desmond soon. Where are the rest of the "others" hiding? I take it richard is leading them now.

Well, technically it was a bull.

And speaking of Patchy...where is he? I wonder if he made it back to the Others? And speaking of the Others...where are they? Headed to, "the temple," correct? I'm betting that has something to do with the 4-toed statue.

Who is even left of the Others? Of course there's Ben, Alex, Karl, and Juliet (who should have been smart enough to tell that pilot she was somebody from the plane...doh!), then Richard and Mikael (Patchy). Who else does that group heading to the temple have with them? There was that older blonde lady from early last season that they called "the sheriff," is she with that group, or did she maybe go back to civilization on the sub before it was destroyed? Then Cindy (flight attendant) and the two little kids. Who else?

Maybe I'm missing something, but didn't he get blowed up with Charlie?

Or are we assuming that he is immortal?

He was holding onto or within mere feet of an exploding grenade when we last saw him.

he's survived many things that would have killed anyone else. i think it's safe to say he's still alive.

Well sure, that makes logical sense...that's why I figured he was still alive. With this show, I just assume people are alive until they are, ahem, confirmed dead.

Unless it turns out that grenades have settings for "Lethal" and "Not lethal", I'm just going to assume he is dead at this point.

Anyone keeping track of the people who've punched Ben? It seems half the cast has so far.

It would be nice to find out what Richard is up to these days...besides being Alex Vega's brother on Cane.

"Patchy's Place"..that's a great name for a bar...

I wasn't aware Emmitt Smith posted here. You learn something new every day.

I'm replying without first reading the rest of the thread, so it's possible someone else has already tossed this out there, but I always thought that the name "Looking Glass" was a pretty strong clue to this whole theory. In fact, as soon as we saw the Looking Glass station, and saw that it was underwater, and we already knew that the sub was the primary mode of transportation to and from the island, I immediately thought that the sub was just a ruse, that people travelled to and from the island via the Looking Glass (going through the looking glass), while unconscious, and then were placed onto the sub to be brought to the island, therefore never knowing that they'd experienced some previously unknown method of travel. And yes, that leaves the door open to time travel, as well as interdimensional and even interplanetary travel. And the reason for putting it underwater was to keep it away from prying eyes, to maintain the secret about its true purpose.

I'm starting to realize that the key to Ben is to forget (at least for the moment) about trying to figure him out, but to just look at the end result he is trying to accomplish. For example, he tells Jack that everyone will die if the "rescuers" come to the island. Truth or lie? We don't know yet. But his goal is clearly to prevent Jack from leading the "rescuers" to the island. For whatever reason, he doesn't want them to come. Now we know that they are seeking (hunting?) Ben. Whether everyone else is in danger remains unknown.

Also, is it me, or does Jeff Fahey have a total "Sam Elliot" kick to him now?

I wasn't aware that Emmitt Smith used colorful colloquial expressions when posting on the intarweb, so I guess I'm the one that learned something.

Patent pending

When Locke knifed Naomi last season, I figured he had some real earth-shattering evidence as to why she was evil and had to die. It was a pretty cold-blooded move considering he had second thoughts about killing Ben and is very apologetic towards Charlotte getting shot.

Agreed, but after his visit with Jacob and being shot by Ben and surviving, he probably started to look at things a bit differently.

That all happened after seeing Jacob and getting shot by Ben. It just seemed to me like his actions aren't consistent though I'm probably reading into it too much.

Theories about various things Lost:

1. Dharma believed the world was headed for disaster if things didn't change, so they established their research on the island. This research includes experiments into zoology, climatology, and space-time displacement (see the Orchid orientation video). Their polar bear experiments apparently had two parts: adapt them to warmer temperatures (in response to climate change) and teleport them back in time to Tunisia for some reason.

2. The Purge (when Ben led the Hostiles in exterminating every loyal Dharma man and woman on the island) most likely occurred in the early 1990s. Ben probably negotiated Dharma's surrender shortly thereafter. I imagine he told them that he would allow Dharma to continue operating the Swan station if they continued their resupply drops. Dharma agreed to this because they knew that not pressing the button would lead to a worldwide cataclysm and that there was no guarantee that if they invaded the island to retake it that they would able to secure the Swan in just 108 minutes. I also think Mikhail was a defector like Ben.

3. Dharma decided that the only way they could convince people to stay in the hatch (instead of exploring the island and thereby encountering the Hostiles) was to create a convincing reason. They concocted the virus/quarantine story and Radzinsky was sent there to operate the Swan (possibly with a partner). Once Radzinsky received a new partner (Kelvin), he began exploring the island anyway, creating the blast door map. Note that both Radzinsky and Kelvin were ex-military. Radzinsky began to have doubts about the button--it's not unreasonable to think that he might have even stumbled across the Pearl station video as confirmation of those doubts. After Radzinsky killed himself, Kelvin began to fill in the map as best he could, eventually discovering that there was no virus. However, he still believed that the button worked, and once Desmond arrived he kept him in the dark about the truth of the virus until he could fix up his boat and sail away, leaving Desmond to save the world by himself.

4. When the Swan was detonated (thereby avoiding global catastrophe), all bets were off. Dharma probably believes that one of the Dharma workers detonated it in response to an incursion by the Others. In other words, that Ben was responsible.

5. The freighter people are Dharma. They are on a "decapitation mission" to take out the leader of their enemy, the Others.

6. Naturally, Ben doesn't want Dharma on the island. And he knows that there's not much he can do now to stop them if they're determined to retake it. Ben also knows that Dharma doesn't want dozens of plane crash survivors telling the world about the island, so he thinks they may have orders to just kill everyone rather than take a chance.


Questions:

How does Dharma know about Desmond? I guess it's possible that Kelvin somehow communicated with Dharma from the Swan station, but... I don't know.

How does Dharma know about the 815 survivors? I suppose that's an easier question to reconcile that the first one.

I thought Patchy was his source for information?

No.