What I was saying wasn't meant to contradict you. I'm saying that I think it's clear you're right and that it was clear prior to her taking a dive. They just went with such an obvious example so the bottom 5 percent would get the point the rest of us already got. That's all I was saying.

Why don't the freighter people know who Michael is? They seem to know everything about the other Flight 815 passengers they've encountered. Maybe it's the haircut throwing them off.

Well, there is the matter of the false name. There is also the matter of them thinking that Michael is on the island, so they probably weren't vetting the lowest ranks of the crew against a photo manifest of the flight.

Maybe that isn't it, though. Perhaps all black folks look alike to old man Widmore.

I don't think they knew what all the passengers looked like, just the names on the manifest.

You would think with Widmore's power and wealth that he would cover something like pictures of all the passengers.

Sure, and I imagine they have something like that given how they seem to be able to guess who is who when meeting them if I remember those scenes correctly.

I still don't think that means you're going to vet the guy you have hired to mop the decks against the flight manifest when you believe everyone on the flight is dead or on that island.

I understand that but she was clearly fine before and NOT mental as you said. And the Captain seemed almost not surprised about the suicide. Remember, 'don't trust the captain.'

Well, I think when somebody commits suicide, they're mental. That's what I meant when I called her mental. I wasn't trying to suggest she was a mental patient or had been at the funny farm with Hurley. Sorry for any confusion.

I always figured her crew was on the island when they got sick, per her comments, but the captain's comments in this episode are throwing a huge wrench in her story. I wonder if it is possible that she still has her team's boat that no one ever mentions.

What a mind fuck.

But why go to the grave site?

I thought the biggest clue that Jin's was a flashback was the fact that he was running errands for Mr. Paik. That is exactly what he did before Sun took out that $100k loan from him. Also, he'd never miss his own child's birth over a stuffed panda. What's messed up is that the woman in the maternal ward looked like Sun. That's what threw me for a loop. Looking back, Jin's story was useless and only used to fuck with us. That's fine, I just hope they don't get in a habit of doing it.

The Oceanic 6 thing is really fucked up now since they said we would know by this episode. Seems like it has to be Aaron (seems unlikely due to Damon & Carlton's response to the inquiry on the podcast), Michael or Ben. I guess it has to be Michael.

Lastly, everyone seems to be buying into the captain's story of the staged wreckage and Whidmore's black box. Didn't Michael's note tell us not to trust him? I'm not sure if I'm buying it. Where would they come up with all the dead passengers? How about a fucking 747? That would take a shit ton of people to have on the payroll to get that done and keep it covered up. Seems a bit too outrageous to me.

I think we have to "buy" the staged wreckage because, well, they AREN'T dead.

And it's not outrageous in context. Imagine Widmore as Ahab, and the island is his white whale.

If you saw Desmond ranting and raving like he did before, you might think he was a mental case until you got all the facts.

This electromagnetism has caused a lot of problems over the years on this island. Lots of sickness and death including suicides.

Michael's note did say not to trust the captain, but then again, he is placed on the boat by Ben (thus he may just be protecting Ben's name). On the other hand, the doctor on the boat says that the captain 'tells it like it is'. Basically, it's difficult at this point to say who is trustworthy and who is not, I'll reserve my judgement and wait for more info.

Yes (if it was Michael's note). But why should they trust Michael? It is possible that the captain is perfectly trustworthy and that Michael is the one to not trust.

Okay, how long were Sun and Jin married before they got to the island? I haven't kept up with their storylines.

I think we have enough information from what we have seen to know that there was a staged crash with bodies. We saw that on the TV. The trust issue seems to me to be related entirely to whether Ben is behind that (and by extension the crash itself) or whether Dharma/Widmore/Paik/etc is actually behind it and they have a different grievance with Ben (likely over him gassing the island).

That, and it was so cloyingly obvious. I've been a vocal defender of this show during its rough patches, choosing to have faith in the larger story, and I still believe that faith is paying off and will continue to do so. There is a plan, and it's coming together, and I'm very happy with all of that. But I'm starting to find myself incredibly disappointed in the manipulative writing. For all its faults, <i>Lost</i> has never been this transparent, this telegraphed. It's like each of the writers is desperately searching for his own "Walkabout" moment, and it's just annoying. First, the Aaron "reveal" and now this. I really hope this isn't a trend. If they want to trick us, fine. But don't aim for that every other week, and get a writer who doesn't make it so obvious in the first act. It's no fun to spend an hour emotionally detached from the show just waiting for the predictable reveal. Worse, Jin and Sun are my favorite characters. I hate seeing their beautiful love story manipulated for an episode like this.

At least they revealed Michael as the mole. It was going to get stupid if they dragged that out any longer.

das

I trust the captain. the "fake" wreckage was on tv so the captain gets points for that. But does Ben have the cash and resources to have staged the fake crash or is even Ben working for someone more powerful? and when will the head of Dharma rear its head. How can Dharma let Ben kill their people and take over the island and they just sit by and watch. I wonder when we will see Hanso. Dharma "hanso" must get involved somehow, they just can't let Ben and Charles Widmore fight over their island. The flashback of Jin and flashforward of Sun wasn't confusing. people are making too much of what it is and what it wasn't.

About this whole Ben creating the O815 wreckage. I can buy that he can get a plane to sink. I can buy that he can find 324 bodies on the island to dig up and use. I can even buy that he can fake a black box convincingly within the context of the show... After all, $3.2M goes a long way! Speaking of... I miss Miles, I bet his jaw hurts.

Anyway, what I can't buy is how you can convince 324 families that their loved one is one of those staged bodies. Unless there was some cause to prevent anyone from seeing the corpses (due to water-logged-bloating or plankton or whathaveyou). But wouldn't there be some sort of evidence that the person in 23A was not, in fact, Dr. Jack Shepard?

Also, it seems blatantly obvious that Jin is said to have died in the crash on 9/22/2004. In order for there to even be a grave, there would have to be a body unless the tomb is really just another decoy for the real world and Jin is back on the island - either way Sun calling out for him in her delusional state would sense. However, "Where Sun goes, I go" flies in the face that he'd stay behind, especially knowing/believing that the baby is his.

Jin is dead. For simplicity's sake, he "died" in the crash as far as the world knows.

Now, let's take this a step further. If Sun had Jin's baby and Jin died in the crash on 9/22/2004, then when can we (again, the real world's perspective here) deduce Ji Yeon was conceived? That's correct, on or before O815 was in the air. Ergo, Ji Yeon was as much a passenger of O815 as Aaron was, as far as Oceanic Air is concerned.

Therefore, if Aaron is one of the O6, so too is Ji Yeon. However that would make it O7 and then it must follow that Aaron is not, in fact, one of the Oceanic Six. Q.E.F'n.D.

Besides the fact that no one recognised Jin while they did recognise Sun and people all recognise the Oceanic Six (except Sayed, for some reason).

Big shout-out to the location scout for shooting not one, but two scenes in my favorite video game store in the world : Toys N Joys in Kaimuki. :D

Or Sun is lying about who the father is since, I think, we can assume that the baby was born roughly 11 months or so after the crash. She was 8 weeks along when Juliet examined her, right?

So I guess she'll have to say that she hooked up with Jack and/or Hurley and/or Sayid and/or the-last-O6-if-it-is-a-male-and-not-Aaron.

What a whore.

Loved the giant Dragon Quest slime plush on the wall as Jin walked by at the beginning.

I agree with all of this. This episode really pissed me off once I realized what they were doing. The crosscutting between Jin's past and Sun's future was done only to manipulate the audience, nothing more. I don't even understand why this way of telling the story would have been chosen in the first place, aside from the predictable gut punch the writers seem to want to deliver at the end of every episode. It doesn't add anything to Sun's story in any emotional sense, at least from her perspective; it's all being done because the audience is in the dark up until the big reveal (with big dramatic, emotional music).

This may have been brought up before in previous threads, but I just noticed it tonight for the first time: the end logo for the show has a reflection of a city skyline in the water, not the island that should be in the reflection. Does anyone have any insight into this?

Was there anyone watching who didn't have a little "Finding Nemo" flashback when Jin told Sun he wanted to name the baby Ji Yeon if it's a girl?

Or that faced with the fact that Sun, the love of his life, the woman he's nearly lost multiple times before, the woman who's baby, Jin's baby, is potentially in great peril due to the island -- when faced with complications in her pregnancy, the birth of his daughter, and the potential that both of them may day today, the most important thing in Jin's life is acquiring a stuffed panda. "Hello? Something's wrong with my wife, and she may die giving birth to my daughter? She's desperately calling for me to be by her side? Hold on ... I just have <i>one</i> stop to make."

das