The plane crashed 9/22/2004. So it's (365 - 30 + 1) = 336 days after the plane crash.

For those interested in the markings on the door:

Erm...since October comes after September, I think it's 365+30-1, so 394 days after the plane crash.

Sorry, but that's pretty much the exact opposite of how Faraday described it.

Faraday has turned into a complete a-hole. A liar. I wouldn't trust a word he says.

I hope someone kills the little friggin bug that he is.

How so?

Yeah but that little bugger has all the answers. I hope they get a few of them before they kill him.

That's exactly right, pinata. No way this was a Desmond-type transference. This was a physical transfer of his body.

i always assumed this was referring to when sayid gave michael up to the freighter people.

Actually, we did not see a physical transfer of anything. What we did see was Ben wearing a another man's coat in the middle of the Sahara and not knowing what year it was.

I also should point out he seemed surprised to see that he had an injured arm.

Man, it's Friday, what do you want? You're right though, 394 it is.

cough...



No but they gave us the polar bear. There is no way there was a polar bear in the middle of the desert for an island bear to "time (mind) jump" to. It was a "physical jump" or teleport. There were also no tracks which I thought they made it a point to show us. I think the only real question is why was he wearing a parka? No way the island gets snow. There's something going on elsewhere.

Need a lozenge? I was responding to this.
You can have a palaver with Palaver if you need anything else

Oh and "slightly different" should have been emphasized as sarcasm in my post.

Good point. There probably was some form of physical teleportation at play here. But I also think time travel might have also been involved since Ben was unsure of the year.

Yup. In other words, a wormhole.

My interpretation was that he realized that Desmond could be he constant, but that something may still be needed to be done to actually make Desmond his constant. Just like Desmond knowing that Penny could be his constant wasn't enough to fix Desmond.

Could "changing the rules" and Widmore knowing that Ben couldn't be there to kill him be because both of them have certain knowledge of the future, and neither of them wanted to cause paradoxes?

Okay, that is sounding a bit out there...

I think it's fair to guess he was on the island immediately before "jumping" to the desert, because he was wearing Wickman's coat (and we know he was on the island before) and Sayid wondered how he got off the island. So Sayid and the other O6 apparently leave Ben behind.

But yeah, why the hell is he wearing that coat, and what happened to his arm? And did Ben "jump" on October 25th, 2005, or was it maybe earlier than that on the island when he jumped? Because if we're now about the end of December, 2004, on the show, and I'd guess the O6 will get off the island within a month or so, that's ~8-9 months Ben is on the island before jumping off. Seems like a long time. But I guess for all we know he may have jumped back and forth 10x already.

EDIT: Maybe he was somewhere like those guys we saw at the end of S2, the monitoring station? Only cold place we've seen so far, IIRC.

While there may not be snow, it could get cold enough to wear a parka on the tops of some of the mountains on the island, no?

The instant we saw Ben, didn't it look like he was shivering? That leads me to think it was cold where he just was. Or I guess it could be an affect of the trip.

Great episode. Watching smokey tear across the landscape was frightening. Great sound design with that thing, too.

I think it's pretty obvious that the island is being fought over by Ben and Widmore; each wants control of the island for his own purposes. Although they both appear to be "bad guys" at the moment, I'm beginning to think that Ben has a more altruistic purpose than Widmore.

I think that these "rules" are either an agreement between them in how to conduct this battle (much like two Mafia clans might set rules not to hurt each others' families), or the rules are being set and enforced by the Island/Jacob. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Obviously, we don't have a clue what these rules might be. We only know that Ben thinks Widmore broke those rules when his people killed Alex.

Glad you saw that, too. He was definitely shivering. So wherever he just came from, it was cold.

Hasn't everyone seen the Orchid orientation film?

which would also explain the parka.
I'm thinking maybe he was in the Ice Station manned by Penny's people that we saw at the end of S2?

Maybe someone else has suggested this so please feel free to rip it apart. doesn't the theory of relativity and most scientific studies of time travel state that the faster you move (up until the speed of light obviously) the slower time goes?This makes it possible to jump ahead to the future but not the past(1 minute passes at the speed of light while years pass for those not travelling at this speed). So let's assume Ben is not only "teleporting" but also jumping ahead in time (worm hole/blackhole). Using this theory, we're not sure WHEN Ben jumped from the island (I originally suspected it was when he went to the secret room but according to what I typed above he wouldn't be able to travel back). Either way this would explain why he wasn't sure what the date was. Going along with this, can we possibly assert that just by the fact that he time travelled he is now in some sort of parallel universe? Most of the stuff I've read both fiction and scientific about this concept usually comes up when someone goes back in time and changes the past (which by the very nature of them traveling back would occur) but it makes you wonder if you could change the future by doing so, and more importantly how would people know? Technically astronauts in space are time traveling (but i belief it's like fractions of a second compared to Earth) still makes you wonder.

Anyhow, I'm rambling. I'll leave it to people with more knowledge than I to either make something of or tear apart my drivel

I really dug the episode, probably my second favorite only to The Constant so far this season. I really want to know WTF Smokey is especially now!

I totally agree...I doubt that would be the whole key to it all (since it seems to obvious), but as far as symbolism goes, that scene totally played like a God Vs. The Devil and this is part of their big game for all the souls of humanity (you know, like Constantine) Alex wasn't supposed to die yet, which changed the rules...weird stuff...which would also explain why other people can't die until they've played their part...

I have seen that video, but I've never been too clear on how cannon those videos are so I don't usually give them much consideration.

Even so, it isn't exactly clear what happened in that video. It seems to involve some sort of time travel, but you really have to draw your own conclusion as to what really happened.

She was born on the island. I'd be surprised if she stayed dead.

I could see it going down as this: Ben offs Penny, he later discovers the island's powers kept Alex from dying and healed her, things go from suck to blow for Ben.