I read it with Matthew Fox, and he said about 1/3 of the way through. Guess not.

I want to see an alt-timeline news report playng the background that says President Gore held a meeting at the World Trade Center to announce that global warming wasn't a problem anymore.

From Lostpedia in their bloopers section/continuity errors (although there's no guarantee it's either):

Interesting Mordred. I bet it's a clue and not a continuity error.

Guess he figured out a way to do it without banning Hummers, then.

Since we haven't seen Hurley at the gas station yet, how can we be sure it's not electric (or maybe some kind of magnetic powered craft)?

My theory is what we are seeing is NOT a "flash sideways" but "flash season seven." I think events are actually going to reset at the end of season 6 as a result of the coming battle (Jacob or MIB will somehow make this happen) and the Losties will never have crashed on the island. My prediction is the last scene of season six will actually be the first scene of season six...pan up to the blue sky and clouds and into the jet plane window to see Jack. LOST LOGO.

Think about it: We know the bomb failed. We saw the results of this on the island in 2007. Did anybody see a mushroom cloud in 1977? If there is one thing all of us should have learned by now on this show is that unless you see it it never happened. (Jin being blown up on the boat, anybody?) Therefore bomb didn't cause the island to go under water (and kill everybody but the Losties, young Ben included.) If that happened, young Ben wouldn't grow up to be teacher Ben in the "flash sideways" because young Ben would have died in the disaster. If he did escape with his father they would have referred to it in the "flash sideways" rather than just talking about leaving as if it was a casual thing. And we KNOW the bomb failed because we were shown that much in the context of the TV show.

Yes, we know the island sunk, but we don't know why. Fans THINK it was the bomb going off. The creators want you to think this as well, but they have always been the masters of distraction. It's just under water in 2004 in the so-called "flash sideways," so that much and ONLY that much is all we know about the island in 2004. We've never been shown how it got under water. We never saw the bomb go off. Unless you actually SEE something happen on this show, it never happened. The bomb NEVER went off.

So the bomb never went off in 1977, Ben changes from his encounter at the Temple, grows up to have tense relations with his dad because he's so different now, he grows up to kill his dad and everybody else and becomes the leader of the Losties. All because Sayid shot him.

At the end of season six, there will be a reset somehow. The Losties never crash, they never go back to 1977 in this reset, Sayid never shoots Ben, they never mess around with the bomb at all. Ben doesn't change, it apparently changes the relationship between him and his father over time, his dad decides to get off the island, takes Ben with him and Ben grows up to become teacher Ben and we see what happened then.

Mark my words...the "side ways flashes" are actually clips from "season seven." We are seeing events that take place after the end of season six and the reset takes place. If I am wrong, I am prepared to eat a heaping serving of crow, but as the episodes progress nothing else seems to fit in theory.

EDIT....

OK, I thought about it some more...the bomb did go off in 1977. The power of it got sucked up into the electomagnetic force or whatever it was. The creators told us we would get to see what would happen if the bomb didn't go off and if it did. Viewers have been thinking that the "flash sideways" is IF it went off and the island time line is if it did NOT go off. On the island time line it worked. In the 2004 time line it's reset, the bomb never went off because they didn't go back in time to do it. But I am standing firm on my theory that the reset doesn't come until later in season six as a result of the battle.

Calhoun, if you read the last spoiler I quoted, you'll know where your theory goes off-track.

The time frame for this season (in the Original Timeline) is very short, day-wise.

When the crew from 1977 wake up, it's the morning of day 1 of season 6, (given it picked up right off from where season 5 ended, I'm resetting it just to clarify the timeline for this season). By the time Sayid is resurrected, it's only been a few hours (end of "LAX, Part II"). Kate and Jin leave; Kate goes to find Sawyer. When Sawyer throws away the ring he was going to give to Juliet, he tells Kate that she can make it back to the temple by nightfall. Before that occurs, Jin is injured by a bear trap, and saved from death by Claire. Between the time of Kate returning to the temple, we have the Sawyer/Locke interaction ("The Substitute"), and Jack and Hurley leave to go to the lighthouse. Finally, we have Jin at Claire's tent, with Not-Locke arriving.

By that evening of Day 1, Jack and Hurley have camped out somewhere (because Jacob told Hurley to delay Jack in "Lighthouse"), Claire has walked into the temple, and Sayid has gone to kill Not-Locke. Sayid returns to the temple sometime in the late evening/midnight period, warns everyone, and Kate returns. Smokey shows up, kills everyone that wasn't on his side, and leaves with his people. The beach crew (Ilena, Ben, Sun, and Lapidus) arrive in time to escape Smokey in the temple (with Miles now in their group).

When the beach crew return to the beach, it's morning. Hurley and Jack start back to the temple, but run into Richard and go to Black Rock, where Richard and Jack interact in "Dr. Linus". Meanwhile, Ilena tells Ben to dig a hole. By the end of that episode, it appears to be late afternoon/early evening, as Ben is freed by Locke; shortly after that, Richard, Hurley, and Jack arrive at the beach.

So, at the end of this episode, it's only the evening of day 2 since S6 started. So we haven't seen Sawyer or Jin on-screen since the afternoon of day 1, which means we'll have to get a little back-story on both characters before everyone catches up to the current time. Given that Jin has a serious leg injury, it wouldn't surprise me he's still at Claire's tent; as far as Sawyer, we haven't seen him since the caves ("The Substitute", of which you noted in your post), so who knows what happened to him; I assume the show will answer that next week (given that according to next week's preview

I hope this make some sense. If not, this page helps a lot:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline:Post-Return

According to their timeline, it's been six days since Ajira 316 crashed. And there's a future event from S5:

So we may find out whom is in the other outrigger.

The "I thought I read" quote? How would that make my theory go off track?

I did tweak my theory just a tad on the timeline when the bomb goes off.

I'm saying right now, Michael Emerson's "He's the only one who will have me" scene was his finest moment yet and one of the best scenes in the entire series.



I was really hoping Josh Holloway was gonna get a shot at an Emmy, but I have a funny feeling before it's over, Emerson is got another in the bag. Well, that's unless Emerson does a Terry O'Quinn and pull himself out of the running.

Question that has nothing to do with this episode specifically: Can someone tell me what happened to Stephen Williams?! Seriously, I need to know... After Jack Bender he was the most important director this show had. And by all appearances it seems that he's no longer involved with the series this season (which is a major disappointment and leave's me realizing what Jack Bender and the major guest directors are having to do to make up for his disappearance). Jack Bender is always phenomenal, but what is he to do without his right hand man? This is bizarre. I kept waiting for his name to appear in the credits and it hasn't happened and he's also no longer listed as a producer for the show. Last year I heard Jack Bender say in an interview that they were talking about what episodes they would direct and it sounded as though the two of them would be stepping up together and tackling more than ever. Jack Bender is as game as always, but, AGAIN, where did the wonderful Stephen Williams GO?

I don't know, other than that his 2-year contract with the show expired last summer.

Enjoying the last few posts a lot. I love long theories! And DGibFen's post with the details about "Dr. Linus" really helped me understand the amount of time passing here the past few eps.

I have been leaning lately towards thinking that we are possibly seeing flashes of the nonexistent season 7, as Calhoun07 described, but I still am mindfucked about Jughead, so I dunno.

But I keep remembering what ...which guy, CC...? said about how at some point soon we're supposedly going to be able to understand a bit more what they're doing with the sideways flashes, and that from some point to the end there will be one timeline, straight on. That means one timeline has to be cleared up soon and put to bed, I would think? Shit, or hope.

Or like anything really ever gets cleared up and put to bed on Lost.

At the beginning of the season the producers said they were not flash forwards or flashbacks. If you believe in them...

they've also specifically been called "flash sideways" in the bonus episodes, FWIW.

Does anyone know if the term "flash sideways" was used anywhere before 1988? I'd sure love to think it was introduced by the movie Funny Farm.

Yeah.

Which are done by ABC, not Darlton.

Lindelof and Cuse commented on one of the last few podcasts that they refer to it as "a seperate reality".

Someone did see it.

Richard Alpert's statement, "I saw them all die" really makes no sense unless he actually saw some type of evidence of an explosion.

Just like there's no time travel.

There's about a million things people say that make no sense.

Like when Jack said Locke told him it was all his fault, but in reality half the stuff Jack tells Ben Locke told him was never even said on-screen.

Could have happened off camera. Locke stated to Jack that they weren't supposed to leave. Jack started feeling guilty, saw his dad, and started popping pills. He probably didn't know most of what he was saying at the time either.

Much different than Richard claiming to Sun that he watched the 77 Losties die. Only two options I could think of:

A: he didn't see anything happen during the incident, and he assumed the 77 losties died during the purge. (He was front and center in Dharmaville for that)

B: He did see a bomb did explode, and he assumes they all died in the explosion.

If that was true, I'd personally never rewatch or care for the show again at all. It negates over five years of the show by resetting things, which makes the ending no better than, "it was just the dog's dream!"