Locke and un-Locke both talking to Richard in different time shifts? Yes, big time headache here.

Me three. Now I'm going to have to re-watch that episode with Locke climbing up to the plane. I didn't realize that un-Locke was the one telling Richard that info. I thought it was "future" Locke but still the real Locke before the real Locke left the island. Of course at the time I didn't know there was (or would be or whatever) an un-Locke! Arg!!! I can't keep it all straight!!!!

Exactly! I didn't know for the first few times I watched that episode that it was Un-Locke, until he was finally revealed. That's why it's fun to go back and watch previous episodes with the new knowledge we've picked up along the way. Gives you a whole new perspective.

Also, it is the Man in Black as the smoke monster who reanimates Alex, Ben's daughter, when Ben is being judged by the smoke monster for allowing Alex's death. Ben is so delighted and probably also disturbed to see his daughter again, that he promises her anything she wants. What she wants is for Ben to do ANYTHING that John Locke (now Un-Locke) asks Ben to do, thereby setting in motion Jacob's death.

Convoluted, eh wot?

More thoughts and observations....

Jack asks Dogun why he uses the translator rather than speak English. Dogun says that as a leader he needs to maintain a distance, to be one of his people but not, especially when he makes a decision they won't like. That conversation put me in mind of Jack's tatoo, which says something like "he walks among them but is not one of them." I wonder if the series will end with Jack staying on the Island, where he is much more happy than in the real world, and becoming the leader of the Others thereby fulfilling the destiny implied in his tatoo.

Exactly! I didn't know for the first few times I watched that episode that it was Un-Locke, until he was finally revealed. That's why it's fun to go back and watch previous episodes with the new knowledge we've picked up along the way. Gives you a whole new perspective.

Also, it is the Man in Black as the smoke monster who reanimates Alex, Ben's daughter, when Ben is being judged by the smoke monster for allowing Alex's death. Ben is so delighted and probably also disturbed to see his daughter again, that he promises her anything she wants. What she wants is for Ben to do ANYTHING that John Locke (now Un-Locke) asks Ben to do, thereby setting in motion Jacob's death.

Convoluted, eh wot?

I went back and watched several episodes in season 5 trying to get my mind wrapped back around the whole business of where the suggestion of Locke dying was put forth originally.

I now see that the Smoke Monster / Man in Black as un-Locke was the first person to do it. Maybe not chronologically (see below) but in whatever warped timeline the characters are moving through.

The part that I don't really understand is this . . in the Jughead episode (Season 5, episode 3), which occurs in 1954, the real Locke tells Richard the whole story about him bandaging his leg and how he (Richard) said Locke was their leader, etc. It's at this point also when Locke tells Richard when and where he's born (1956 in California) and invites Richard to come and see him then. So how is it that Richard doesn't seem to remember this when un-Locke tells him in the present to go bandage the real Locke's leg? He already was told he did this by the real Locke in 1954. I mean he could have forgotten but that seems kind of convenient to me.

In any event, it certainly does put a whole new spin on everything I thought I knew about how the events leading up to Locke dying were put in motion. Thanks for the insights Maggers! I would never had picked that up myself.

Oh, you are quite welcome. There are three people from DEADWOOD: the translator; Juliet's sister played Calamity Jane on DEADWOOD; and the Dharma torturer, who used drugs rather than pliers on Sayid in 1977, was the hotel manager (I think that was his role) in DEADWOOD. He also was Larry, who was always introducing his brothers Darren and Darren, in the old NEWHART Show.

It was his brother Darrel and his other brother Darrel

FYI:

"Throughout his writings, Nichiren engaged in strong polemics against all the
schools of Buddhism of his day. Jodo Shu, Soto Zen, Shingon, and Tendai tradition as
practiced after the death of Saicho were particular targets of his criticism, but none more
so than Honen and other “evil monks” of the Pure Land School. One interesting fact in
this regard is that Nichiren does not mention Shinran and Jodo Shinshu (“True Pure Land
School” in his writings. Nor did he engage in direct criticism of Eisai and Dogun, the establishers
of the Rinzai and Soto schools of Zen. One possible reason for this is that Eisai
was in Nichiren’s time more closely associated with the Tendai School than with an
institutionally separate Rinzai Zen School, and Dogun was not widely known during Nichiren’s
lifetime.
Of particular interest in Nichiren’s polemics against other forms of Buddhism was
his appropriation a cyclic theory of history centering on the notion of “mappo” or “end of
the Dharma,” the last of three periods of gradual decay of Shakyamuni Buddha’s
Dharma. At the same time, it should be noted that this theory of history was the starting
point for the teachings of other twelfth and thirteenth century Buddhist reformers...."

AC

P.S. Cyclic history is key here, which brings us back to the planes of time, not to be confused with realities because there is only one reality, but many planes. It's not a coincidence that so many philosophers and theorists are named on this show. No more coincidences: Last season, only answers; no more questions, puh-puh-please.

P.P.S. Can you imagine Dharmic Locke explaining the whole LOST history in the final episode like some dime-store gumshoe in a pulp novel? Yipes.

Ok, I am completely confused by the Un-Locke talk. From my understanding MIB didn't become un-locke til after locke's dead body returned to the island in 2007 or whatever time the Ajira flight lands. I don't remember Un-locke ever doing any kind of time travel or anything like that. He got Ben to take him to Richard then Richard to take him to Jacob and then we are where we are.

Am I missing something? When did Un-locke ever go back in time or anything like that? The way I understood it the real locke was the one going through all the different times until he had to move the island to land in tunisia(sp?) three years later to wind up dead to then come to the island for the above to accur.

You guys have me confused

The question I have is where did the cycle begin? Locke told Richard to tell Locke so where did the loop begin?

Or am I completely missing something? lol

Also I thought the "claimed" part was less like how MIB took over Locke and Christian and more like Reausouh's friends and most likelly Reausouh herself. So it made me think that maybe it only does it with people who are alive and maybe the water they put Sayid in did it's job at bringing sayid back to life just he was also claimed by the same water since it was no longer "clear".

Loving the season so far and the scenes for next weeks episode had me dying to see it. Un-Locke and Sawyer and Locke saying "I promise i will tell you everything" and what looked like Sawyer going down rope ladder and it being cut.

The question I have is where did the cycle begin? Locke told Richard to tell Locke so where did the loop begin?

Note: "Locke" always refers to the real Locke.

This is the sequence as we saw it . . .

Season 5, Ep. 1 (Because You Left): Locke gets shot by Ethan while climbing up to the plane, then flashes to another time, then Richard comes out from the jungle and bandages his leg and tells him he will have to bring all his friends back who made it off the island (which is when Locke first learns they actually made it home) and that he must die to save the island. Locke asks him "when" it is and Richard tells him it's all relative but doesn't give him any further details about the date. Richard gives him the compass and tells him that the next time they meet he (Richard) won't recognize him (Locke). Locke flashes to another time.

Season 5, Ep. 3 (Jughead): Locke comes into the Others camp in 1954 and tries to get Richard to explain how he can get off the island. He tells Richard that he got the compass from him when Richard bandaged his leg. Richard is having a hard time believing Locke so Locke tells him to come visit him as he will be born in 2 years in 1956. Locke is pleading with Richard to tell him how to get off the island when he flashes again to another time.

In between Ep. 3 and Ep. 14, Locke gets off the island, Ben kills him, the Ajira flight crashes on the island and Ben, Locke's body, Sun and Frank are now back on the island in the "present".

Season 5, Ep. 14 (Follow the Leader): un-Locke (although we didn't know it at the time) brings Ben and Sun to the Other's camp and leads Ben and Richard out into the jungle where he tells Richard to go bandage "a man" (the real Locke) who will come limping out of the jungle. He also tells him to tell the man about bringing the other Oceanic people back to the island and the bit about him having to die. Ben asks Locke/un-Locke how he could possibly know to be here at this exact time and he said "the island told me."

So really the whole idea began (not in the chronological sense though nor in the order in which we saw the episodes) with un-Locke telling Richard (in the present) to tell the real Locke that he needs to die to save the island. Which Richard does as he bandages the real Locke's leg. Then the real Locke flashes back to 1954 where he tells Richard basically the same thing (although he doesn't specifically say Richard told him he had to die - just the part about bandaging the leg, the compass, that Richard said he (real Locke) was their leader, that he (real Locke) has to do something "important" to save the island, and for Richard to tell him how to get off the island).

At least that's how I now understand it. But who knows? :dontknow:

Just a thought ... but remember the scene where the plane lands in LA and we see the island but its under water ...

Does this support the Atlantis explanation?


And I thought in Season 1 that the captain said they were off course and had turned around and were heading back to sydney? if so then why did they land in LA?