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."

OK, you cleared it up for me. I was missing the scene from above. I didn't relize Un-Locke had told Richard. I was thinking it was just a loop. But I guess that is in fact where MIB found his loop hole. Thinking back over the seasons can we kind of think that Locke has always been swayed by MIB or what he thought was the island?

I love this show. This thinking drives me crazy and I love that this show can cause this.

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:

well alright, that made some sense. thanks.

OK, you cleared it up for me. I was missing the scene from above. I didn't relize Un-Locke had told Richard. I was thinking it was just a loop. But I guess that is in fact where MIB found his loop hole. Thinking back over the seasons can we kind of think that Locke has always been swayed by MIB or what he thought was the island?

I love this show. This thinking drives me crazy and I love that this show can cause this.

in season 1 (i think) the black smoked hovered over Locke and later in season 2 he asked Eko what he saw in the black smoke ... I think Eko said death and Locke said he saw a white light ...

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?

I never said Un-Locke time traveled. It's just that the episodes are so jumbled in time in Season 5 that unless you watch and re-watch, as I've done many times, you don't pick up on these things.

It's almost impossible to follow the story in a straight time line. In fact, I bet that will be the next boxed set of LOST DVD's, one in which the story is told chronologically.

Un-locke has, much to his apparent chagrin, stayed put on the Island and has not traveled in time as the 815 survivors have. Remember, the smoke monster/Un-Locke/the Man in Black has been a fixture on the Island
throughout the time that the 815 survivors were bouncing around in time.

The beginning of "Locke must die" is exactly where I said it was, but DaveStrom has laid it out more coherently. Un-Locke told Richard who told Locke that Locke has to die. Simple, don't you see? :mad2:

in season 1 (i think) the black smoked hovered over Locke and later in season 2 he asked Eko what he saw in the black smoke ... I think Eko said death and Locke said he saw a white light ...

Eko didn't quite say that he saw death, he never really said what he saw. But we saw what he saw, images of the awful things he'd done back in Africa swirling through the black smoke. We never saw what Locke saw in the black smoke. You are correct in that Locke said that he what he saw was beautiful, like a white light.

...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.

You are quite welcome, and thanks for spelling out more clearly the circuitous time line of Locke - UnLocke. I knew it, myself, but you laid it out for others to follow more easily. Thanks.

When Un-Locke tells Jacob that yes, he finally found a loop hole, he also says something like, "and you would not believe what I had to go through to get here." That's what started me thinking about from whom and when it was that the idea for Locke to die first began circulating, and sure enough, it was out of the mouth of the Man in Black/Un-Locke/the smoke monster.

It's also neat to think of how the smoke monster manipulated Ben into killing Jacob; it began with Ben's dead daughter, as I said in an earlier post.

This series has taken some masterful crafting by the writers to bring it all together. What serious plotting and planning they had to do years in advance.

FYI: More a Cheat than a Spoiler

Michael Emerson:

Lost will end in a way appropriate to Lost. That may not be to everyone’s taste, and some may say that they needed more or they deserved more. Some stuff is going to be left open-ended. But the big things... will get answered. What is the island really? What is this great battle or contest that seems to have been going on since before history?

Other actors from the show have expressed the same sentiment. O'Quinn asks rhetorically how can such a vast show be summed up in one season? There will be many threads left hanging. [And--golly gee--there's the probability of the two Lockes having a final confrontation, as said by O'Quinn, with a wink, naturally.]

Libby's story will not be resolved, because she [the actress who plays her] left the show. However, Juliet will be back between shooting of her new series, V.

Elizabeth Mitchell agrees:

You know those last lines she [Juliet] had in the premiere, where she said, "We can go dutch," she was obviously talking to somebody. I just don't know who she was talking to, so I feel like it will be really interesting to find out who and what situation that's in.

Of course, this would have to have occurred in the final timeline, which in her death, Juliet joined as she left Sawyer in another timeline. Will they meet again? In which timeline? It would have to be the (for lack of a better term) LAX timeline, but who, indeed, was she speaking to? Jack?

Who knows? But other interviews have revealed the "integration of realities" into the one. [Don't forget the writer who said LOST could be summed up in one sentence] and when you know that sentence, [you'll see there has always been only one reality.] Emerson says that once you see that "reality" you'll want to go back to the first season and watch them all again.

Still, I think there's more questions than answers so far, but Richard Alpert will have a centrist episode where his un-aging and the island's mystery will be addressed. So, there still some hope that there won't be too many threads left hanging.

AC

I love this series!!!

When the young locke gets visited from Richard, theres a picture from the black smoke, painted from young locke, hanging in the kitchen...

for this little details i love this show!

looking forward to #4

:p

That was an acceptable explanation of the numbers.