She looks a lot like Desmond's chick (what was her name... Whitmore?). It took me and my friends a little while to be sure it wasn't supposed to be her.

I thought it was Desmond's chick at first as well.

And how do we know that her and Ben had a thing? I missed that.

Probable reasons why Jack's back story will be necessary:

His father figures into this whole island thing somehow.

Jack did something very bad regarding his wife or his wife's boyfriend which makes us realize he's far more screwed up than previously suspected, and which may somehow be connected to Henry "Ben" Gale.

It provides Matthew Fox with a chance to show us his character is much more fucked up than just being a stubborn type A leader person.

It leads us to be not-so sympathetic toward him, so that the writers can drop some kind of bombshell about him.
----


Also: Sawyer can only stew and fume for so long before the Others are going to have to realize "you don't mess around with Slim." Sawyer's gonna blow.

I got the feeling they used to be an item too. Just how he was left out of the book club and his snarkiness and casualness toward her when Jack threatened to kill her.


We still need to find out where those tattoos on Jack's arm came from and what they're about so we haven't seen the last flashback on him.


After this episode, I really don't care at all about finding out about the rest of the castaways though. With so much to discover at the Hydra, I couldn't care less about Claire and Charlie.


I'm under the impression that Karl was one of the tailies taken when they first crashed. But why they'd have him in the zoo for two months is strange.

That was probably the best opening for any episode in the series so far, though the rest of the episode (post-"Del Webb" -- brillaint, by the way, Haq!) was a bit uneven.

It's obvious that the focus on the Jack-story means his Dad will figure prominently regarding the island, but it remains to be seen whether that means he will be brought back to life or (more likely) what connection he had with Ben/Gale and/or Dharma.

What I'm having the most difficulty wrapping my brain around is the show seems to keep going back and forth on whether or not the plane crash survivors were intentionally brought to the island. All of The Others in Del Webb seemed genuinely surprised at the plane flying overhead and breaking in half, yet Ben/Gale sure had the gameplan/marching orders at the ready before the plane had even hit the ground.

Was this a contingency plan just in the event that ANYONE ever breached the island, or did The Others specifically intend for Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and the rest to be those to end up on the island? And how in the hell can you control who does/doesn't survive a violent plane crash???

All I know is no matter what happens, I want Zeke to die and I want him to die at the hands of a rage-filled vengeful Sawyer. That will be oh, so glorious.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode is only about the rest of the cast and Jack/Kate/Sawyer don't appear.

anyone got a link to that forum that frosted would post about after every episode last season?

i don't have time to search right now myself or else i'd do it myself...just wondering if anyone has it handy?

It's at filmfodder.com

I'll look up the link in a minute. Don't have it bookmarked at work.

"Tale of Two Cities" synopsis/discussion/speculation/smarminess:

http://www.filmfodder.com/tv/lost/archives/003248.shtml

awesome, thanks frosted.

I can contribute nothing new so I'll summarize:

-Liked it.
-Agree there were too many commercials.
-Wanted more from Jack's back story.
-Kate is still hot.
-Next week looks awesome.
-Wondering when we'll find out more about the "monster."

My dad comes home saying he read about it on Wikipedia after and there was this big thing saying that Sayid reveals he's the father of Sun's baby, him and Jin get into a fistfight, both fall off the boat and disappear underwater, Sun passes out, the boat drifts off, a girl who looks exactly like Claire shows up on Castaway Beach, grabs the real Claire, drags her off, and replaces her.

I was like "uh, you're clearly on crack or something, dad". He said that he read this was at the end of the episode of last night and didn't understand why that part didn't air in Canada. I said, if anything, that would have been the preview. But all the preview says is that Sayid has a plan to find Jack and them but it involves putting Sun and Jin in danger.

So he went to Wikipedia and found nothing. I told him somebody probably wrote that as a practical joke. I sure hope so and that's not actual spoilers.

Just think how proud the Salingers would be to see both boys grow up to be doctors?

I was hoping that the smoke monster would be behind that door that Jack opened.

Iwas just going to ask if anybody could tell what Stephen King book the book club was reading, but the filmfodder.com guy says it was "Carrie." Telekinetic teenagers. Which is probably related to why the Others keep kidnapping kids.


...on the toilet. "Can't an amorphous cloud get any privacy around here?"

Ben is the man.

I need to watch that again.

Jack's backstory, as frustrating as it may be, is crucial to the overall story I believe. I'm looking forward to the explaining of the tatoos and the Phuket connection he mentioned last season. I still think he has a military background.

As for the Others, no clue. I go back to psychology 101 and think that we're in BF Skinner land when it comes to the Lost folks.

jack's character is like a gorilla. I felt like he was gonna be yankin' them chains the entire ep the other night. boo.

GET TO THE FUCKING SAYID BOAT TRIP ALREADY

and Eko, man.

ben is my favorite character right now. i'm sure thatll change if he all falls in love or sees stuff in the jungle or dreams about drowning babies. i want his flashback next.

Yeah, that seems to be the general consensus after at the Lost-Forum after the screencaps were posted. I was kind of hoping it would have been The Stand or something from The Dark Tower.

MORE DESMOND!

Remember when Ben was locked up in the hatch and Locke gave him a Dostoevesky novel and he quipped "What, no Stephen King?"

Interesting.

I got a wild hair and put together a mix inspired by Lost...

http://hipdispleasure.blogspot.com/2006/10/hip-d-podblast-mixer-inspired-by-tvs.html

I've never, ever watched Lost.

I'm Korean, so whenever Jin talks, my friends all look at me to translate. Apparently next week's episode will be Jin and Sun centered.