Today TeeFury.com has this great LOST/Dr Who mashup shirt on sale for $10. Get one before it’s too late!

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Via HollywoodReporter.com:

Exclusive: Lost physicist Jeremy Davies is joining FX’s neo-Western Justified.

Davies is joining the show’s season two cast in a heavily recurring role as a nemesis to Timothy Olyphant’s U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens.

The setup is certainly intriguing: Davies plays “Dickie Bennett,” the smartest of three brothers and a high school rival of Givens. Since Prohibition, the Bennett and Givens families have warred like the Hatfields and McCoys. Dickie’s family traffics in weed, for which Bennett spent time in prison. He still walks with a limp due to an altercation with Raylan on the baseball field when they were both 17.

Best known to TV fans from his role as ever-distracted physicist Daniel Faraday on Lost, the Untitled Entertainment-repped Davies has an impressive list of theatrical credits including Saving Private Ryan, Rescue Dawn and Solaris.

Justified makes its return in February with 13 episodes.

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Here’s a new interview with Henry Ian Cusick, via TV Guide’s Natalie Abrams:

NOTE: this interview contains minor spoilers.

TVGuide.com: How does it feel knowing that Desmond is the key to everything?
Cusick: Desmond certainly is a part, but is he the key? There’s not one character that is the key. There are many characters that will have to step up and do things before this is resolved. Desmond has a part to play, a significant part, but there are many others that will step up.

TVGuide.com: “Happily Ever After” was very similar to “The Constant.”
Cusick: It was an interesting episode. Compared to the other Desmond-centric episodes, it wasn’t so high-stakes and angsty, with Desmond running through the jungle and shouting for Penny. This was a bit slower, I thought. The Desmond in the sideways was very different from the Desmond on the island.

TVGuide.com: Would you say that Desmond is everyone’s constant?
Cusick: No, I don’t think that’s right. In the flash-sideways, the characters are all slightly different from the characters on the island. They’re all slightly hypnotized or haven’t seen the truth. Like Desmond, he’s slightly dead in this life. He’s just a hollow corporate guy until Charlie [Dominic Monaghan] comes along. Desmond also recognizes that everyone in that sideways world — there are clues when you look in the mirror — when they look at their reflections, they go, “Hang on, what is reality?” They’re aware something is not quite right, but they can’t put a finger on it. Desmond now knows he’s alive again and knows his purpose.

TVGuide.com: And now he wants to find everyone on Oceanic 815 to show them that truth.
Cusick: Yeah, at the end [of the episode], Desmond says “Where’s the manifest? I need to show them something and it’s going to be beautiful.” When they get to see this other world, that’s when their hearts will open and know what they have to do; they’ll know the truth.

TVGuide.com: Based on what Desmond, Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and Charlie saw, their flashes seem to be based in love. Would you say that’s a strong theme of the series?
Cusick: Yes, you’re absolutely right in a sense that the driving force of Lost is love. Desmond is totally driven by love. What’s interesting is how they see this other world. Charlie and Desmond both had near-death experiences and they recognized their loves. It’s sort of spiritual, the thing they have to get to at the end of this, what Desmond has to do.

TVGuide.com: Since it appears that one has to almost die to see the alternate universe, does that mean everyone in the sideways universe has to die to fuse the two timelines?
Cusick: We don’t know which is the real universe at the moment. We don’t know which universe the show will end up in. Desmond is going to show them a glimpse of the other world and we’ll see how and if they collide, and what will happen when they do.

TVGuide.com: Desmond changed his fate in the sideways universe by meeting Penny. Does the fact that he suddenly then woke up mean their fates are determined by their upcoming choices?
Cusick: Desmond says to Charlie that there’s always a choice. He’s only out for a very short time when he’s given that electromagnetic charge, but when he comes back to the island, he is enlightened and knows exactly what his mission is. He embraces that and now knows what he has to do, so he follows Sayid [Naveen Andrews] because that is a way for him to further his mission. He’s not struggling with anyone; he knows what has to be done. It’s a very odd moment with Sayid, but this is the way for him to fulfill his mission.

TVGuide.com: Is Desmond claimed like Sayid and Claire (Emilie de Ravin) are?
Cusick: No, absolutely not. He’s not claimed at all. It’s the polar opposite. Sayid and Claire have been claimed by the Man in Black. Desmond, on the other hand, has had an epiphany. He’s enlightened. He has no fear of the Man in Black.

TVGuide.com: Eloise (Fionnula Flanagan) seems like she knows what’s going on in the sideways universe and even tells Desmond that he’s not ready. How is it that she’s conscious of this?
Cusick: She is a law unto herself. She’s working on a different timeline. She always seems to know more than everyone else. She’s like the oracle. If I was a fan watching it, how she seems to know wouldn’t bother me just now, but hopefully these things will be addressed. She’s opposed to the idea of Desmond trying to bring everyone together. She’s trying to cover everyone’s eyes.

TVGuide.com: What’s the mission that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) wants Des to complete?
Cusick: Widmore and Desmond are on the same mission. Basically, Widmore says if Desmond doesn’t survive the electromagnetic blast, we’re all going to die, so Desmond is there to help make sure that people don’t die, along with a lot of others. There will be more explosions.

[TVGuide.com]

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1. New Interview with Henry Ian Cusick
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Order LOST Season 5, Save Up to $20 on a Previous Season.

[Thanks to hwkgrleo10 for the video and Susana for the heads up]

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Pre-order now: Lost: The Complete Fifth Season (DVD) | Lost: The Complete Fifth Season [Blu-ray] | Lost: The Complete Fifth Season Dharma Initiation Kit | Lost: The Complete Fifth Season Dharma Initiative Orientation Kit [Blu-ray].

[Courtesy of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. ©ABC Studios.]

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Each bobble head is priced at $12.99 and can be pre-ordered here and here.

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[Via Cypher80b]

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[Via Sky.com/Lost]

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Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse prehash “Follow The Leader” and ponder the death of Faraday:

[audio:http://ll.media.abc.com/podcast/audio/itunes/LOST_515_audio_podcast_4610c6a0-09b2-4515-8b0a-438cc30c5f93_2123942.mp3]

[Via ABC.com]

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I was thinking about the choice of being able to take a pivotal moment in your life and change the event.  I’m sure all of us have at least one moment in our life where you wonder, “what if…”  But would you really change it if you could?  Should the Losties mess with their fate?  What if they were meant to die in that crash?  What if Jack manages to change the future and instead of crashing on the island, the plane crashes in the ocean and they die?  What does Jack have to go back to anyway that he’d want to change the crash?  Wouldn’t he be better changing his actions with Sarah, his dad or the drugs?

Click here for my initial thoughts.

1.  I don’t think the Mrs Hawking does know what happens next (she tells Penny in the hospital).  Let’s assume that she picks up the journal when she shoots Dan back in 1977.  She has the events up until the time that Dan goes back and then shoots him.  Now she doesn’t know what is going to happen because the journal ends.

2.  Why would Dan think that Jack and the others don’t belong there in 1977?  What does he know or what did he learn back in Ann Arbor that we haven’t learned yet?

3.  I think that when we see Eloise go to Dan playing the piano as a young boy, this isn’t a flashback, if you consider 1977 as the “present.”  I think that we are seeing her after she shoots him on the island and gets the journal.  That is how you would explain that she knows Dan has a destiny to be fulfilled.

4.  Everyone is in a jumpsuit except Juliet and she’s in a red “death shirt.”  I think that the writers are going to use the overworked plot device that someone is going to have to stay behind and die so that the others may live and return to modern times.  Juliet will be the one.  Think about it.  She loves Sawyer but knows the moment he calls Kate “Freckles” that their life there together is over.  She also still loves Jack.  She can save them both by sacrificing herself to get them back where they belong.  This is my prediction.

5. When Dan has Miles take him to the Orchid station and Pierre/Marvin pulls up, he looks at his watch and says, “right on time.”  OK, I can believe that Dan understands the physics of the island but how can he know the movements of Chang?

6.  And Dan spills the beans to Pierre about Miles knowing it will lead him to send the children off of the island.  How could he know this stuff?  I’m wondering if we are going to see that Dan is the one who made all the calculations under the church where older Mrs Hawkins talks to the Losites.  That is how he figured when the incident would be on the island and that is why he has to get back.

7. OK, the scene where Dan is crying over the news footage of the plane crash totally changes in the middle.  At the beginning Dan’s hair is wet and slicked back.  Then 30 seconds later it’s dry and longer.  Bad editing or does something in time change like it did with the pictures at the lady’s house that Miles “talked” to her dead son?

8.  There is never much product placement but turns out JJ Abrams is a guest editor for the magazine this month.  The magazine we see is “The Super Power” Issue from August 2003. Issue 11.08.  See a large picture of the cover here.

9.  When Dan approaches Charlotte I wonder if he tells her the same thing about not coming back to the island or if he tries something different this time.  If I were Dan I’d probably try a somewhat different strategy.

10. Dang, Jack sure is a good shot!  Is there anything he can’t do?

11.  If Dan’s plan is to detonate the hydrogen bomb, was he going to let them all die?  I didn’t hear anything in his plan about getting them out of there before he bombs them.  But, we also don’t really know why he wanted to see his mom on the island so badly.  Maybe she will be the catalyst to getting them back to current time.  Maybe in 1977 she sees the journal and knows she has to help the Losties get back to real time.

12.  And I think that Desmond is going to end up being the Variable.  Why would he let them change anything?  I can see him doing anything to preserve his path that leads him back to Penny.

Gitsiegirl.com

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Previously, on Last Cake Standing: Bronwen, Courtney, Mary and James had out-baked Elisa Strauss (no sock monkey for you, babe!) in the last surprise wedding cake elimination. Darn shame there, ’cause Elisa’s super cute. This time, the twist came about in teams – Bronwen and James (Team Smiley) were teamed up against Mary and Courtney (Team Emotion) in designing superhero cakes. Everyone was seeing green, as they all pulled eco-heroes out of their creative butts – all except for James, that is, whose Captain Beachtowel was the best of the bunch. His idea might have been the best, but it wasn’t Bronwen’s idea, so that meant that almost none of it got used. Queen bee much, missy?

Anywho, Team Emotion combined their ideas and crafted a well-sculpted, glow-in-the-dark homage to fireflies, hippos and toxic sludge, while Team Smiley crafted a thong-clad man in a cape that rotated on top of a giant, phallic tower, complete with a single, enormous ball at the base. I wish I was kidding. Team Emotion took the prize easily, and Bronwen and James were forced into a 30-minute cake decorate-off. Bronwen won. Duh.

And I believe that just about catches us up. (By the way, check out the Lost 100th episode cake, made by Duff’s Charm City Cakes over at Jorge Garcia’s blog! It’s awesome.)

This week, on Lost: Alright, listen up – I know I’m not going to win any popularity votes here, but looking back on this week’s episode just left a bad taste in my mouth. I know, I know, it’s full of all my favorite things – Juliet, temporal theory, big twists, Jack getting shot at – so I should be happy, right? And, yet, somehow I just wasn’t. There were too many frayed ends dangling out there, too much history happening far too quickly and not fitting into four seasons’ worth of carefully laid-out continuity. I will say that upon further thought and some much-needed reflection, I have come around a bit. We’ll get to some of that later, after the recap, but for now let me just say that even though I wasn’t completely thrilled by the 100th episode, it did manage to do one thing that every successful episode of Lost must: make me think. Moving on …

We open in the emergency room, in 2008. Desmond’s just been shot by Ben, and he is rushed toward surgery while Penny is left outside with baby Charlie. She’s understandably worried. In this time of crisis, Eloise – old Mama Time, herself – shows up to give comfort. She admits to knowing Desmond and tells Penny that this is her son’s fault. Penny gets a bit agitated at the thought of this woman being Ben’s mother, until Eloise straightens her out and tells her that Daniel Faraday is the man she meant.

Back in 1977, Dan steps off the sub and greets Miles, just like we saw two weeks ago. We find out that Dan’s been hanging out back at Dharma HQ in Ann Arbor. Not a bad way to spend three years, I suppose. He’s come back to the island because he just saw the picture of the new class of ‘77 – Jack, Kate and Hurley. Miles takes Dan over to Jack’s house, where Dan proceeds to tell Jack that Eloise Hawking is basically full of shit and so is Jack for believing in a “destiny.” Hold it, Dan, we almost had the old jackass going and now you had to go and ruin it.

Flashing back, now, or forward, as it were (don’t you love time travel?), to when Daniel was a boy, we see him at the piano. He’s not half bad. A young Eloise Hawking comes into the parlor, stops the metronome, and asks young Dan how many beats the metronome has made since it started. 864, he replies. This, his mum says, is why he has no time to waste on music – he must occupy his brain with math and science, and hone his skills. This does not make young Dan very happy.

“Mum, I’d like you to meet my cauliflower, err, I mean, girlfriend, Theresa.”

Let’s get the other flashbacks out of the way, too, shall we? It’s Dan’s doctoral graduation at Oxford, now, and he has himself a girlfriend – Theresa Spencer, whom he’ll later turn into a temporally-displaced vegetable. Mum wants lunch alone and Daniel is peeved that she’s rude to his girlfriend. Being a momma’s boy, though, he relents. At lunch, he tells her that he’s received a grant from a wealthy industrialist. Charles Widmore, of course. She gives a gruff glare, then hands him a gift before leaving. He opens it. It’s the journal, blank for now, with an inscription.

“… even if I accidentally shoot you in the back. Hugs to you. <3″

It’s 2004-ish now, and Dan is watching the news conference telling the world that Oceanic flight 815 has been found at the bottom of the ocean. He’s sad. We saw this last season. What we didn’t see was Chuck Widmore coming to call. They shoot the shit about the usual stuff: how Dan didn’t mean to turn Theresa into a stunted vegetable, how his memory is full of more holes than swiss cheese, how Chuck wants Dan to go to this Island on a big steamer full of insane mercenaries so he can eventually go back in time and set things straight. Charles also admits to Dan that he faked the whole Oceanic wreckage. Charles adds that the Island could also heal Dan’s riddled memory, to which Dan remarks that he sounds like his mum. It makes sense to Charles because he and Ellie are old chums. I’ll just bet you are, bub. Chums with benefits.

It’s not much later and Dan is playing the piano again. He’s come full circle, playing the same song he did as a child. Eloise enters and he tells her about the job offer. She says he should take it. He asks if this would make her proud, and after a little bit of hesitation, she says yes. Dan agrees to go, and as we shall soon see, that’s not going to work out too well for either of them.

Back in 1977, Jack goes over to Sawyer’s bungalow to tell him Dan has returned. Sawyer shows off the shit he’s gotten into in the meantime – Phil is tied up in the closet. Jack doesn’t ask what sort of crazy party Sawyer and Juliet were throwing.

Ahh, the old “I’ll carry around this big heavy thing and look important” disguise. Tell me, dear readers, why did Dan need to keep a low profile when he ran directly up to Dr. Chang not two minutes after he had knocked into him, and Chang was nonplussed? Why did Dan need to act on the downlow to begin with? Just one more reason why this episode felt a bit whacked.

Over in a well-run patch in the jungle of mystery, Miles and Dan arrive at the Orchid. Pierre Chang is there, and Dan follows him down into the Orchid sub-basement. We can recognize this scene – it’s where we started back in episode one of this season. Dan bumps into Chang and checks out the damage from drilling so near a large source of electromagnetic energy. Dan soon runs up to Chang and tries to convince him that he needs to order the evacuation of everyone on the Island. In six hours, says Dan, someone at the Swan is going to take a pick axe to a world of hurt. Chang thinks he’s full of crap, so Dan pulls out the “I’m from the future” card. This doesn’t work too well, either. He probably should have told Chang how he came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, but whatever. Dan decides to unleash his ultimate trump card: he tells Chang that Miles is his son. Of course, Miles denies it, so Dan is back to square one: nobody leaves, everything go boom.

Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Jin all get together at Sawyer’s bungalow to discuss their options. They can either get the hell out of dodge on the sub, or head off into the jungle to start from scratch. The group is split, and soon they are interrupted by Dan, who has this crazy idea of going in search of the hostiles so he can reunite with his mum. Jack wants to help, but doesn’t know how to get to the Hostiles’ camp. He asks Kate, but Sawyer wants Freckles to stay. This doesn’t sit too well with Juliet, who eagerly gives Kate the code to the sonic fence, basically in the hopes that the bitch will go off and be eaten by Ol’ Smokey or taken hostage for good by the Others. Good for you, Juliet.

Sawyer, you miserable bastard. You made her cry. C’mere, baby, I’ll comfort you.

While Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Jin start packing up to leave for the beach, Jack and Kate are off on one of their wacky adventures with Dan in tow. They head to the motor pool to get some guns – you know, because every mechanic worth their salt keeps an arsenal in the garage. This ain’t the South, people. (I’m from the South, I can say that.) On the way, Dan spots a little red-headed girl and it’s about the time that he has that little talk with young Charlotte. He tells Jack and Kate to go on and he’ll catch up, then proceeds to be that creepy, scruffy guy that hangs out at the edge of the playground and offers candy.

He gets down on bended knee, and Charlotte says that she isn’t allowed to have chocolate before dinner – the very thing she said before she kicked the bucket a few episodes back. Dan assures her that he won’t tell. Then McWeepy breaks down and gets a bit creepier and tells her that she is going to have to get on the sub with her mum in a couple of hours so they don’t asplode. He really wanted to avoid telling her the whole thing, but he can’t help himself because he thinks he may be able to change things. Dude, if you really wanted to “change things” then you could have just not had the conversation in the first place and seen what happened. If Chang’s going to order an evacuation, she’s probably going to get on the sub and be safe and … whatever. This part just seems lazy and dumb.

“Hello there, stranger. Let me proceed to tell you how much I love chocolate.” What are they teaching these kids? No wonder the Hostiles win.

Dan soon catches up to Jack and Kate and they’re in the middle of raiding Uncle Al’s Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop when Radzinsky and a couple of his lackeys show up in a Dharma bus. Someone had the bright idea to give the physicist a pistol, so we all know how this goes …

“I’m totally not holding a gun, especially in plain sight where you can see it. No, this is one of them new wrenches. We were just going to try and fix an engine, or, failing that, blow a hole in it.”

“Dude, ow! Time out, time out … seriously. Ow.”

“Jeebus, we’re being shot at! Kate, you run out there and get taken hostage while Dan and I escape in this here jeep!”

Poor form, Jack. There are eight-year-olds on Xbox Live right now that could take out your kneecap with a rusty six-shooter and a blindfold.

And they all die in a fire. Just kidding, they miraculously escape in an open-topped vehicle that’s parked 50 yards from Radzinsky & Co. Um, yeah. I don’t know. It IS the late ’70s, after all. Starsky & Hutch were doing stranger things on television, I suppose.

Jack, Kate and Dan arrive at the sonic fence and Kate shuts it down. Jack looks at Dan’s wounds and tells him he has just a scratch. Whew, that was close. Sure am glad Dan didn’t get shot or something. Anyways, while they’re waiting, Dan has to have a little speech on basic temporal theory, reminding everyone that even though they’re all in 1977, this is basically their present and their future is unwritten, and blah blah blah Miles covered all this a few weeks ago, and I covered it in, oh, early 2008. So, yeah, we got it. Thanks.

Back in Dharmaville, Juliet and Sawyer are packing up when the alarm goes off and the goon squad shows up. Radzinsky wants to know where the hell LaFleur has been, and then hears some scuffling going on somewhere in the house. Radz finds Phil bound and gagged in the closet, and immediately surmises that something fishy is going on. He and his men in black force Juliet and Sawyer to the ground at gunpoint.

Back in Hostile territory, Jack, Kate and Dan have taken a breather at a creek. In other words, it’s time to have a deep discussion before they run into the Hostiles, because otherwise you’d probably want to hightail your asses onward before the whole Island is engulfed in electromagnetic hell. Ahem. At any rate, Daniel proceeds to lay it all out for Jack: In a few hours, someone at the Swan is going to trigger a massive electromagnetic pulse that will cause mass devastation. As a result, Dharma will build the Hatch and enable a failsafe protocol that involves having someone push a button every 108 minutes. Desmond will ultimately end up down there and one day forget to push the button, at which point a large electromagnetic pulse will be released that will force Oceanic 815 down onto the Island and eventually lead to all these temporal shenanigans.

Dan used to harp on and on about whatever happened, happened, but now he’s changed his tune. He knows about the constants in the temporal equation, but has forgotten about the variables, which are the people. He now thinks they might be able to change things because of their actions and free will. Gee dude, you just came up with that after all these years? Oh, and get this: Dan wants to change things at the Swan by preventing the “incident.” And how does he want to do this? By detonating Jughead, the hydrogen bomb from 1954. Let that roll around in your head for a couple of seconds – he wants to stop a pulse of electromagnetic energy with a pulse of pure, atomic death-on-a-stick.

Whooo, somebody pour that boy a big, tall mug of crazy.

Back in 2008, at the hospital, Penny is still grief-stricken about Desmond, and she can’t believe her ears when it comes to Eloise. Yes, Daniel Faraday is Ellie’s son. Penny asks Eloise if Des is going to be alright, to which Mama Time replies that she doesn’t know. She also remarks that it’s the first time in a long time that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Penny soon receives good news, however, and she and Desmond are reunited.

Here, Desmond is telling Penny that he is never going to leave her, because he promised. Hooray! There are still some characters that I can actually care about on this show.

Outside the hospital, Eloise is approached by Charles Widmore. Of course. He asks how Desmond is doing and Eloise says fine. She also tells him that his daughter’s in there with him. Chuck basically says that he’s had to sacrifice his relationship with his daughter over these years. This doesn’t sit too right with Eloise, and she says that he has no idea of sacrifice, since she had to send her son to the Island to get … wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Chuck remarks that Daniel is his son, too, and gets a slap upside the head. So … I guess we all knew there was another Widmore running around somewhere, and Daniel was as good a candidate as any.

And now, back in 1977, Jack, Kate and Sawyer have finally arrived at the Hostiles’ camp. Dan doesn’t wait, and trots right into camp, shooting up the place. Richard comes out and confronts Dan, whom he seems to recognize. Dan wants to see Ellie, and he wants to see her right that instant. Just as Richard is about to talk Dan down, a shot rings out. Dan looks down to see a bloody hole in his chest, and he slumps to the ground. Behind him is Eloise Hawking, holding a rifle. She leans over him, and he gasps with breath: “You knew this was going to happen, but you sent me anyway.” Eloise wants to know who the hell he is, and with what might just be his dying breath, he tells her that he is her son.

“Rose … bud.”

Cue the thonk!

Whew, crazy episode. As I said earlier, a lot of things that were happening in this episode just weren’t sitting right with me. I fully admitted that having Eloise ultimately shoot Dan was a nice bit of temporal-based irony that ultimately saved the show. The very small, but very welcome, appearance of Desmond and Penny warmed my heart and reminded me why I care. The rest of it, though – not so much upon first viewing. However, after jotting down my concerns and doing a bit of backlogging, I’ve reconciled a few of those. Before I get down to some temporal dissection, a look at Dan’s notebook and a healthy fashion discussion about the snazzy new “evil” Dharma jumpers, I’d like to cover some of the things that were bothering me, and the possible solutions that make it all a little more palatable. Some of you may have had the same concerns, and I hope my thoughts will help ease your troubled minds, as well.

WAIT, WHAT?
Thing the one: What the hell is up with the timing of the “incident?” All indications up to this point have pointed to the incident occurring in the early to mid-80s. Granted, no specific time has been mentioned in the show for when the Incident occurred, but we’ve all been speculating since around season two. The Swan orientation film was the first to mention the Incident, and we soon learned that the button protocol was instituted because of it. There’s even a significant incident mentioned on the blast door map, and it pinpoints the “incident” occurring in 1985.

“Hey Ethyl! He’s got that damn blast door map out again!”

Now, in this episode Dan tells us that the Hatch was built because of the Incident. If that’s true, then the Incident seems to be occurring about five to eight years too soon.

However, upon further reflection there is one saving grace for this particular timeline: the Swan computer, also known as The Button. That computer is an old Apple II, which was introduced in 1977, so it’s entirely possible that Dharma set up the new Swan protocol with the venerable Apple II at the helm. Something still doesn’t feel quite right, deep down in my gut, but I’m willing to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Thing the two: Everything seems to be happening too fast. For three years, Sawyer and Co. were hanging out with the Dharma Initiative and everything was hunky dory. Now, with in a couple of weeks of Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid being back, all hell has broken loose. I know that Jack and Kate are hell on wheels, but give me a break.

When they first showed up, Sawyer went over to the Flame where Radzinsky was building a model of the Swan from proposed blueprints. Within a few episodes – a matter of a week, maybe two – we’re to believe that construction of the Swan had already begun in earnest, including a huge, underground geodesic dome. Why the model, then, Radzinsky? Oooh, it has haunted my brain for the past few weeks.

And then, I realized how completely oblivious I was being. The model was probably for the orientation film. Many of you probably already thought of this, and maybe I missed something in a previous episode (it happens, I can’t catch EVERYTHING), but it finally made sense as to why he was building that architectural model, besides the obvious “hey cool, let’s get that on film” factor. So my mind was eased a bit by that, which is nice.

Thing the three: Charlotte. I mentioned it in the recap, but Dan pretty much negates his whole mutable timeline theory when he talks to Charlotte. He even tries to explain to her that he wanted to avoid it, but he couldn’t and now he wants to try and change things. Well, you just didn’t change a thing, dude, because you were the scary older guy that she told you about right when she died. Try going over to her and not getting all weepy and just say, “Hey, Dr. Chang is going to want everyone to leave, so go find your mommy.” Now, granted, he loved the woman, so seeing her as a child is bound to bring back some traumatic memories of her dying in his arms but c’mon. The whole set-up just seemed to culminate in a cheap payoff. At least that’s my opinion, I could be wrong.

There are more, but let’s move onto something more constructive, something like …

TIME IS ON MY SIDE, YES IT IS
Well, Dan, way to switch your temporal theory on us in mid-stream. You went from preaching static timeline theory straight on to divergent or mutable timeline theory. I’ve covered the specifics of these particular theories ad nauseum over the past two years, so if you want to read more about them, you can check them out in the analysis for “He’s Our You” and in last season’s “The Other Woman.” What I do want to look at is how the future for the Oceanic Survivors could look depending on the theory.

There is nothing specific in Daniel’s monologue this week about the Variables to indicate which of the two alternate theories he may believe can take place, but the safest would be divergent timeline theory. Within the confines of this theory, the future of the Oceanic survivors that we have come to know and love would involve a branching timeline that shoots off and offers another outcome after 1977, if Daniel, or Jack and Kate, are able to change something in the past. Their individual futures where the plane crashed, they survived, etc. would still exist, but in an alternate, branching timeline from this one. They were all able to travel back to this particular spot on the timeline because the event causing the branch had not transpired before this moment in 1977.

In the graphic above, the original timeline is represented by the branch that includes 2004a. In that timeline, Oceanic 815 crashed because of Desmond, etc., all because the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) occurred. The Oceanic survivors traveled back to before the EMP from this particular timeline, setting them up to potentially change the outcome and create a new branch.

This new branch would be represented by the timeline marked 2004b. That branches off when the hydrogen bomb was detonated, preventing the EMP. Now, if our survivors manage to pull something like that off and are able to travel back into the future, they will have to travel along the timeline for 2004b, eventually appearing in an alternate timeline where Oceanic 815 never crashed. There would be no paradox, because a timeline where the survivors did crash and did travel back in time existed prior to this branching timeline. Is this cooking your noodle yet?

Okay, look at it another way: raise your hand if you’ve seen Terminator 2. Just about everybody, okay, good. Let’s pretend that Terminator 3 never happened (not a film review, it’s actually quite good, but for the sake of argument). Now, within the confines of that movie, Skynet sends Robert Patrick back to try and kill John Connor. John Connor sends Arnold back so that he would be protected. Now, in the course of Robert Patrick and Arnold’s struggle, both Terminators were destroyed, along with the parts for all the terminator technology that Cyberdyne was using to develop Skynet to begin with. Once that happened, an alternate timeline branch was created where Skynet never came into existence and the terminators never came back, etc. Got it? Go back and watch T2 if you need to. It’s okay, it’s a good way to spend 2.5 hours.

Now, with mutable timeline theory, things get sticky. In this theory, if the survivors were able to change things and the EMP never went off, which later led to Oceanic 815 crashing and them subsequently traveling back in time, then the timeline of 2004a would be destroyed, and “rewritten” as 2004b. If that were to happen, the survivors would be erased, as well, rebooting the timeline and, quite possibly, resetting everything to zero. It could cause a new timeline to develop where the Oceanic survivors never existed in the first place, or it could create a causality loop where the alternate timeline can never really exist, so the timeline reboots to the original setting, the Oceanic survivors crash again, go back in time again, and another set of outcomes become available.

This causality loop would occur every time that an action took place that changed the past, possibly for infinity. Got all that? Don’t worry if you don’t – it would be absolute suicide to subscribe to mutable timeline theory, or at least if you followed it logically. My fear with the writers diverging from static timeline theory (ie,”whatever happens, happens”) is painting themselves into a corner, or forcing the general public to swallow yet another convoluted time travel theory. Sure we’d have some fun over here, but the general audience would be left scratching their heads all through fifth season.

Personally, I think that Dan is wrong, and no one is able to change what has been set in motion. I could be wrong, though, as we have a whole other season to wrap all this up, and I’m not quite sure what crisis the survivors will face before the end.

THE MEN IN BLACK
Okay, can someone, for the love of Juliet, tell me how Radzinsky and his goons were suddenly able to raid Johnny Cash’s closet?

Seriously, where did these jumpers come from? Did I miss something in a previous episode? It’s entirely possible that I did what with all the lack of sleep. Did they get dark jumpers just so we would feel a tinge of evil? And who are these ruffians with Radz, anyway? These are all burning questions that keep me up late at night.

I’M GOING TO WRITE ABOUT THIS IN MY BLOG
Okay, we got to see the origin of Daniel’s journal! Granted, we only saw its birth and none of the important stuff, like how in the hell it’s all filled in, what, exactly is within its contents other than random, insane writings on space-time, the Orchid, etc., and who put all of that into writing in the first place.

As for who filled it in, I’m sure that it was mostly Daniel. There’s a reason he was given that journal in the first place by his mum. He used it to keep track of his experiments, as well as his many forays into the temporal unknown. It was probably a way for Daniel to keep track of the many events he came across during his experiments with temporal flux. He admits in this episode that he tried out his experiments on himself before he did so with Theresa. I’m imagining that Daniel’s experiments caused him to “leap” through time, much like Desmond did in “The Constant.” Daniel was able to see forward and backward along his lifetime, even seeing some events transpiring on the Island, and making appropriate notes. One evidence of this is the marking for the Orchid in his journal. This leaping is also probably what taught Daniel about the importance of a constant, which he passed onto Desmond in order to save his life.

It’s important to note that when Daniel first sees the journal, the pages seem empty and it’s brand new, except for the inscription from his mother. So it seems that a former theory of mine – that the journal was Ellie’s, passed down to Dan – may not be true. It is possible, however, that the journal was taken by Ellie after she shot Dan, and she may have added additional events and notes to it over the years. I imagine that it’s this very journal that allows her to know what’s going to happen through the years. How it’s filled in with such great detail is a bit of a mystery, however. Unless Daniel saw just about everything during his leaps, there would be holes that are almost impossible to gap. For instance, in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Desmond meets Eloise for the first time in the jewelry shop. Eloise knows that Desmond is going to be there, and sets up the meeting so that she can steer him back toward his “destiny” with the button.

In a sense, Ellie has been acting like a bit of a timecop throughout much of the series. She steered Desmond back to his path, made sure that Jack and Co. got back to the Island so they could travel back to 1977, and even sacrificed her own son by sending him to the Island because that’s just the way it’s supposed to happen.

AND A COUPLE THINGS MORE
1.) Daniel may not be dead. He got shot in almost the same place as young Ben, and they’re even closer to the Temple, this time around. Would that be a huge copout? Probably. Would it make a lot of sense? Hell yes, if even just for the sake of consistency. Which means, of course, that it probably won’t happen.

2.) Speaking of electromagnetic pulses, do you know what else emits EMPs? Detonated nuclear bombs. Jughead had a leaky casing. The Hostiles had to do something with it. Bury it, perhaps? More than likely. Dharma digger go boom. Voila, one hell of an EMP. Just something to think about.

And that’s about it for this week. There’s a lot more rattling around in my head, but I’m too frazzled to prattle on about it. Sorry for getting cranky about this week’s episode; I’m just used to such high quality from Lost that I get a little grumpy when something doesn’t sit right with me. There are still three episodes for the creative team to really ramp things up and take us back to formula, and I’m looking forward to it as much as any one of you.

Thanks for reading and until next time, keep thinking those good thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, write and tell me something good.

Namaste.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

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Karen and Andreas talk about last night’s episode, “The Variable”:

[audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Campetin-Episode514TheVariable716.mp3]

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TVGuide has a new interview with Damon and Carlton. Do NOT read it unless you have watched last night’s episode!

And you thought the next grave was going to be Juliet’s… Wrong!

Time-traveling expert Daniel Faraday (nicknamed “Twitchy” by Sawyer) has become the latest Lostie to bite the big one, leaving the 1970′s Dharmaville outcasts to fend for themselves just when they need him most.

Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof commend Jeremy Davies for pulling off an increasingly bizarro role–and taking the news of his firing better than any of their previous island victims.

“For us, Faraday really was the cornerstone of the fifth season–he really shined,” says Lindelof. “I can’t imagine what Season 5 would have looked like without Jeremy Davies. When you think about all the crazy stuff that had to come out of that guy’s mouth, for him to be as interesting and emotional and poetic as he was is really extraordinary.”

Lindelof and Cuse say they were impressed by how gracefully Davies dealt with his dismissal. While disappointed to be losing a paycheck, the actor saw his departure as essential to their storytelling. Lindelof says, “When Carlton and I called Jeremy to explain what was going to be happening with Faraday, we’ve never had a more awesome exit interview with somebody on the show.”

“It was an incredibly painful thing to kill this beloved character,” Cuse adds, “but we feel that’s what this show has to do. His death is kind of the culminating event in the entire season. It really ends one chapter and commences the start of the final chapter of the entire series. Once we explained that to Jeremy, while he was personally saddened that his full-time status on Lost was coming to an end, he put the story above his own personal self.” (Hmmm…notice Cuse’s wording: “full-time status”.)

So why was now the right time to do him in?

“When we kill off a character we want the audience to say, ‘How dare you!,’ not, ‘It’s about time,’” explains Lindelof, who was particularly impressed with Davies’ final scenes. “He has never been better than he was in ‘The Variable.’”

Michael Emerson, who plays Ben, praises Davies as “a great sensitive guy who got deep into his character. He really lived it.” (And died it!)

Around the set, Terry O’Quinn (John Locke) will miss Davies and the music that always accompanied him. “Most actors walk around with headphones, but Jeremy would walk around holding a miniature boom box,” recalls O’Quinn. “He always wanted to provide music for everyone–whether they wanted it or not. Everybody would go, ‘What’s up with this dude?’”

O’Quinn remembers the time Davies brought his boom box out into the water during an action scene. “We were out paddling in a canoe with me, Ken Leung (Miles), Josh (Sawyer), Jeremy and Elizabeth (Juliet) and we ended up flipping a half mile out to sea. The first thing I thought of when I came up was, ‘I hope Jeremy’s f—ing boom box went to the bottom–and it did. But he replaced it real quick.”

Davies won’t be so easily replaced. Do you think Faraday was killed off too soon? Or were you tired of his time-traveling jargon?

By William Keck.

[Via TVGuide]

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Previously, on Lost: I have no idea what happened previously, because Christian Shephard’s voice didn’t come on and say those magical words to introduce the previous clips. So let’s see if I can remember everything that went down! Previously, our tempus fugitives, with the help of the Sayid 4000™, escaped the clutches of the evil Kelvin, who you may recall was resurrected from the dead by the ghost of Naomi using a formula developed at the Arrow station to form an undead army and was sent back in time to find the sub, get off the Island and kill John Locke while he was still a child. Whew. Now on Hydra Island, Jack and Kate have reconciled and asked Sawyer to wed them using his powers as a constable in the Dharma Initiative. During the ceremony, the castaways were ambushed by bionic polar bears, led by a team of robotic animal wranglers that had held up in the Hydra station after a particularly nasty rabies outbreak. Kate managed to give them all the slip, and using her master tracking skills, circled around and took the lead wrangler hostage using only a soup spoon. Jack cried, and basically didn’t say anything completely stupid for a full hour. The last episode ended with a 15-minute-long segment where Juliet first baked bread, then worked on a gunmetal grey 1965 Pontiac GTO in a pony tail and tank top.

I think that about catches us up.

This week, on Lost: There comes a time in every season of Lost when there’s sort of a filler episode. This be that episode. There are probably many of you out there who will disagree with me, and that’s fine. So you like Miles and think it’s cool he got a backstory. Yeah, sure, it’s cool. But did we really learn anything we hadn’t already figured out at the beginning of the season? Here’s my recap of the episode in three minutes or less:

Miles hears dead people. Oh, and Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax is his dad. His dad won the bowling championship against Gary Brooks over on CBS last week, in case you missed it.

Awwww, Dr. Chang reads to a young Miles. Did you see that the book is a story about a polar bear? That tickles me

Hurley is funny. Oh, and he’s also writing The Empire Strikes Back, with a couple improvements, to save Lucas the trouble. Hurley advises Miles about talking to his father: “In Empire, Luke found out Vader was his father, but instead of putting away his lightsaber and talking about it, he overreacted and got his hand cut off. I mean, they worked it out eventually, but at what cost? Another Death Star was destroyed, Boba Fett got eaten by the Sarlacc and we got the Ewoks. It all could’ve been avoided if they’d just, you know, communicated. And let’s face it. The Ewoks sucked, dude.”

Hurley writes about Chewbacca shaking his “fury fist in the sky” in his Dharma-branded composition book. Those Dharma folk were geniuses at branding.

Kate makes another mistake that could cost lives.

“So, yeah Roger … I wouldn’t worry about Ben, he’s probably just out doing what boys do – you know, playing around in the basement of a Temple or something. I mean, not that I know anything and stuff.”

The Swan is under construction. And apparently, electromagnetic bursts are periodically driving metal tooth fillings up through workers’ heads, killing them instantly.

“Hey, Al, could you hurry it up with the serial numbers on that hatch plate? I’m late for my concert with AC/DC.”

Juliet continues to be awesome and stunning and stuff.

I like my coffee tall, with a touch of sugar and a lot of blonde.

Daniel Faraday returns to the Island. And he looks like he’s got a lot of stuff figured out, as evidenced by the shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

“Hey, Miles. Long time no see.” Cue the thonk!

And … yup, that just about covers it.

Although this episode was funny, and fairly solid, it felt a bit out of place within the context of the Lost realm. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the pacing, story and overall atmosphere was just … off. And why, after all this time, are we finally getting to know Miles? I’m assuming it’s because his “ability” is going to come into play somewhere down the road, but if not, this was a total waste of time, in my opinion. I feel for his character, I do, but this episode didn’t really make me want to care about him much more than when I first saw him step into the jungle with Charlotte and Daniel. I guess he suffers a bit from “Tailie” syndrome – since he hasn’t been around since the beginning, he just doesn’t seem to be fully stuck in the thick of things. It’s interesting to note that two of the show’s strongest characters could have suffered the same fate, but were saved by good writing and fantastic acting – I’m speaking, of course, about Juliet and Desmond.

IT ALL ADDS UP
Speaking of Desmond, did you all catch the title of the next full episode – the 100th episode, by the way? It’s called “The Variable.” Now, I’m assuming from the previews that it centers around Dan being back and all hell breaking loose when Radzinsky and some Dharma punks with big rifles go on a manhunt, but the title has my wheels turning. During one of the time jumps at the beginning of the season, Dan stops by the Swan to give Desmond a message – to go find his mum and tell her what’s going on. Dan justifies this by stating that Desmond “is uniquely and miraculously special” and that the usual temporal laws aren’t always applicable to Des. When Desmond’s mind came unstuck in “The Constant,” Dan was able to guide him back by telling him that he needed a constant source – something that was the same in every time period in which Des was jumping about. He called this, of course, the Constant.

Now, in any equation where there is a constant, there must also be a variable – something that is representative of the unknown factor, often the factor that is trying to be solved. This variable is just as it sounds – something that can change and represent many things, depending the terms of the equation. In many ways during Lost, and in many of the things Dan has said, Desmond fits the full definition of a Variable in context with the temporal happenings on the Island. Of course, I didn’t see Desmond anywhere in those previews, but they don’t always show everything. Whether “The Variable” really has anything to do with Des or not remains to be seen in a couple of weeks. Personally, I hope to hell Desmond is back. I’ve missed him.

BACK TO SCHOOL
Did you all notice that most of the easter egg fun in this week’s episode occurred in the class room? No, really, I’ll show you, come along.

Here we see Jack in between smoke breaks, cleaning the kids’ classroom. Can you all see what’s up on the board, there? Look closely, some of the symbols might look familiar. Let’s get closer.

Yup, the little Dharma kiddies are studying the evolution of written Egyptian language – hieroglyphs. Pretty cool, huh?

I’m pretty sure that poster behind Roger’s head says “DHARMA science is FAR OUT.” This, too, tickles me.

OKAY, I WAS WRONG, IT HAPPENS
So, back in 2004, before Miles hopped on the Kahana with Keamy and his band of psychos, he was rushed into a van by some mask-wielding mystery men in the company of a dude named Bram. We were introduced to Bram last week, as he was one of the other Others that followed Ilana and were protecting the big silver box du Pandora. In the van, Bram tells Miles that he should not return to the Island, because he’s not ready. He confirms this by asking Miles “what lies in the shadow of the statue?” just as Ilana did last week to Lapidus. We also learn that Bram is not in league with Widmore, as per my speculation in last week’s analysis. Okay, so I was wrong. I still have the Novikov self-consistency principle, the judgment of Ol’ Smokey, ley lines and a whole slew of other things from seasons past. I’m still batting above average.

So, if Bram, Ilana and Co. are not with Widmore, who are they with? Obviously, they’re with the Island. Are they from another group of Others who were previously on the Island? Are they the spared sons and daughters of Dharma Initiative folks that were gassed? I assumed that they might be the cult of Widmore, as he returned to the mainland, amassed a fortune and has been trying to get back to/protect the Island ever since. Could they possibly be another sect of the Others, secretly formed by Richard as a failsafe in case of possible catastrophe or war? It’s clear that there is a war brewing, and we’ll start to see the sides shake out before too long. There will be a battle for the Island, the classic showdown between dark and light. Right now, everyone except Locke seems to be looking fairly dusky, in my opinion.

Oh, and another thing – it’s interesting that Ilana and co. are using a code phrase to differentiate between the enlightened and those who aren’t in on the cosmic secret of the Island. We saw that same thing with Desmond in the Swan when we first met him. As I joked last week, he asked Locke “What did one snowman say to another snowman?” Admittedly, that little phrase isn’t quite as deep and foreboding as that which asks of the statue, but they are code phrases with a correct response. The most common groups to use such a phrase are intelligence organizations, including military intelligence and covert branches of the government, such as the CIA. Before being recruited by Dharma, Kelvin seemed to hold an intelligence role with the US miitary, and he later uses the code phrase when Desmond arrives on the Island. Was this a phrase that was put into use by some of the military personnel recruited by Dharma? Does this necessarily mean that Ilana and co. could be a military faction of some sort? Of course not, but it’s something to consider. More than likely, the code phrasing is something attributed more to the Dharma Initiative than anything else, so this might point to Ilana and her group as being remnants of the original initiative.

At any rate, the answer to the current code phrase seems to be preoccupying many a Lost fan’s brain. My friend Rebecca and I, in a recent Twitter session, seemed to think we’ve pretty much figured it out, though:

Rebecca: Do you know what lies in the shadow of the statue?
Me: Probably a Starbucks, if I had to go out on a limb.

Well, that’s it for this week, friends. It was a good, low-key week, which I desperately needed. Next week’s episode is a special recap show, which I may or may not watch, and may or may not write anything about in the feature. Whereas during the past gap in episodes this season, I took the time to cover some issues with the statue, etc. in “A Little Intermezzo,” I haven’t committed to the idea of another interim feature for next week. If any of you have any revelations or questions before then and that seems like worthy topics for discussion, I’ll gladly put together a feature just for those. So, in the meantime, get those great wheels a-turning, and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

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I just came across with this interesting article from Popular Mechanics, it’s a great read:

We can always count on Hurley to bring into question exactly what we’re thinking. In last night’s episode, of Lost, “Whatever Happened, Happened,” he came through once again when he asked what should be a simple question: Does Ben (2004) remember being shot by Sayid back in 1977? Clearly, the chronology of time on the island is as perplexing to the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 as it is to us.

A few weeks ago, we addressed the issue of paradox in time travel. (A quick refresher: A time traveler goes back into the past and kills his grandfather before his mother is conceived, which negates his own birth. In that case, he would never travel back in time in the first place. So his grandfather wouldn’t be killed at his hand and the time traveler would be born—and could potentially travel back in time and kill his grandfather. Therein lies the paradox.) According to Novikov’s Self-Consistency principle, there is zero probability of a time traveler doing something that would change the future; therefore, the universe will keep time travelers from altering the past to change the future.

And that’s exactly what trips us—and Hurley—up. Miles (channeling Faraday, who has mysteriously disappeared) explains that everything that has happened has already happened at sometime, “we [just] never experienced how it all turns out.” This jibes completely with what we’ve been told by other characters on the show (“Time is like a string. You can move forward, and you can move in reverse, but you can’t create a new string,” Faraday explained in the season five premiere ). But if everything that’s happened has already happened, then what about the concept of free will?

Last time PM spoke with Richard A. Muller, author of Physics for Presidents and a professor at UC Berkeley, we asked him about free will because, frankly, we like to believe the castaways are at least somewhat in control of their actions. “Relativity messes with your idea of time,” Muller told us. “What it means to me is that time is not a single line, but [instead] has a bunch of loops in it. And things in the future in some sense have already happened. There are limits, but not everything has already happened.”

Muller uses Michael’s inability to commit suicide following his return to the mainland as an example: If we already know that Michael is going to end up on the freighter that enables the Oceanic Six to leave the island, then Michael can’t commit suicide. He can try firing the gun, or crashing the car, but it’s not going to work. “They call it the ‘power of the island,’ but that’s just a metaphor for things that have already happened somewhere on this complicated line of space-time,” Muller says. “You can’t stop them from happening. It’s that aspect of destiny that’s beyond the reach of free will.”

So even with all that, we still don’t know the answer to Hurley’s question: Does Ben remember being shot by Sayid? In theory, he should. His life exists on a line; it’s where life and space intersect that is changing. For example, even though Jack is in the 1970s when he decides not to operate on young Ben Linus, it’s not him as a child that’s making this decision—he still has all the memories of growing up. And for Ben, getting shot by Sayid will just be another childhood memory, so he should remember it…right? But the creators may have sidestepped that problem. Whatever mysterious process young Ben must go through in the temple to be healed, according to Alpert, will leave him with no memory of the incident that nearly killed him—not to mention rob him of his innocence and turn him into an Other. —Erin Scottberg

Click here to read more LOST-related articles at PopularMechanics.com.

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[Via TVGuide.com]

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On today’s debate we want to hear your theories on Faraday’s whereabouts. Is he working at the Orchid Station? Has he just gone crazy because of Charlotte’s death? Has he left the Island? We do know that, at some point, he goes “all Nostradamus” on Pierre Chang by telling him a few details about the future:

So, what do you think? Sound off in comments!

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Here’s a new interview from E!online.com with Fionnula Flanagan, where she talks about her character on LOST, Mrs. Hawking.

Warning: the interview contains some minor spoilers.

Lost fans want to know: Who is Mrs. Eloise Hawking?

We know she’s a mother and something of a mystic, and that her mysterious character (played by the superfine Fionnula Flanagan) has both mucked up Desmond David Hume’s (Henry Ian Cusick) life and helped the Oceanic Six get back to the Island. But as Fionnula reveals to us in an exclusive interview, the full story won’t be revealed until a certain episode a few weeks out…

In the meantime, if she’s Daniel Faraday’s (Jeremy Davies) mother, then who is Daniel’s father? Could it be Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)? Says Fionnula, “Mrs. Hawking never talks about her past sexual relationships.” (Say it with me: LOL.)

And what else is Mrs. Hawking? Could she be an alien? That’s actually on the table, or so says Fionnula…

Having already done three episodes so far this season, Fionnula promises she will bring Mrs. Hawking back again later this season: “I’m literally waiting for the car to come pick me up because I’m going back to Hawaii to do another one.” That episode, likely number 14 (of this season’s 17 hours), explores Mrs. Hawking’s many abilities. “I do know quite a good deal [about her now] from the episode that I’m just about to do. I know a great deal about her past and her present and her future. But I am contractually unable to tell you, or they’d have to kill me.”

OK, so we can’t know who she is (and she isn’t telling if she’s the cute little Ellie from Richard Alpert’s camp in the 1950s), but can we know where she is? Does she ever go to the Island? Says Fionnula, “Oh, I do think Mrs. Hawking can come and go anywhere she pleases. I think she has that capacity. Whether she’s able to control it or not, I don’t know.” Hmmm…

Some watchful Lostpedians noticed that Mrs. Hawking wears a couple of quasi-religious totems—a snake eating its tail and a Tibetan Buddhist symbol. So what is Mrs. Hawking’s religion, if she has any? Is she a woman of science or a woman of faith? “[Her spiritual beliefs] are definitely not of this world and not of this planet. That’s for sure!” Um…not of this planet? I suppose it was just a matter of time before the show introduced aliens!

Continues Fionnula, “I think she’s got that wonderful blend of scientist and spiritual believer. When the stars are properly aligned she seems able to call upon great strength. I think she’s a woman of enormous strength.”

Fionnula doesn’t know why Mrs. Hawking’s photo appeared on the desk of the abbot of Desmond’s monastery. “In fact, I was told about my photograph having appeared. A man stopped me on Bond Street in London last year. He grabbed my arm and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I have to know: Why was your photograph on the desk?’ And I thought, this man is a lunatic.”

We’re all mad here, but at least we’re in good company. Fionnula is famous in theatrical circles for her appearances in productions of James Joyce‘s works, and she thinks there’s a connection between that writer’s literary fever dreams and our beloved, nutty Lost. She says, “I think there’s definitely some connection between Lost and Finnegans Wake—James Joyce’s great magical, mythical book drawing on seven languages. Yes, I think Joyce would have enjoyed Lost, for sure.”

Source: eonline.com

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After a couple of busy weeks we are back with the SL-LOST podcast discussing last week’s episode: “This Place Is Death”. Enjoy!

[audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Campetin-505ThisPlaceIsDeathThoughtsTheories564.mp3]

Click here to download this Podcast.

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