Yeah, Evil Eloise won't even let Daniel play the piano.

My thoughts, such as they are, are here.

I just updated the post. I think the "Daniel is dead" is classic Lost misdirection. I think he'll live.

(Now's when someone will pipe up and tell me that they read that the actor's character really did die and he's off the show. Bah . . . )

I think Daniel is actually dead (unfortunately)and futhermore I don't think it violates the time travel 'rules' set up so far by the writers.

As Daniel points out to Jack, the time travelers (Jack, Sawyer, Miles, Daniel, Kate, Juliette, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sayid) can all die in 1977 because even though they may currently be in the island's past, it is actually their 'present'. Meanwhile, people that are not time travelers (i.e. young Ben) couldn't die in 1977 because that actually is his past and we already know he has a future. So in the end, all Daniel accomplished was the necessary actions in 1977 that he already had, including being killed by his mother.

Although I don't think that the writers have violated the 'what happened, happened" rule yet, it does raise the question why Hawking and Widmore feel the need to knowingly keep working and making 'sacrifices' to ensure and preserve the timeline. If Daniel and Desmond both were fated to go to the island to perform their necessary actions, why did Hawking and Widmore have to scheme and prod them both (and others) to fulfill their destiny? One would think that somehow the inevitable would have happened without their scheming.

By the way, one of my favorite Stephen King (who the Lost writers also love) books is Insomnia, which features some potentially interesting parallels. In that book, people are either classified as 'the Purpose' (people with a specific important destiny they must fulfill) or 'the Random' (people whose actions can vary but in no way change the destinies of the Purpose). However, King throws in a single special person called a wildcard (*) who has true free will and can destroy the Purpose.

I think a wildcard is necessary to keep some suspense in the plot, and therefore the writers have kept open the possibility (and even periodically identified certain characters as 'special'). None of these characters has yet been shown to actually alter past events that change a necessary future, but the writers keep the question hanging and playing with it.

Two extra questions this episode raised in my mind:
1) Who exactly is Penny's mother? Is is also Elloise Hawking and therefore is she Daniel's brother?
2) Penny giving her child Charlie to a nurse before going in to see Desmond feels like an important plot point, doesn't it?

With the time travel and all that, could little Cholly be big Charlie?
He's British. He had a connection with Desmond.

Hmmm.

Does anyone else NOT want them to detonate a nuclear bomb on the island? Count me in as thinking that will stink.

OK, possible theory (and a terrible prospect, imo) on the ending of the show:

1. Somehow, throughout this season and the next, efforts continue to change the incident, or its aftermath, etc. To change the future.

2. They succeed on the last show of the series.

3. Last five minute montage: Flight 815 lands safely in LA, and all the characters go about their lives, never having lived what we've been watching the last six years.

Could happen . . .

Michele - I don't think that line necessarily refers to Penny, but it obviously might. I'd also point out that Widmore has talked about Ben tricking him off the island, which raises questions about what really happened there given Ben's constant scheming and lying. I think the whole Penny situation is still murky, not only who is her mother, but why and how did Widmore 'have' to estrange himself from her if she is just the product of some off-island romance?

Bill, that theory is obviously essentially the one that Daniel hypothetically proposed in this episode. He thought he could be a variable that changed the future and make the 815 plane crash never happen. But, holding to form, he just ended up being another constant doing what he always had to do. I do think that some of the Losties will now take up Daniel's attempt (as did Sayid in shooting young Ben), but we'll see if they succeed anymore than they did. And more interestingly, whether some Losties actually want to attempt to alter the future and stop the 815 plane crash.

I am with you, I think it would be largely terrible if the show ends with the plane crash erased from time. I continue to hold to the belief that 'What happened, happened' will prevail, and that any attempt too alter the known future either continues to get twarted, or actually causes the known future.

But then again, I am a Calvinist. ;)

Hmm. For a minute or two, I thought maybe getting shot by his mom was his plan.
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Nobody answered my query about lil/big Charlie.
Possible same person?

Jared - I've seen speculation about that, but it's hard for me to buy it.

If Charles Widmore is Penny's father as has been asserted all along, than this theory would mean that Penny's son is actually her own father.

I think that is even too crazy for Lost.

Now if Penny really isn't Charles Widmore's daughter.......

Oh, sorry. Obviously less crazy that having your father also be your son. ;)

But I still think that would be hard for the writers to incorporate. How could that actually work since we already know a fair amount of Charlie's backstory growing up in the 1980's and 90's?

I guess in some period of time after 2007, you could have Penny/Desmond somehow take baby Charlie back into the past and leave him there with new parents and brothers, etc. maybe to hide or protect him, or maybe to get him to fulfill his destiny of going to the island on flight 815. But I don't know what that twist would accomplish since Charlie is still dead and would never have learned that Desmond and Penny were his real parents before he died anyway.

But then again, Hugo is carrying around that guitar case and we haven't yet seen his reason for returning. So hey, why not? :)

Charles Widmore is Dan's dad?

You didn't see that coming?

Of course, you'd have to add "He was kidnapped, SENT BACK IN TIME, and raised to believe others were his parents/family."

That's true.

And "Lost" never does weird, confusing stuff.

:-)

And "Lost" never does weird, confusing stuff.

Naw, I wasn't commenting on the ridiculousness of it, just clarifying :-) - I actually think it's a very plausible theory.

So - do you think Jack will meet a young(er) Christian? Or himself?

I think that they're going to try and carry out Faraday's plan (as shown in the "next week on LOST") and fail. The swan incident will not be averted and will send everyone from the future back to their time zone. It may happen at exactly the right time for Sawyer/Juliet. Who knows what gun will be to their heads when the white light flashes? That's my theory, for now.

Also - I think that Dan is really dead. I also think that Miles will die OR somehow have the choice to stay with his father (???) - but when all of the Time-Shifted Losties get back to their proper place in time, he won't be there, too. We'll focus on the original cast for the final season - the only extra characters will be those who crashed on 316 (and Alpert, Ben, etc.).

I think she made him go back because his idea of variables was/is wrong. I think there's an idea at play that all of time is already set - both past AND present AND future - this is quite the theological conundrum.

God is above time and He knows and sees all - to what extent have things that haven't happened already occurred? This question, I think, lies outside of the Free Will debate. If there is an idea that things that are in the future are set and Eloise knows/believes this, then she knows that no matter what she could have done, there is no way she could have kept him from being killed. She knew it was pointless to try and convince him otherwise.

It's the same advice she gave to Desmond in/after she saw him in the jewelry store - there is no altering what will happen. You might be able to delay it, perhaps, but you cannot change it.

There is a hint that maybe all of this is up in the air when you see her tell Penny that for the first time she doesn't know what's going to happen.

I think one of the more sad things that we see in the episode is when she gives Faraday his journal with the note on the inside cover that says, "Remember, I will always love you." She wrote this knowing that his death would be at her hand and, strangely, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. VERY interesting . . .

I'm pretty sure that Daniel is dead. The same way I was sure that Jin was alive - I just have this feeling. (The same way everyone is scared for little Charlie - without any specific reasoning)

Michele,

I don't think that you'll have to understand all of the details about the time travel, but they may add enjoyment to the show when everything is said and done. If my theory about Faraday being wrong about the "variable" is true, then it means that everything is as it was and will be - the "variable" was just a ruse to throw people into questioning the show's future.

It may be unfair to judge the story from the outside, but let's face it - the show will end with everyone being back together. Whether that happens through the bomb or through the incident or whatever, everyone will come back together.

Bill's idea about the plane resetting and never crashing is quite compelling making all of what we've watched a "dream" without being a technical dream. Still, as we've mentioned, that leaves Kate either in prison or on the lam. That leaves Jin & Sun facing possible marriage difficulties. That leaves Jack to bury his father without discovering who Claire is/was. That leaves Locke handicapped. (although Charlie, the blunder twins and the tailies will all be alive).

All this to say - while Bill's theory is certainly plausible and is very intriguing, I don't think they'll go that route.

while Bill's theory is certainly plausible and is very intriguing, I don't think they'll go that route.

I don't either, but I know they are going to head-fake in that direction.

I think it's possible that they will discover that they can change the future, and it will divide the Losties between people like Jack, Juliet, Sayid, Hurley, etc, who want all of this to go away, and people like Kate, Sawyer, Locke, who wouldn't be able to bear losing Aaron, going to jail, being paralyzed again, etc.