some LOST pieces...

Reviewing some LOST puzzle pieces in no particular order...

Desmond's "chief" Brother has a photo on his desk of himself with the pawn shop Watcher lady. Maybe she works upstairs at the monastery?

Claire seems to have joined her father as an Island insider. However, is she a living or undead Claire? I could've sworn she was killed (in New Otherton?). Her body disappeared, but was it under her own power, or the Island's? And if it IS still her, what happened to her that changed her so that she's so comfortable hanging around w her undead father?

The Hostiles, the original Hostiles, were on the Island before Dharma. They enjoyed the benefits of the Island without all the scientific muckymuck that Dharma built and began and Ben adopted after the purge. The Hostiles are naturally not a technology-loving people. Jacob is apparently the same way. Locke calls Ben's Others "cheaters" for having electricity and appliances and running water.

Visits/visitors to the Island...
1. The Black Rock
2. Dharma initiative
3. Rousseau's research ship (a bit over 16 years ago, and must have been AFTER the Hostile purge, as Ben adopted the abducted baby Alex—does that make sense?)
4. The Nigerian beechcraft plane (we see it during the time-skip, which would account for the geographical/distance challenge)
5. Desmond's boat
6. Oceanic 815 (thanks to Desmond and the Swan)
7. Henry's balloon (sucked into the snowglobe with 815?)
8. Widmore's freighter

Where did the first Hostiles come from? Are there any true Island *natives?*

Doesn't it make sense that the Hostiles didn't use conventional modern technology or recruit new Hostiles, until after the Purge, when Ben took leadership? Only after they took over Dharma's resources did they get access to the sub and the communication capabilities of the Flame and the Looking Glass. And in that time, Ben spread the Hostiles' reach out into the real world, apparently stationing Hostiles in mundane lives and jobs as pseudo sleeper agents, as well as maintaining the facade of the Dharma Initiative to recruit newbies.

Does the real Dharma Initiative not know that there was a purge?

Is there enough time for Kelvin to have finished his tour in Iraq, join Dharma, and start his Swan shift, before the Purge? Could he have begun AFTER the Purge, answering "smells like carrots" to one of the button-pushers before him? How long was a button-pushers shift, as prescribed by Dharma, anyhow?

The show still hasn't accounted for a patch of "lost time" in Desmond's past that happens between his bailing on his first fiance and getting the call to join the monastery. I want to believe that hits blackout was more and better than just the result of a pre-wedding-cold-feet-fueled bender, y'know? And it would be a perfect time for his future self to muck with his younger self, cuz when he wakes on the street or whatever, a monk helps him up. This leads to him joining the monastery, which leads to him "failing out" of the monastery, and then meeting the love his life, Penny Widmore. Kind of an important introduction, no?

In Desmond's hatch time-jump, he tells his story, which would logically include time travel, his shipwreck on the Island, the hatch, and the fate of Oceanic 815, to his academic/physicist buddy. He tells him this story in the past. So, that physicist buddy, and mutual friend of Penny's, is walking around w that information from that day thru to the present. Which to my mind means that if Penny were to mount a search for her missing-at-sea Desmond, this physicist buddy would step up and provide her with everything he could remember about their conversation.

In Desmond's freighter time-jump, he meets Faraday at Oxford, and tells him his story, but given the sporadic jumps, with much less detail about things like the hatch and other survivors. But Faraday would know and remember his name, right? And pay attention when he hears that this guy was lost at sea in a round-the-world boat race, right?

Of course, due to his own messing about in the timestream Faraday suffers from some missing time of his own. So, he apparently doesn't actively/consciously remember Desmond for years before meeting him again on the Island. Lucky for him, tho, his notes don't seem to be as easy for the universe to wipe away as his memories.

That's a little maddening. The idea that the universe (and the writers), in its interpretation of "course correction," might be allowed to give people a "selective" memory when it comes to interacting with time travellers. Which would explain how Charlie doesn't remember Desmond accosting him during his busking session on that rainy day he was called a hero. Of course, that works on a couple of levels. As a busker, he might honestly not remember another insistent wacko he meets on the street. Also, the universe might have put him in a place to save that woman (Sayid's love?) from a mugger, just so that encounter Desmond would not have been the most important thing to happen to him that day.

A couple of Others have demonstrated unique gifts or abilities...

1. Alpert doesn't age.

2. Mikhail seems able to recover from the direst of injuries. He survived the "non-lethal" setting of the sonic fence. He took a crossbow arrow well enough, and also survived a close-proximity underwater grenade detonation.

3. ?

Alpert seems like a genuine native, or at least a very early (accidental?) immigrant. Mikhail seems like he might be a Ben-era recruit.

Ben claims that he's the only survivor of the Hostile/Dharma purge. Technically, tho, Kelvin and maybe Raszinsky, down in The Swan, survived as well. Could there be any others in some hermetically sealed corner of the Island?

The Swan went into lockdown once since the crash, and a plane managed to drop a pallet of Dharma supplies. The implosion is probably responsible for ending that practice for a number of reasons, but that means that there's still some aspect of Dharma still in operation out in the real world.

Desmond told Charlie that if he pushed that button, Claire and Aaron would get on a helicopter and off the Island. Did Charlie do it wrong or different? Did Desmond change something that changed that outcome? Or... was that vision of a farther off future? That takes place after the Six return to the Island and the survivors are rescued all together, without any lies? Of course, that means that the Aaron that gets on the helicopter is a three year old boy, right? OR... Once the Six get back to the Island, they FIX things so that the last three years never happened, and maybe the plane never crashes, and Claire getting on a helicopter with baby Aaron happens in LA, and she's on her way to being (re)united with her half-brother Dr. Jack.

Or something.

At the meta level, LOST loves introducing new mystery blonds. Women with long blond hair, usually tall, too, I think. They appear, unidentified, and then can be "filled in" later with details, y'know? Like when Jack's dad goes on his bender in Australia and attempts to home-invade Claire's place. The woman at the door there, mystery blond (at least so far as we could tell, right?). Claire's mom? Claire's aunt? And hey, how about the introduction of Juliet, another mystery blond. And why does Ben seem to be so smitten with her? Because she resembles another mystery blond, Ben's dead mother. And why does Ben choose to use Juliet to soften Jack up when he needs his spinal surgical help? Because she resembles another mystery blond, Jack's ex-wife. Ultimate mystery blond? How about Penny Widmore?

Not at all plot-relevant, but in my head, Desmond and Penny seem like an alternate universe version of Jack and his ex.

Sun and Jin were on the plane because Sun's father was going to "release" Jin after he delivered a watch to an LA business partner or colleague.
Jack was on the plane to deliver his dead father, Christian, back to LA.

Claire was on the plane to go to LA to have her baby and hand it over to the adopting couple.

Anna Lucia was on the plane because she'd quit playing bodyguard to Christian Shepard in Sydney.

Eko was on the plane leaving Australia after investigating a supposed miracle, the resurrection of a young girl after death by drowning. The young girl happened to be the daughter of the fortune teller that Claire visited, the one who arranged for her child to be adopted by a couple in LA. That young girl also had a message for Eko from his dead brother, whose body was deposited on the Island years ago in the crashed beechcraft from Nigeria.

Wack.

Why were Sawyer and Kate smashing those rocks?

More, no doubt, as the season goes on...

Keep on keepin on~