2x21 - ?

[robev]

Yeah but its not clear how that would benefit Mr x. It is a lot of work to get locke to die off the island bring back his body and take it over to convince ben to kill jacob lol.

I think turning the failsafe made Desmond "special" (due to the things that happened to him in Flashes Before Your Eyes and The Constant). I bet Desmond being special has something to do with it.

[What'sDoneIsDone]

The Time Flashes were needed so that Richard could be convinced of John's specialness, and so he could tell John his mission. I think that he needed Locke to die off island and have his body return in order for him to assume Locke's appearance to multiple non-sleeping, non-hallucinating people.

John being sent off-island to bring people back also allowed for the Incident to happen in the first place.

It's a really long con.

I think Desmond was an unintended side effect that he probably doesn't even know about. I think it will work against him in the end.

The question is, how did he get Ben and Widmore to do what he wanted? Re-watching "Man Behind the Curtain" might help. I'm still waiting for a Widmore flashback episode. Hopefully we'll get one that will answer this.

[Locke-in-a-Box]

I got a question about the tape with Chang/Wickmund. If they only spend a 8 hr shift and then go back to the barracks via Pala Ferry as the tape suggests, wouldnt they run into Chang/Wickmund and wonder wtf with the name?

[Just Thinking]

Originally Posted by Locke-in-a-Box

I got a question about the tape with Chang/Wickmund. If they only spend a 8 hr shift and then go back to the barracks via Pala Ferry as the tape suggests, wouldnt they run into Chang/Wickmund and wonder wtf with the name?

I'm also confused about Chang's arm. In this film that has a 1980 date on it his am is fine, but in the Swan Orientation film it is injured as we saw in the s 5 finale. Shouldn't his arm be injured in 1980?

[zeus22]

Originally Posted by Just Thinking

I'm also confused about Chang's arm. In this film that has a 1980 date on it his am is fine, but in the Swan Orientation film it is injured as we saw in the s 5 finale. Shouldn't his arm be injured in 1980?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. We saw his arm injured in 1977. If we're to assume this video was actually filmed before the Incident, then maybe the people in the Pearl weren't even watching people in the Swan because obviously the Swan hadn't been finished yet. Could Pierre have been talking about another station? Weird.

[Just Thinking]

Originally Posted by zeus22

Yeah, that's an interesting question. We saw his arm injured in 1977. If we're to assume this video was actually filmed before the Incident, then maybe the people in the Pearl weren't even watching people in the Swan because obviously the Swan hadn't been finished yet. Could Pierre have been talking about another station? Weird.

I thought of that , but then saw the 1980 at the end of the film. Also, the printout Eko took was a log of the button being pressed, so it seems that at least at its latest use, the Pearl was used to watch the Swan.

[Jack&KatePlusEight]

Originally Posted by Dr. Chameleon

Looking forward: what is the purpose of the Pearl? If the vacuum tubes go nowhere, was it just elaborate busy work concocted for some reason? Or was it done to "deprogram" people who worked elsewhere, such as in the Swan (in which case the Pearl had it's intended effect on Locke, to make him believe what he'd been doing wasn't for any real purpose).

I personally think that since the button in the Swan station was real, then the experiment was on the people in the Pearl station. I think one of the characters was suggesting this as well.

[zeus22]

I also love the foreshadowing in Eko's dream about what will happen if the button isn't pushed.

[Dr. Chameleon]

Originally Posted by Jack&KatePlusEight

I personally think that since the button in the Swan station was real, then the experiment was on the people in the Pearl station. I think one of the characters was suggesting this as well.

You're right, Desmond suggests it in the season finale (which is when we find the huge pile of vacuum tube-encased notebooks). Still, throughout season two there's a lot to suggest that Dharma was intentionally messing with its members, which we really don't see any evidence of in S5. Perhaps those shenanigans developed after the incident (the Pearl orientation video is dated 1980, after all).

Off topic, but I wonder if we'll ever find out anything about the Tempest? Was it always designed to be a deadly chemical factory, or did the Others "repurpose" it at some point? Maybe they can give us a Dharma-oriented video game after the series to fill in all these little details that weirdos like me care about.

[Jesus_Stick]

This is easily the most useful episode of my rewatch so far and I think I have had some sort of revelation from re watching this.

First i'll start with the little things I noticed:

In Locke's dream Eko falls from the top of the cliff where the drug plane was originally, this is very reminiscent of the fall which broke John's back as we would find out a few seasons later. The dream also had much symbolism pointing towards this, Yemi in the wheelchair, Eko limping. This dream is actually an amazing foreshadow.

I noticed Karen Degroot in the orientation video, is she played by Anna Torv from Fringe? (Just checked the wiki and it isn't her although it does look a lot like her.

Now for my revelations:

It could be argued that the whole Resurrection of Malkins daughter could have been a similar plan by the psychic in order to get Claire on the plane, if indeed he is a psychic at all. It was also heavily hinted that Libby could be working in a similar kind of role for Widmore. With these two points in mind, I find it extremely interesting that when Eko starts shouting at the Daughter at the airport, Libby checks to make sure everything is ok, to which Malkin's daughter responds with a knowing "Yes". Could this be an abandoned storyline thread?

The other thing was regarding what someone mentioned up thread about the whole Swan storyline ultimately being pointless to john in the grand scheme of things. That is ultimately true and this episode reminded me of a thought I had a while back. Was John's initial season one dream which directed him to the drug plane in the first place actually designed to point him towards the Pearl and not the swan, which, if orchestrated by the man in black, would have put MIB's plan into action a lot sooner?