Lost 5.15
Oh Locke, are you never fully sane? I was just about to jump on board with you and your island zen, when it turns out you effing wrote your own destiny! So the only reason you had to get the Oceanic Six back to the island was because future you TOLD RICHARD TO TELL PAST YOU! So, unless Locke turns out to be Jacob or the island in human form, I'm calling bullshit.
Speaking of circular time issues, I cannot believe Lost is going there! First there's the compass that Richard gave to Locke during the time skipping, Locke gave to Richard in the 50's, and that Richard gives to Locke in the present, and that Locke asks Richard to give back to time skipping him. Confused? So am I, because that compass just exists in an continuing loop, switching from Locke to Richard, with no known origin. And then there's Locke, who essentially acted on his own instructions, believing them to be Richard's/the islands. Richard has no idea what John has to do to save the island, in fact, I'm not sure that the island needed saving. Future Locke just said that! Thinking back to this season, Locke really just saved the island when he moved it, not by bringing the others back (unless Locke is the island personified and needed to get back to be alive again). My thoughts:
Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff.
Back to "can you change the future?". I'm going to say yes*. If you haven't seen Star Trek, you may want to skip down to the next paragraph. So Damon Lindelof and JJ Abrams crafted this very specific and clear view of changing the future and alternate realities in that movie. So the Oceanic six get throttled back to the past, and everything they do from that point on alters the future. So I'm going to say, if you can change the future, that the Lost we saw from seasons 1-4 onward may not exist in the island affected by the past Losties. I think... I'm going to be frank, it made much more sense in Star Trek with future Spock telling me about alternate realities. This is less clean cut and would make me feel better if they didn't go the alternate reality path.
OK, you fools who didn't see Star Trek can read again (seriously, go see it). Richard told Sun that he watched all those people in the past die. Now he could be lying, but he could also be telling what occurred in his reality (if we're assume alternate ones, see above). He also may be telling the truth, but the incident in fact propels the Losties forward in time to the present. Richard might think they died, but they only time traveled. That's a rather solid idea, come to think of it.
So, what causes the incident? Is it the nuke? Is it the buildup of energy? Is it the two forces interacting? I'm going with the final option as the results would be bad, but not island destroying bad. I imagine Pierre will see what happens and still build the Swan, but with the Button. Of course, Faraday's method might be intended to permanently release all the electromagnetic buildup, like using the key. Perhaps when Desmond used the key, it detonated an atomic bomb, causing the purple sky. I think we'll be seeing that sky again tonight.
Will Richard and Ben take down Locke before he takes down them? Clearly Locke is angling for a power play. Sure he may try to come off all prophet-like, but since his mission to save the island is just Locke's talk, it's about power. Richard and Ben will not like this. And what of Jacob? Does he exist? Are Richard and Ben holding him captive somehow? That would explain his "help me" from the cabin last year. That was so long ago I almost forgot about it! I think, if Locke truly is one with the island, that he could succeed. Then again, Locke has been wrong before, and Jacob has shown to have one hell of a wrath. Or maybe, and this is a stretch, Locke is Jacob and is returning to his cabin to kick Ben and Richard's asses. Check out
this poster promoting the smackdown tonight.
Erm, just some random things, like why the Hell can't Richard age/die. Maybe he's Jacob or Jacob's son or brother or something. At this point, I haven't got a clue. Also, why has Ms. Hawking suddenly stopped seeing the future? If she does have flashes like Desmond (caused by detonating a nuke, perhaps?), do they stop eventually or has something gone very wrong in time?
Either way, after this it's over until next January. Poop. I'm glad the show has gotten back to mystery, for a while there was just boring things in the 70's and small plot things, but now that we've got a direction, I'm excited!