Sorry I took so long. I was out of town for a lot of last week. Here's your well-reasoned, non-fanatical discussion for Episode 3.08: Flashes Before Your Eyes and 3.09: Stranger in a Strange Land.

These Weeks' Contributors: Ally, Claire, Jim, Laila, and Starr

3.08: "Flashes Before Your Eyes"

Time Travel

There is actually a TON to unpack about Desmond's ability to see the future. There are a ton of theories popping up about it, and they're all actually pretty interesting. The first thing to note is that Ms. Hawking, a clear reference to Stephen Hawking, says that the sequence of the universe more or less cannot be changed. We saw this when the man with the red shoes got killed. She said that tomorrow he would die another way, and if he were saved tomorrow he would die yet another way on the third day, etc.

This view of the universe is interesting to me only because I recently watched 12 Monkeys, and it employed the same thinking (the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle). So the question is, do we interpret everything in the show as having a predetermined outcome? Is the show going to have an existential crisis theme, a la I ♥ Huckabees?

Another question that is coming up is whether Desmond actually traveled back in time when he turned the key. Think about it for a second. He was so happy to see Penny when he woke up from the fall. This does kind of make sense. However, if he did in fact travel back in time and the universe doesn't change, he would have ended up back at the island and turned the key again, thus sending him back in time in a kind of loop. How did he get out of the loop and end up naked in the jungle? How did Penny know to search for Desmond, as we saw at the end of the second season? Did he tell her or something?

Another interesting thing that I'm pondering is whether or not he is doing the kind of time traveling that Billy Pilgrim does in Slaughterhouse-Five.

The other obvious implication that we have to grapple with is whether or not Charlie will actually die soon. Thoughts?

Cultural and LOST References

This episode was packed pretty tight with references to things in LOST and to other shows. Laila and Jim came up with a lot of these.

• The red shoes on the man dying was likely a reference to The Wizard of Oz
• Charlie is cheating death like the characters did in Final Destination
• Desmond threw his tie down on the sidewalk just like George Clooney did in Out of Sight
• "Hey Lost! Twin Peaks called and they want their plot back!" --Laila
• Polar bears in Penny's dad's office, the boat in his office, the numbers, etc.
• The word "namaste" comes up in the same office, as it has several times in LOST

3.09: "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Shark Jumping

I'm sure that some people are going to get upset at me for this one, but it needs to be said that last night's episode quite possibly might have jumped the shark. It pained me to watch it at times. My first big problem with the episode was Jack's backstory. It was a COMPLETE non sequitur with regard to how it fit into the rest of the LOST storyline. It served only to explain how he got part of his tattoo. I don't understand why they couldn't have woven it in some other way. Did this trip to Thailand happen before or after his marriage fell apart? Also, elements of his backstory were annoying. First, Jack would never use force to get a woman to do something; it's so not his character. The mystery and power behind the tattoo is pretty ridiculous. Are we supposed to believe that Jack will be a leader because of the power that ink on his skin brought him? I'm so not buying in. Is it supposed to be the other way around, such that the tattoo is a marking of one's inner self? I could understand all of those dudes beating up Jack for forcing Achara to do something, but they were upset about the magical tattoo. Honestly, that's some nonsense you'd see in Charmed.

Second, The whole soft Sawyer thing kind of made me want to gag. His whole fight with Kate looked really contrived, and since when does Sawyer have heart-to-hearts with anybody?

Third, the episode purported to answer big questions, but I don't really think that it did.

This is not to say that the entire episode was worthless, though. I did enjoy Jack dealing for Juliet's life. The investigation into Juliet revealed some insight to the Others' inner-workings. They apparently have some uniform code of rules, which Ben can veto. I didn't really like the woman investigating, but as Ally pointed out, she's probably supposed to come across as a Nazi nurse or something similar.

Other Questions

Starr thinks that the Others are courting Jack to become one of them. He says that based on all that they are showing him a lot of their inner-workings. I tend to disagree with that, but I really don't know what they would be doing to him otherwise, so maybe they are.

One really big question was about the survivors from the plane. Were they brainwashed? Why were they all normal and happy? Drugs?

Post any other questions you guys have. I hope that next week has some better material.