That Is One Scary European History Teacher

It was clear to me in the last episode that the off-island flash sideways glimpses were all different timelines. The John Locke sitting in bathtub did not just come from meeting Hurley. The John Locke in the teacher's lounge did not just come from meeting Rose. Each time we see Locke, we have followed an increasingly different parallel reality.

I predict, in the next episode, for no apparent reason, Locke will be walking and Helen will be gone. The shifts may even be happening in the same scenes. Like when Locke falls out of his fan onto the lawn. If Helen was inside, wouldn't he have shouted for her? Until he fell, she wasn't inside. He may be constantly shifting from reality to reality, with things changing every minute. But he is obviously not aware of this.

If that's what is happening off-island, that must be what's happening on-island. Sayid is magically alive again not because he was saved by the healing pool, but because everyone has shifted to a timeline where he wasn't drowned. This is why Juliet would say "it worked." At the moment of her death she became aware she was in another reality. They all are. Sawyer is at the same time burying Juliet and in an elevator with Kate. Only Juliet was aware of this for a split-second.

And Ben! A history teacher. Because his father was not recruited by the Dharma Initiative; because the island is at the bottom of the ocean. And Ethan - almost delivering Claire's baby (again). Of course, Kate will actually deliver it (again).

Could it be that in his death, Jacob was able to run scenario after scenario until he changed the variables enough to get what he wants? What is that he wants?

Ilana: Finally, A Rescue Leader Worse Than Naomi

A persistent question for me this season has been: Why did Jacob get Ilana to protect him? She really could not have done a worse job.

Instead of rushing to Jacob's side once she reaches the island, she instead hikes out to his summer cabin and torches it. Fat lot of good that did. Then she makes a slow march carrying a heavy body - finally - to Jacob's house under the foot. Even Ben has to ask her, "why did you bring this?" Her answer is feeble. She could have been there a lot faster not carrying heavy old Locke.

Not to mention she KNOWS the rule about burying people so the man-in-black cannot body-snatch them. But when Ajira crashes on the island, does she bury Locke? Nope. She leaves him out the open and then figures "he must have been snatched by now. Let's bring him to show people."

I'm also wondering why she had Sayid in handcuffs? Was it because she somehow knew he would be infected by the man-in-black and be a danger to Jacob? But she screwed that up too and loses Sayid before Ajira even landed.

Thankfully for her Jacob has turned the other cheek to her ineptitude and decided to visit Hurley in the afterlife. But I think he should also pay her a visit to give her a quick slap in the face and demerit badge.

Cave paintings & Frenchies

I read a post today that asked, "Why can't the person with all the answers on Lost be the loquacious, blathering type?" So true. Instead, they are always the "you won't understand this so I'll use a lot of metaphor and only hint at the truth."

So far we've gotten no answers from Ben, Richard, Christian Shepherd, Eloise Hawking, Elana, Jacob and now Flocke is cagey and difficult. He's also a liar.

New theory: Flocke (or Esau or man-in-black) is the inhabitant of the damp cave that Sawyer barely made it into on Tuesday. I bet Jacob never set foot in this cave. Why would Jacob write numbers on the roof of this cave, and then leave the cave and go to his own cave under the four-toed statue, and then give lists of names to Richard from there? I don't see Jacob doing a lot of hiking and caveing on the island. Especially since he's not the one that can travel fast as a puff of smoke.

So Flocke lives in this cave. The scales are his. The numbers and names are his. He and Jacob battled for control over these people. Flocke wanted control to get his loophole. Now he wants control for some additional reason. He gets control two ways: 1) recruitment, 2) infection.

Also, anytime I hear anything about things written on cave walls, I think of the Lascaux cave paintings in France. 22,000 years old. So maybe an Egyptian connection is not going back far enough. Rousseau will not be the only Frenchy involved in this 22,000-year conspiracy. I should have known it always comes back to the French.

Faraday's Homemade Particle Accelerator

What a premiere for Lost: The Final Season! Sure, the character stuff was good and Jack and Kate looked good, but I've spent the last few days -- make that the last year -- pondering one question: Why did Faraday direct the Losties to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the source of an electromagnetic incident?

My freshest super-fringe theory: Because Faraday intended to create a black hole.

The newly built Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator -- is fueled by none other than superconducting magnets (1,600 of them). To drop an H-Bomb into a naturally occurring superconducting magnet could mimic the conditions within the LHC. One of the worries when the LHC was built was that mankind might accidentally create tiny black holes that would suck up the planet (and you thought GMO corn was dangerous). This is exactly what Faraday did.

In this case, each black hole was filled with a copy of the universe circa 1977. Specifically, the moment when the screen went white at the end of season five. Each copy exists in its own dimension and progressed in its own way. So far we've been shown inside only two of these possible universes, but I belive we will see more.

Now we need a hero who can span dimensions and sew the threads of the fragmented universe back together: Enter Desmond.