All good questions but I think there is only 1 question to answer: What is the nature of the conflict between Jacob and the man in black? Jacob seems to believe that there is promise in humans while the man in black thinks we will never stop killing each other. The first 5 seasons showed we could very well be a lost cause.

who/what is Richard- where did he come from?

2005 PhoenixMons

Jate or Jawyer.

We saw Cindy the stewardess and both the kids living with Ben's group of others back on the Cage island. (Stranger in a Strange Lane, 3.9) They were standing in front of Jack's cage watching him. Now she's at the Temple, as is Aldo, who was a guard taking orders from Ben in Season 3.

Adam and Eve could be Jack and Kate, Bernard and Rose, or the de Groots, who have been laid aside but were integral to DHARMA at the beginning.

The love triangle will go to the end and be resolved in the Finale, whether we care or not. I would bet on that. That's why they keep inflicting Evangeline's bad acting on us and pulled a Katecentric this early in the season. We have to care about Kate even if we don't. (I don't, but I care about Sawyer and Jack, and I liked Juliet.)

Beside the big obvious questions, I have a small question that niggles at me. Desmond and his "supervisor" at the Hatch ... lived on DHARMA provisions and wore the uniforms, but seemed autonomous. I mean, if Ben and his people were on top of the DHARMA stations as they appear to have been, why were they leaving one nearly crazed guy in charge of pushing the button every 108 minutes?

If the thing could destroy the island or the world, why not send in a replacement so that Desmond could sleep eight hours? When the plane crashed, why not send someone to the Hatch to see what happened? Why was Locke allowed to go stop the button from being pushed? Ben knew all about the lostaways running the Hatch at that time; he even screwed with John about pushing the button.

At the time it seemed like the button and the silly old computer were just a mind game, so it seemed acceptable that all these events played out with so little effort at supervising the EM force. But now we know that Miles' father got his arm damaged and that there was a force they drilled into, and for three seasons we've known that it was no joke about pushing the button, since Desmond turned the failsafe key.

So are they ever going to address why Desmond, who had never even met Ben or Richard as far as we can tell, in spite of the fact that they are both pretty much control freaks, not to mention Jacob and MIB -- why Desmond was left in charge of saving the world every 108 minutes?

It just feels like major slop to me if they can't make Season 2 make sense in context with the whole narrative. And ditto with the Walt story.

How about this: Punching the numbers was really protecting Jacob from the Man in Black. The supplies (a gift from heaven!!) were probably arranged by Jacob. No one from Dharmaville knew about it.

As I wrote elsewhere, I think that MiB took over Jacob's cabin at the same time Oceanic 815 crashed, both the result of Desmond's tardiness in pushing the buttons.

MiB had no idea what was going on in the Swan so he sent Ben to investigate. Maybe it's one of the rules of the game between Jacob and MiB: MiB couldn't simply order Ben to destroy the computer, he had to get Locke to want to stop pushing the numbers, he had to break Locke's faith in his mission.

Interesting thinking. I haven't speculated a lot on what happened with Jacob's cabin because I don't feel like I have much information so it would be all spec, but you could well be right.

Still, what I am getting at is why the Swan station is not on the nu-DHARMA/Others radar. There were a certain number of hatches, and systems, set up by original DHARMA, and Ben and his henchman seem to be using them still. The Swan was arguably the most important of them all, so why is it being manned by Desmond alone? Why doesn't he know anything about the Others? Why was he recruited when his boat crashed? It was a two man job. Why wasn't his buddy replaced? Why didn't anyone show up at the Hatch with that body out there, when the various Others seem to know most of what goes on and patrol the island?

Desmond was there for two years or so before 815 crashed and only saw one other person.

I like the idea that Ben got sent to break down Locke's faith. So are you saying that although Ben thought he was taking orders from Jacob, he was really getting them from MIB and being taken in? I can see that. But surely Jacob would have known.

I think all the Jacob vs. MIB stuff will be explained first, but I'm just hoping they can tie up some stuff that seemed sloppy that they brought up in Seasons One and Two. I'm not sure all of that was written knowing where they were going in the end.

The biggest question for me is about children.

Why was young Locke given a "recruitment" visit from Richard and what did the "not ready" mean? Were others also given a recruitment visit and we just haven't seen it? Why were WALT and his "powers" such a feature for the first few seasons? How is Aaron important? Are our LOSTIES all decendants of people that have been on the island, therefore might Walt, Aaron, etc. end up returning some day?

-A Tribetastic Creation

I want to know when Claire's new hair met Jack's old beard.

I hope they don't keep reproducing.

-A Tribetastic Creation