Subject: LOST 5, ep 14 "The Variable"
1. Wired Magazine: See attached photo. The copy of the magazine Wired that was on Faraday's couch when Widmore visited him. It was the August 2003 issue - ''The Super-Powers Issue'' - devoted to the plausible science behind far-fetched stuff like invisibility, X-ray vision, and time travel. The headline: ''The Impossible Gets Real!'' The issue discussed two time travel theories favored by most LOST fans, Throne Plates and Kerr Rings. There's also this cover-touted article, ''The End of Cancer As We Know It,'' which can be found on...Page 108. Cancer, of course, has haunted LOST since season 1; and 108 is the sum total of all LOST's numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).
In the aforementioned Wired issue, one of eight abilities profiled in an article on plausible super-powers is total recall - rather ironic in light of Faraday's memory issues in the episode. Also featured: teleportation (Jack and co. getting beamed off the plane), regeneration (John Locke's legs; the Island's quick-healing powers), weather manipulation (meteorology was one of Dharma's fields of study); force fields (the sonic fence); underwater breathing, super-strength, and x-ray vision.
2. Smokey: Remember how in ''Dead Is Dead'' Smokey judged Ben for his daughter's death? Maybe that's why Eloise fled the Island - to escape Smokey's judgment for killing her son.
3. Staged Crash: Widmore confirmed that he was the one who created/ planted the fake Oceanic 815 crash. At least now we can be sure of that.
4. Desmond: He survived the gunshot. Perhaps he is the latest in a string of ex-Islanders who can't die back in the real world because their fates remain entangled with the Island (Jack, Michael). The island isn't done with him yet...
5. Scene changes from a previous episode: Yet another example how one scene is different depending on who is remembering it... in one episode, Sayid told Ben and Jack at the marina, ''I don't want any part of this. And if I see you, or him again, it will be extremely unpleasant for all of us.'' But in the Sayid-centric episode ''He's Our You,'' we saw the scene again, but this time Sayid spoke solely to Ben: ''And if I see you again, it'll be extremely unpleasant for us both.'' What do all of these scene discrepancies mean? Obviously, if the scene is re-shot then the writers could just go back to the previous script and have it recited word-for-word... but they don't.
6. Daniel in the Others' camp: He went to the Others' camp making sure he had a gun, and acted in a threatening manner uncharacteristic of him, I think we are led to the following conclusion: Daniel went to the Others' camp knowing that his mother would shoot him. And he did it precisely because he hopes it will get her to work to change what happened. ''You knew...you always knew this was going to happen...and you sent me here anyway...'' What happened doesn't matter because in Faraday's plan, it's what happens next that's most crucial.
7. Dr. Chang: Pressed by Miles to explain his disclosures to Dr. Chang, Faraday replied, ''Just making sure your father does what he's supposed to do. You'll see.'' Faraday's plan seemed to involve making sure some people do what they've always done, and making sure the Variables do something radically different. Or was Faraday manipulating Chang with some reverse psychology?
8. Jack the variable: Did Eloise want the incident to happen so that 815 would crash so that Jack (a surgeon) would be there when Daniel got shot? Daniel said that Jack's "not supposed to be here." Maybe Jack is the true variable? I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
9. Eloise had to send/ sacrifice Daniel back to the island when Widmore offered him the freighter job. If he never went back and flashed into 1954 eventually, he could not have told the Others to bury the Jughead bomb and the island would have been destroyed meaning Daniel would never have even existed.
10. Faraday's journal was missing a page (see attached). Why would they show us that?
11. Sorry that I don't have anything more concrete... this episode threw me for a loop. I'm trying to wrap my brain around Hawking's/ Widmore's/ Ben's motives and can't seem to think straight!