lost_boats.jpg

Oh man, you guys.

So, OK, Jack and Kate, WE’VE GOT TO GO BACK, all that. The lawyer with his maternity suit. I wish someone would take Aaron away from Kate. I wish someone would take everything away from her. Why can’t she be the one in the casket? Then there was Sayid getting attacked by the orderly in the hospital with Kate’s address in his wallet? What was that all about? Is all of this just Ben’s way of lighting a flaming arrow under their butts to get them to want to go back to Snap Island? We know that he hired the lawyer, but who hired the tranquilizer hitman? That woman from the bakery? “Just let me get these Cinnabons in the oven and then I will be ready to kill.” And why do tranquilizers have little pom poms on them? So many new mysteries. There is, of course, the BIG SPOILER that Jin is still alive, and is now safely back on the island (“but WHEN is he on the island” — Daniel Farraday, always) with a young Danielle Rouseau. But none of that is as impressive as last week’s revelation about Charles Whidmore. NOW THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE A SPOILER ALERT. We already knew Jin was still alive, didn’t we? Come on, didn’t we?

But bad news, you guys. Lost fumbled a bit last night. I caught them in a PLOT LOOPHOLE. Luckily, it’s absolutely the only thing on this show that has ever not made sense, because this show is basically an airtight ship of impeccable plotting always. But, remember when Locke and Sawyer and them all got back to the beach looking for the motorboat to take them back to the Orchid?

OK, now, sometimes the camp isn’t on the beach. Right? Because the camp hasn’t been invented yet. Similarly, last week, everyone was in the army surplus tents with Richard Alpert and the Others, but then when there was a time-shift, the army surplus tents disappeared because it wasn’t the ’50s anymore, or whatever. So it follows that when this time-shift happened, SHOULDN’T THE ARTISANAL HAND-CRAFTED ROWBOATS DISAPPEAR? Caught. I caught you, Lost.

Admittedly, this is why I hate time travel. Obviously it would be cool to go back in time and KILL HITLER, but otherwise it’s just too messy and complicated. Like, shouldn’t they be time-shifting in and out of their clothes? Depending on whether or not those clothes have “happened” yet? A: True. Especially Farraday’s skinny tie. That is a very time sensitive article.

“Time travel’s a bitch.” — Sawyer.

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Comments (66)
  1. Why is Faraday still wearing the tie anyway? It’s not like he has any meetings to go to.

  2. Maybe I’m confused, but I thought the rowboats were there because they were in the future. Their camp was there, but everything was eaten, none of the people were there, and there were some extra boats. That says future, right?

    I’m more interested in why they haven’t run into any of the other survivors. They’re all moving through time too, right? or are they all staying by the creek? Or are they all dead? Questions.

  3. Brian  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +12

    Didn’t they try to cover this in the Season Premiere by saying that the Zodiac moved because it was with them when they moved? Maybe that’s their way of explaining inanimate object time travel.

  4. Yeah I’m pretty sure they already explained that whatever they have with them, they get to keep. Like the Zodiac, and the compass that Richard gave to Locke.
    But whatever, the important thing is that you are right and that Kate SHOULD be the one in the coffin.
    I hope so much that Sun is going to use her new gun on Kate. Or choke her with those chocolates…

  5. maybe i’m really dense, but couldn’t it just be that the tents weren’t there anymore because, in the stretch of time between the ’50′s and whatever time period they ended up in, the tents had been dismantled and relocated, rather than just abandoned? and if they had been abandoned then they would’ve still been there, in varying states of decrepitude?

  6. Oscar  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 0

    Brian has tickled me with the correct answer. Thank you brian, hehe!

  7. oh, snap. i should’ve read the previous comments. never mind.

  8. Random annoyance: Sawyer says he saw kate in the jungle “last night”. When do these people sleep? Or did it take them an entire night to get back to the beach? No wonder they keep getting nosebleeds, excessive junglewalks + no sleep is the number 1 cause of a bloody nose DUH.

    • Violet  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +2

      Yeah, that bothered me, too. They haven’t slept or eaten anything since they started jumping through time, but they’re still running all over the place like nobody’s business! Aren’t they tired? Maybe it’s just one of those “going to the bathroom at Hogwarts” things – they never show it because who wants to see that when you have dragons and Voldemort (or smoke monsters and Widmore).

  9. To all of you LOOPHOLE APOLOGISTS:

    If they get to keep whatever they have with them, then why didn’t they get to keep the tents they were in last episode is my whole point? Why wouldn’t those tents have been “in the radius”? You guys are being VERY GENEROUS with what is obviously a serious and scientific exploration of time travel that has otherwise been absolutely perfect with no problems whatsoever.

    • cognitive dissonance.

    • I think they have to be touching the thing that travels with them, like the gun or the boat, so if Locke had grabbed Alpert’s tent and just held on until the flash happened then he would have stolen it through time travel. And then he would have been recruited by Carmen Sandiego to help with her nefarious deeds.

    • Violet  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +1

      They weren’t physically attached to the tents, but they were holding onto/sitting in the other things – the compass, the bag, the boat. That’s how it works.

      • What about the tent that Miles and Charlotte were being held captive in? They were floating in the tent? Levitating? Were they levitating inside the tent?

    • TC  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +1

      Was this not an issue for you in dealing with the compass staying in the possession of Locke and/or Richard throughout the jumps?

      • Well, that’s only a problem insofar as them not jumping out of their clothes is a problem. But I figure if they can time-jump with their clothes, then I have to accept that they time-jump whatever’s in their pockets. It just makes SENSE.

    • POSSIBLE EXPLANATION: Their time travel isn’t organic, but is being specifically guided by someone, who also picks and chooses what they take with them. Wherever they show up (sigh WHENever they show up) is always plot-relevant. Cloak lady said they had to SAVE THE WORLD, so it’s possible everything they’re being shown now is necessary for them to save the world. Didn’t Locke go to a different time than everyone else at one point? So if they someone is picking and choosing who goes where (when) then they can also pick and choose what goes where (when).

      Like in Chrono Trigger, how each era they visited is relevant to Lavos because their time travel was being guided by Schala, who got trapped between time by Lavos. Lost is such a JRPG.

    • The answer to all of this is “Hodgson’s Law:”
      “Repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.’”

      Because if you don’t abide by that, reading this page will drive you crazy:
      http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bloopers_and_continuity_errors

  10. What i’d rather would want to discuss is:

    I like how they explain the time traveling. Whit their logic it’s impossible to go back in time and KILL HITLER because it would have already happened -> Sawyer was already present in season 1 when Claire’s baby was born (of course we haven’t seen him then). That’s pretty logic and cool

    but….!

    Why didn’t Desmond remember Faraday then when they met for the “first” time (their encounter on the beach, or in the jungle – wherever…) – which was the second time in reality?

    • the rules are different with desmond, because he has a very weird/special relationship with time due to his whole experience with the hatch explosion. he is a little bit outside of time constraints. so he did remember meeting faraday, but it wasnt until faraday had altered the past. oh now i just went crosseyed.

  11. Sean  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +1

    I fully expected them to have fallen into the ocean after Sawyer says “Thank you God!” Drowning in the ocean > torrential downpour.

  12. ok you guys, you remember the whispers everybody hears on the island? like rousseu and sayid hear whispers in the jungle season one. It’s what other people are saying, in the same location, just in a different time period. Totally.

    • That’s a good idea, but the problem with it is that the time-traveling folks can see and be seen by the stationary folks (like when they get captured by the 50s-others and Locke talks to Alpert).

  13. their feet were probably hooked under the rungs of the rowboats, which is why they stayed with them during the shift (meta moment, this show is so fucked up that they make their viewers have to come up with situations like levitating in tents and hooking their feet in rowboats)

    all i wanted during that part was another shark attack

  14. Sam  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +1

    I think you have to be TOUCHING the object when it happens. I think.

  15. I read a website last night that pretty much SPOILER ALERT explains the whole show if it’s true. idk if I’m just behind in finding this thing, but I’ve been avoiding theories and spoilers for a reason.
    http://www.timelooptheory.com/the_timeline.html

    I dare you to read that the whole way through and not believe it.

  16. I don’t think it’s being generous to say that what they are touching time travels with them. I mean, that’s obviously why the boat stayed with them. They’ve kept all sorts of things that they were touching – clothes, and then, like you said, whatever was in their pockets. Therefore, they are in the boat just like they were in their clothes, sitting in it, touching it. It is the exact same thing as the clothes – the boat and whatever was in it went with them. The writers of lost didn’t just miss something, give me a break.

  17. Why does everyone hate on Kate? At least you know where you stand with her. Now Juliet, I don’t like or trust her one bit. And yeah, time travel and stuff.

  18. Rabo Karebekian  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 0

    Oh shit, Greenringer is totally onto something with the whispers theory. I had totally forgotten about that.

  19. also, it has to be anything they’re touching/immediately close to, because how else would jin not have drowned? he was on that plank the entire time.

  20. That first time they time traveled and all of the other Losties were with them, how is it that no one was touching something at the camp? It all just vanished? Very convenient, Lost Writers. Good thing Juliette has always had her hand on a gun, I guess. (What would happen if they were touching someone from the past or future? Do they tag along, too? SAVE ROUSSEAU!)

    While watching the episode, I also mentioned it was weird that Sawyer said “last night” to mean when he saw Kate and Clair in the jungle. I guess he said that because it was dark? But seriously, those folks have not stopped moving this whole time, and it’s impossible to know whether it’s been for 4 days or 4 hours, because there’s so much freakin’ TIME TRAVEL! (But it’s blowing my mind, and I love it!)

    Have we seen that logo from the Indian airline somewhere? It looked familiar, and I don’t know if it’s from one of those online scavenger hunts or what.

  21. I really like the whisper theory but weren’t they more like voices in their heads? It seems more like Jacob was screwing with them or something. And we do know there is some intelligent entity controlling at least some of the crazy shit going on on the island wether it’s Jacob or Dr.Who or whomever.

    Kate has just become a boring, “Don’t touch my baby!” one note. And how is it possible that she looks so much better when she’s dirty? Do they do that on purpose? Her hair always looks so stupid when she’s trying to look respectable. Maybe it’s just me but she really needs to go back to the Island so she can be sweaty and sexy again.

  22. Josh  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +1

    I thought the EXACT same thing.

  23. Steven  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 0

    For those that are still confused about time travel, here are the links that helped me better understand it:

    http://dangerousminorities.blogspot.com/2009/01/jigsaw-falling-into-place-part-3-only.html

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4300764.html

    If you read the links, then you’ll understand that eveyrthing (space and time) exists on one plane, which means that everything already exists. So since our Lostaways are traveling what we presume to be wormholes, it would make less sense if they weren’t traveling with whatever they had on them. Spacetime does not break up matter.

  24. RoRoLo  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +3

    love the way jack says “we’ve gotta go baaaaaack” Anyone have that audio file. I need to annoy my GF with it. Thank

  25. how come no one ever gets a sunburn on this show?

  26. theD  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +2

    Why do you all hate Kate? Don’t you want to see her naked?

  27. Andy  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 0

    In the first episode of the season Faraday mentioned that the motorboat they had from the freighter came with them because apparently that was part of the whole time travel thing, the stuff they had with them/on their persons (like their clothes) comes along with the time shifts

  28. Desmond is the only person who can actually go back in time and kill Hitler, because he is in fact LINK, THE HERO OF TIME

  29. kevin  |   Posted on Feb 5th, 2009 +3

    I think they get to keep their clothes when they time travel because nobody wants to see Locke’s man-boobs.

  30. Wait what? Lost has TIME TRAVEL now?
    I’m in over my head, here.

  31. How about the LOOPHOLE that it’s basically IMPOSSIBLE to survive a BOAT EXPLOSION when you are in the MIDDLE of previously mentioned explosion?

  32. Obviously the articles they jump with are those that would further the show’s badassedness. Look, Einstein and Hawking both agree on this, but I don’t have time to get into it except to say that it’s 100% scientifically sound. No loophole. Bye!

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  34. just so everyone knows this makes me want to watch lost really bad. but I resolve not to until the series ends because I’d have panic attacks waiting for the next episode.

  35. oh man, my nose is bleeding from all these posts….ahhhhhhhh…

  36. howcanthatbe  |   Posted on Feb 8th, 2009 0

    i am glad I am not the only one who was troubled that the time traveling boat. I am also disturbed.

  37. stephen  |   Posted on Feb 9th, 2009 0

    Duping boats, compasses, or elixirs of strength is a bug, not a feature

  38. 4815162342  |   Posted on Feb 9th, 2009 0

    I know this is a little late, but, greenringer: i love you.

  39. Kimberly  |   Posted on Feb 11th, 2009 -1

    I could be wrong (I’m guessing most people preface any LOST statements with that phrase…), but didn’t we already know that Jin survived because in a flash-forward, he visits Sun in the hospital -but he isn’t there to see her…he is there having a baby with his new wife?

    • that wasn’t a flash-forward. in that episode, sun was having a flash-forward while jin was having a flash-back. jin was actually buying the panda in his line of duty working for sun’s father. it was a tricky episode.

  40. Because it’s a tv show, Gabe.

  41. sawyer  |   Posted on Feb 11th, 2009 0

    why are you so bitter?

  42. Someone  |   Posted on May 22nd, 2009 0

    In fact, maybe only their brains should be time-travelling :P

  43. John  |   Posted on Aug 28th, 2009 0

    You totally got this wrong. The reason the Zodiac was gone was because they weren’t touching it when they shifted or because someone from another time took it. They were in 1954 when they left the Zodiac at the beach and they came back for it in 2007. Since we know the Zodiac was not there on September 22, 2004. It’s highly likely that it could have been taken or it could have washed away during those 50 years. The outriggers didn’t disappear because they were being physically touched during the time flash. There are loopholes in Lost but you did not find any of them.

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