Before I even begin to do my meager and half-hearted recap here, I’d just like for everyone to read Kottke’s post on timetravel which is really just an excuse to link to Lost: A Theory On Time Travel

For the lazy, an excerpt:

1996-1996 (third iteration): several years elapse on the island, as Kelvin and Desmond push the button in the Swan. The island is theoretically invisible to the outside world because time is physically being reset every 108 minutes, so only people inside the magnetic bubble of the island can actually experience the looping 108 minutes of time. What Ben is trying to do is two-fold: first of all, he wants to stop time from ever reaching 2007. Second, he wants to create a utopia on the island such that people can live forever! Ben, in fact, isn’t the bad guy. He’s trying to preserve the timeline to prevent disaster and create a fountain of youth. True, he has a rough way of going about his work, but can you blame him? He can’t tell many people about the “time loop” because their knowledge could lead them into actions that may alter the future, and possibly screw up his plan.

It’s the worth the jump down the rabbit hole and may actually be *less* confusing than tonight’s episode.

Here are the thoughts:

• Four-toed statue

Even seen briefly from behind, it was nice to see it again. I think it looked a lot like Horace, but what do I know.

• The Ankh

I don’t recall much previous Egyptian symbolism, save for the time that Desmond didn’t push the button and the clock reset, but religion and Lost are pretty tight buddies.

• Horace Goodspeed

Present at Ben’s birth in Oregon, married to Amy at one point and then Olivia. He appeared to Locke on a “loop” while chopping wood. Lostpedia is your friend.

UPDATE: It strikes me that Will’s comment below is really smart. I put two and two together and realized that our friend Horace could be a misspelling of Horus, an Egyptian god symbolized by the hieroglyph for a bird, that was seen when the Swan hatch exploded.

My questions:

• Who is the baby born to Amy & Horace?
• When is the timeline for the non-Oceanic 6 survivors of Ajira 316? (Basically undead Locke et al) It may be 1977 but I’m not sure yet.

I’m surprisingly stymied tonight. Chalk it up to tiredness and the relentess “3 years” back-and-forth we had tonight.

I’ll be smarter tomorrow and the comments are always illuminating. Have at it.

Oh, and I *loved* the idea of Sawyer brokering the truce by revealing all his time travel acquired knowledge. Plus, Jenn and I really liked the organic romance that happened between him and Juliet.

But now Lost is back to throwing us the curveball by bringing Kate & Sawyer into proximity.

Fate or Free Will.

Have at it.