Mega meara:

IMO, what is happening to the people on the island doesn't lead me to believe one way or the other that they aren't in some kind of Limbo.

Well, I guess we just very strongly disagree on this. I understand there was pain, punishment and suffering in Dante's afterlifes, but my understanding of them (I haven't read them either) is that they happened in a place that could in no way at all be mistaken for reality.

Here on the island, people need food, water, can be injured by boars, and even die.

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

In Beetlejuice, we knew that the main characters were dead, and there was still some tension in the story.

That's because they were very clearly presented as dead, as soon as it happened (something that has not, IMO, been done here), and very quickly and clearly presented with a bad end they needed to avoid, even though they were dead.

But most of all....

It's a narrative cheat. Like a reset of a show -- the season of Dallas that never happened as soon as Bobby stepped out of the shower.

It's a cheat because it doesn't force the writers to deal with the complexities.

What Steph said.

And count me among the people who like Beetlejuice, but it takes more than that to offend me.

Locke has exhibited no moral ambiguity, which is Hollywood for "not a bad guy."

Methinks Gus is viewing Locke with some rather rosy glasses, but Daniel and P-C have already pointed out the lack of moral ambiguity, so I'll just tease Gus about being in luuuurve.

I like the wish-fulfillment theory of the island, but some things I can't reconcile with it. Sun seems not to be happy with her marriage. If the island were fulfilling her wishes, I think Jin would be dead.

I don't think the islands wish fulfillment is so obvious and active, like a lamp genie granting spoken-aloud wishes to a young boy.

I think, if the island is doing some sort of wish fulfillment, that it's more like granting deep, subconscious desires. Sun wanting her "husband" dead, everyone wanting off the island, and the pilot wanting to live are all conscious "gimme gimme" wishes, and I do not think the island works like that.

Wanting a chance to prove your capability, beyond the crappy opions of those surrounding you, wanting to obtain closure with your dead father.... Those are deep, subconscious desires (even though both retain conscious elements). Those are the types of wishes the island is granting (if the island is indeed doing some sort of wish fulfillment).

I also hope that Jack's not really a doctor, or he's very recently a doctor, or that he lost his license somehow, or, well, really anything to take him down a couple of pegs.

I'm still in the "lost his license" camp, especially after his conversation with his mother, in flashback. I think those were the things his mother was verbally hinting at -- the thing he did to lose his license (or prevent from completing his training, or whatever).

Deena:

seem highly contradictory to me. If he's worshipping the island, he's not a pragmatist. Also, considering his wanting to bring along his 1-900 girl on his walkabout, I don't think he's a realist at all. He's a visionary, or at least the world he sees isn't the one most other people see.

Well, I don't think they're contradictory, but I'm disagree with a lot of people here (and saying stuff that other people think makes no sense), so that's okay, but....

He's a visionary, or at least the world he sees isn't the one most other people see.

We are operating under very different definitions of visionary, then. He's certainly not a visionary in the way Fiver is a visionary -- frail, but with prophetic visions. I don't see Locke as having any kind of prophetic visions yet, and if he does wind up doing so (which he may, if he becomes a high priest of the island) I think that might automatically disqualify him from advisor to (continued...)

( continues...) Jack. Jack doesn't strike me as the type to want to listen to prophecy.

But to return to your earlier point, whether Locke is a true pragmatist or not, I think he's a pragmatist now. He's the only one who's been directly active on the "get food, get water" front. Pragmatic.

More to the point, I think Locke very much can be a pragmatic "let's worship the island" type. His worship of the island, if it comes, would come from a very pragmatic place -- the island gave him his legs back. Plain and simple. Direct, pragmatic, and understandable.

Pfft. Of course he's on the white side, even if he's not. He's not the type to believe he's wrong.

Exactly the type of thinking that leads to bad-guy-ism.

Re: the empty coffin, I figure it was empty when they loaded it onto the plane in Sydney. For some reason, I am loathe to believe that Jack's dad was actually raised from the dead on the island. That takes the mystery of the island one step too far, IMO. Plus, as previously mentioned, nobody else could see him when Jack saw him, so I believe pretty firmly that he was a hallucination.

I agree, Kate. Whether Jack's dad's body was on the plane or not, I don't think he's been bodily ressurected. If he has been, his dad can apparently violate the laws of physics (appear and disappear at will).

Plus, real people don't sound like ice clinking in a whiskey tumbler when they walk by.

I cannot wait for next week's episode. Is the writer for that ep someone we know?

Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

I know Javier. Went to high school with him. He's a very good writer. I wish I still had a way to contact him. I'd ask him for a job, even if it was just a PA job.

Best name EVAH.

We always thought so, back in high school.

Sayid, was in the Iraq military. How long ago, we don't know. There is a female in his past, we don't know the relationship, but it's obviously important to him. We do know he's the resident Professor. Not enough information to fit him into the "opposites" theory, yet.

Well, being ex-Republican Guard, back in reality, he's not someone people would regard as a good guy. He sure is now. That fits with your "opposite" theory, I'd say.

I would just like to point out how tickled I am by the fact that this show's main character's name is Jack, and that the plane's point of origin was Sydney.

Soon Jacks will dominate fandom.

I would just like to point out how tickled I am by the fact that this show's main character's name is Jack, and that the plane's point of origin was Sydney.

I'm thinking this is not unintentional.

In Beetlejuice, we knew that the main characters were dead, and there was still some tension in the story.

That's because they were very clearly presented as dead, as soon as it happened (something that has not, IMO, been done here)

Plus, there were dead folk in episode 1, when the survivors were roaming around in their shell-shocked state. If the survivors are dead, too, what does that makes the not-walking-around dead passengers? Massively dead?

Soon Jacks will dominate fandom.

Ah, the Era of Will is over....

Those are not punishments for sins, or problems for dead people, those are all very clearly delineated problems of the living.

But that's in *your* mind. Do you see what I mean? I actually don't think this is going to be a purgatory story, but it's too early to make a judgment like the one above, because we really don't understand the rules of their universe, and if it even is a separate universe.

Taking what are clearly delineated problems of the living, in your mind/our world, and defining them as such in a 'verse we don't yet know, is akin to saying during S1 Buffy, that Angel couldn't be a vampire, because he didn't sleep in a coffin. My only point was that ruling out* a purgatory story, because it doesn't jibe with the a common cultural definition of such a thing, doesn't make sense, when we really don't yet know their rules.

*edited to clarify...
I do not even mean "ruling them out," just judging that it would be a cheat. We are not yet working with anything close to a fully fleshed out mythology.

I'm still waiting for one of these Amazing Jacks to have a last name like Czarnowski.

Also waiting for the show to pull a full Swiss Family Robinson so that Charlie can ride up to camp one day on the back of a tamed ostrich.

Maybe one of the other characters will be from Bristow, California.

Also waiting for the show to pull a full Swiss Family Robinson so that Charlie can ride up to camp one day on the back of a tamed ostrich.

That would be AWESOME. There should absolutely be ostriches.