Hallo Leute! I hope you didn’t think I’d up and abandoned you with my Lost posts. No, I’m just on a little vacation in Germany. Which means I’ve gotta take my Dharma pills like most of the world: a little later, and in a slightly more compressed dosage.

I’m gonna start this one out with a follow-up question to my last double post, okay?

So… Ben… or …Neb? After Wednesday’s episode where do you stand? If the posts’ comments are any indication, right now Ben… is winning handily here on my Blog. And my interpretation of this week’s ep is that the writers know it’s the more popular theory… the more obvious theory. We’ve seen lots of people come back to life on the Island… so why couldn’t Ben be saved too? Seems an almost predictable end to the episode, no?

And yet, I’m still a little more in the Neb… camp. Which looks similar to, but not exactly like, The Others’ 1954 camp. That’s to say, I still believe this is not the same universe as the one where they started. I think the Ajira 316 flight has crashed on an Island that’s been modified by the events of this alternate 1977. And I think the biggest hint came in the Miles/Hurley scene.

Hurley represents the non-obsessed viewer, right? Those who could care less about String Theory or Lemuria. You know, sane people who just want a good story that’s not too confusing. And that’s a large portion of the Lost audience. And a powerful influencing force to the show.

The cast is filled with smartasses like Miles, who think they have all the physics or meta-physics figured out. I’d say, those guys represent viewers like me. And usually those guys, try as they may (doing lots of research, writing double posts that let them straddle both sides, calling their Lost theories “hunches”, posing their hunches as questions or lists of observations)… those guys still usually have it wrong in the end… kinda like when The Swan starts to implode. It’s only then that Locke finally admits, “I was wrong!”

And with Hurley’s last line, the writers may be saying, “Don’t worry. The nerds don’t know everything.” Forget that his question could have been easily answered with, “Ben does remember Sayid. He was just really good at faking it,” or can now be answered with “Richard says he’s gonna forget everything that’s happened.” No, something tells me there’s more.

I still think Faraday’s disappearance means that even he’s let go of this rigid theory of time/space. Consider this: If Daniel does end up telling lil’ Charlotte not to return to the island, wouldn’t that mean he now believes events can be changed?… and if he doesn’t tell her… wouldn’t that also mean he thinks events can be changed? In fact, the latter would mean they can. I’m eager to see what happens there.

The irony, of course, is that Neb…‘s a dorkally complicated theory. Which would probably be a good reason to use Hurley and Back to the Future to help explain it.

Oh, and at the end there, Sawyer has an interesting line to The Others. He says Ben’s dying is now both their problem. What do you think he means? What has Sawyer learned about this Island in the past 3 years? I still think Smokey is somehow involved. Richard took Ben into The Temple… Smokey’s in The Temple, right?

Or maybe Smokey doesn’t exist yet. Maybe in Rousseau’s 1987, the Smoke Monster was a lil’ 10 year old Smokey; one who just wanted to play.

So anyway, back to my original question: Time… as it relates to time travel… rigid or fluid?