5 Minutes or 5,000 Years

• I incorrectly speculated the flaming arrows last week came from bow-wielding natives and not the “soldiers” (led by young Widmore) that intercepted Juliet and Sawyer. In fact, the bow-wielding malcontents aren’t soldiers at all; they’re rank-and-file members of the Others/Hostiles/Natives. The Others proffered the uniforms from the eighteen U.S. soldiers they killed once the Americans refused to leave the Island with their H-bomb. The Others apparently don’t take too kindly to bomb testing on their home soil.
  
  I’m left wondering, however, how did the U.S. Army find the Island? Is the Island’s Faraday Cage-like effect not yet in place in 1954? That theory would seem to be at odds with what Richard tells Locke about getting off the Island.
• Locke urges Richard to tell him how to get off the Island just before Fort Otherton disappears as the next time-jump occurs. Richard tells him that’s “very privileged information.” I’m wondering if the other, er, Others even know how. That indirectly begs the question, were the Others all born there? Were they recruited back in the real world? Widmore, in particular, certainly seems to be firm in his and the Others’ “ownership” of the place, but they all seem quite young and brash, in stark contrast to Richard’s firm but levelheaded manner.
• We find out Latin is part of the required Others curriculum, or “Others 101,” as Juliet puts it. Young Widmore and his mate use it to communicate, and I’m left wondering, why Latin? The “language of the englightened” is an ancient one, considered “international language of science and scholarship in central and western Europe until the 17th century.” [Wikipedia]

  Now, who knows what that means in terms of timestamping the Island’s origins, but it might give the ruins (and maybe the ageless Richard) scattered throughout some context. The Colossus of Rhodes-like foot statue Jin, Sun and Sayid saw in season two doesn’t seem so out there in that context either.

  

  (Though it certainly doesn’t quite explain the four toes–maybe the Latin-speaking Romans meant to mock the Greeks by depicting them as only having four toes. No? Alright, onward.)

• Charlotte’s not the only girl in Faraday’s life who’s suffered the ill effects of time sickness. We “meet” Theresa Spencer, the girl in the picture Desmond finds in Daniel’s abandoned Oxford lab.

  

  She’s catatonic most of the time, according to her QuikMart vest-wearing caretaker, except when she occasionally becomes lucid and starts talking about having just talked to her parents (likely in the past her conciousness is “flashing” back to).

  

  Should we assume Daniel experimented on her at Oxford? She ended up with the dreaded time sickness that’s stricken Heloise the Rat, George Minkowski, Regina the Upside-down-book-reader, Charlotte, and Desmond. That failed experimentation is likely what led to Faraday’s lab being shuttered and his uncermonious sacking from the revered university.

  Or perhaps she volunteered herself by messing around with his equipment while he wasn’t watching, or Widmore himself forced her to. We learn he financed Faraday’s work for nearly 10 years there, so it stands to reason he grew impatient with rats and wanted some human trials. My guess is Widmore wanted to try and transport himself, or at least his conciousness, back to his younger self still on the Island and gain the upper hand on Ben. It gives some alternate meaning to the caretaker having said, “everything here is due to Mr. Widmore” when referring to Theresa’s medical care. She might not know how right she is.

• When we first met Faraday in season 4, he was practically sobbing at the sight of the news report on Oceanic 815’s crash. Had he already time-travelled by this point? Was the woman in the kitchen behind him Theresa Spencer? Did Daniel know what would happen to both her and Charlotte?

  

• Locke not remembering having met Richard when he was a young boy now suddenly makes sense. This is where some paradoxical-type thinking is required, but Locke needed to tell 1954 Richard about, well, himself, before Alpert could go visit him in the 60’s to perform his “specific process for selecting [the Others’] leadership.”

  

  Richard’s disappointment at young Locke’s selecting the knife also makes a lot more sense now. He expected him to choose the compass because old Locke had it when he meets 1954 Richard. Holy cow, does that last sentence even make sense? I’m not going to reread it, lest I give myself an Charlotte-style aneurysm. 1954+ Richard must’ve thought the old Locke was lying to him when he said he was from the future.

• Meet Ellie. Have we met her older self already? No one immediately springs to mind as a candidate. I’d find it amusing if it were Daniel’s mother.

  

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