Once again, it all comes back to that crazy smoke monster...

Lostpedia has a page depicting what the various symbols translate to. 

Interesting that the donkey wheel room and the temple contain similar hieroglyphs... translating to resurrection, travel and time.

I'm all over the idea of Kate knowing more than she lets on, but I didn't remember her saying anything about the temple.  I checked the transcript on Lostpedia and this is what they've got listed:

LOCKE: Let me go. I'll be alright.

KATE: [entering] Hang on. I've got it.

JACK: Careful unwrapping it. Now throw it in.

LOCKE: No!

KATE: It'll blow us up.

JACK: Just hurry, I can't hold him.

LOCKE: Don't do this, Kate.

JACK: Throw it in now, Kate!

So I wasn't seeing any knowledge of the temple there from either Jack or Kate.  Was that something you were remembering, Anon, or was that from rewatching, or a different transcript source?

Sorry, I forgot to log in.

The scene with Montand was so identical to the one in S1 Exodus Prt2 that I rewatched the DVD. The DVD distinctly differs from the transcript. And Kate's line does not come across very clearly, but I chalked that up to the panic of the moment.

I have no explanation for the discrepancy.

that was just so...random...

(BTW, cool advancement in programming there with the randomness generation :-)

I'm gonna hate it, but I've said it before that Kate is a double agent. We've seen how she is more skilled at it than anyone else. I always thought Kate was working for Ben, but I NEVER suspected Widmore. What's missing is her motivation. What would Widmore have over her head?

Oh, yeah "double agent" reminded me that she also plays backgammon against herself.

What would Widmore have over her head?  The last couple eps reminds us that there's a "Brennan" in Rousseau's expedition.  I don't know if timing works such that Widmore would be on the island at the same time?  Possible connection through Tom?  I suppose Widmore could be threatening Tom's wife and child.  Or the more far out answer--that he has somehow convinced Kate that he can bring Tom back--but I dunno--that just seems too weird that Kate would have inklings of time travel from the very beginning of the show.

Jaz, I didn't so much take issue with other people Locke used (conned?) to do for him (but I thank you for highlighting them because I'd forgotten them) but three things struck me in that scene:

1. What the hell is Christian doing at the bottom of the well? Its just illogical and really starting to piss me off that we don't have an explanation for these appearances by supposedly dead people.

2. why is Sawyer still able to hold onto the rope? Logicaly, the rope should have also disappeared. why does my head hurt? 

 3. For the first time time, I saw Locke come face to face with a Christlike in-your-face realization that he must die for his people to live. "I guess that's why they call it sacrifice"

Is that what chosen really means? If so, then why didn't Ben die?

Yeah, I guess I didn't take issue with the substitutions either, but thought that maybe Locke finally having to make the sacrifice was a course correction for all the times he's dodged the bullet so to speak.  That's an interesting question about what "chosen" means and why Ben didn't die.  Actually I think Ben's probably also good at that substitution game.  Maybe another way to think about it is exchanging the term sacrifice and scapegoat--they have an overlap but I don't think scapegoat to me ever has the meaning of voluntary (where sacrifice can).  So with Boone--Locke talks of him as being a sacrifice that the island demanded, but it's rather different to think of him as Locke's scapegoat.  And the same with Sawyer.

And I agree with what you said about Locke coming face to face with that realization--again turning it into something he volunteers for.  I thought it was significant that there's no indication there that he's going to get a "get out of death free card."

And Christian's refusal to help Locke--is that an echo of what happens to Christ?  Doesn't the crowd refuse to help him up when he falls from the weight of the cross?  Somebody carrys it for him?

I'm not sure why you feel the rope should have disappeared. Everything with them moves through the time jumps with them; the guns, the zodiac, the catamarans etc. With Sawyer holding the rope in his hands that would certainly qualify as a carry on for his journey through time. What confused me about that scene was that the well was filled in (assuming a time jump forward but not backwards), but Locke was still in a cavern at the bottom of it. How do you fill in a hole from the middle up? 

Looking at the area around Sawyer and Juliet it appeared to be a natural setting implying (I'm sure in their minds) that they bounced backwards to a time before the Orchid was built and Locke is now buried alive without so much as a spider bite. But we know that's not the case - the donkey wheel was there before the well was dug and before the Temple was built. So what exactly does this mean? There must be another way to access it that we haven't seen yet. I'll be very interested to know how it was built and how it was accessed by those who use it. 

I'm throwing this out there as my top theory on Lost. I think in an episode yet to be aired we'll find George Carlin in the Temple building a phone booth for Keanu Reeves' history report. OK maybe not.  I do think that Jack's suit and tie look extremely similar to the one he's wearing in the Pilot episode. It's probably just a coincidence but it jumps out at me every time I see him.

One last thought on the survivors moving through time. ALthough they are moving forward and backwards in their time jumps there is an implied linear progression as well. Faraday stated that the jumps seem to be linked to exposure the longer you've been on the island the sooner you get the nosebleed.  There is a cumulative effect on each member each time the group jumps, regardless of whether it's a forward move or a backwards move. 

Nice pick up on the suit J-man.  Jack being the one looping--I always thought there were hints of that in the Pilot.  But today I had a somewhat different take on it starting from thinking about how Locke might be resurrected on the island, and also thinking about why the Others bury their dead at sea, and how dead people are showing up on the island.

What happens if you are dead in 2008 and your body is brought to an earlier point in time?  Locke resurrecting?

So that led to a very weird thought--the plane that's in the trench with the bodies--what if it isn't a fake?  Could those bodies be of the Losties--but the Losties at a future point in time when they are fated to die (from nosebleeds or from some future apocalypse).  And then the Losties who show up on the shore of the island--they are alive, not because they survived the crash, but because there's been a substitution/switcheroo with their future selves?  Their future selves sacrificed in order that their past selves can live?  But only on the island--and only in this time loop?  It's very weird, and I don't know how it would work but the sacrifice theme and time loopiness was making me wonder.

Then could there be some way in which Jack would be an exception (walks among us but is not one of us)--the future self who survived and has intermittent memories of his past?

Again--I don't know how this works but is killing Cooper necessary to allow Locke to walk?  That is, on the island--when in time does the killing of Cooper actually happen?

And Christian coming back to life--the button pushing--has the island always been moving in time but not just in this random way that started with the wheel moving.  And not in so radical a fashion to cause nose bleeds--but perhaps would have started among the Losties eventually if they didn't get the treatment that the Others must undergo--is that what those innoculations are about?  So Christian back to life because the island had hopped back a few months?

Well--that may all be really out there and completely wrong--but I can always blame the aneurysm for the confuzzled thinking :-)

Or maybe I'm just confusing LOST with STUCK! 

"So that led to a very weird thought--the plane that's in the trench with the bodies--what if it isn't a fake?  Could those bodies be of the Losties--but the Losties at a future point in time when they are fated to die (from nosebleeds or from some future apocalypse).  And then the Losties who show up on the shore of the island--they are alive, not because they survived the crash, but because there's been a substitution/switcheroo with their future selves?" -- jaz

Ever since we first knew about the plane in the trench, I've been thinking of this novel. Not one of the best SF things I've read, but fits with your idea... :)

I had two main ones:

Why did Danielle's team want to kill her after they'd been "infected" (I assumed this was why she had had to kill them--self-defense)?  Is it because she was not infected, or because she was pregnant?  If the latter, does that mean that there's something on the island that does not want any children being born there? 

Why isn't Locke getting the nose bleeds?

J-man, about your Temple/Orchid questions--were you saying the two are close together?  Or one and the same?  I didn't quite follow what you were saying when you said that Locke was in the temple during the time that Ben was turning the wheel.  I thought he was in the Orchid and they were separate places some distance apart.

I also really liked the Ben/Desmond meeting and Ben being shocked about the identification of Ms. H as Ms. F--I think the shock must have to do with who Dan's father will turn out to be.

My fav moment was actually when Ben lost his temper with Jack and Sun.  I don't know if that's a Benipulation or not, but I sympathized with him.

Ah Miss February, I think you may be right about the Temple and Orchid being in different locations. I need to watch the episode again but at first viewing  I thought they were located right next to each other. I also realized that Locke wasn't in the Orchid when Ben turned the wheel, he was with the Others in the jungle.

One thing your question got me thinking about is if the Temple still exists. We saw the column with the hieroglyphics when the Temple appeared, and then it seemed to disappear in a time jump to I think 1988. Of course that jump could have been to an earlier time before the Temple was built but I thought it coincided with one of Danielle's story lines. they did so much jumping this week it's hard to keep track! I'll have to watch it again. Any way if the Temple was destroyed at some point, I'm wondering if Ben telling Richard to take everyone to the Temple was really telling him to take them all back in time. Is that why we haven't seen them in any of the 'current' flashes? This could be interesting - I'm really intrigued right now. Thanks for putting me on the right course regarding the Temple and Orchid. You are not only a ninja master but a master course correcter! 

Hey Jukin,

That's an intriguing idea about what might have happened with Richard and the Others.  I'll have to go back and rewatch myself--you caught a lot more details than I did.  Sometimes being a ninja actually means I'm in the dark.  :-)

I'm glad we were given such a concrete scene to see where Cerebus lives - or brings its prey. But for what? Brainwashing? 

I like how Cerebus blows a spout hole out of the earth when appearing like Moby Dick chasing Ahab.

While very graphic, it was interesting to see Cerebus as the cause of a dismemberment. A possible explanation for all the amputees we've seen throughout the show?

Very much hoping we see someone brave enough to go and explore the tunnels beneath the temple - I'm pretty sure Ben had to go down there to flip some control levers in Season 4. I'm betting all of the tunnels Dharma dug are how he/she/it gets around the island and why it never appears on the beach.

And that is a very good question: why has the temple only been seen in flashbacks? After so many months exploring, I would have expected Locke to have found the Temple by now.