LOST: Season 5 Episode 05

Source: Image is from Dark UFO's Website: http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com

"This place is death"


Themes:
It seems that the show has lost its theme based orientation or flashback centric storytelling. In so doing, LOST has not really been concentrating on themes as a narrative device but rather dealing with only the story. THIS may be intentional by the writers as it may be too confusing in dealing with all the time shifting. I do however look forward to the island finally being 'grounded' so we can stop the dizzying time shifting for a while.

If I had to select a theme for this episode it would be that of "Struggle".
Sun - struggling with the death of her husband Jin and her avenging his death.
Ben - His struggle with being now trusted, which represents a classic 'boy who cried wolf' syndrome.
Charlotte - Her struggle with her past and pending death.
Kate - Her struggle with keepink 'her son' Aaron.


ON second thought:
A few things that I'd like to bring attention to:
1.) Although Daniel Faraday says that "You cannot change the past no matter how hard you try you will fail every time..." I believe he knows this to be untrue as he is able to 'plant' a memory into Desmond's head that appears as a NEW memory fore Desmond in the future.

2.) Time travel problems:
I am having a big problem with time travel and objects that travel through time. Whenever the losties are holding , touching, or sitting in an object it too travels through time. Sawyer for instace holds on to the rope at the well and after a timeshift back in time to before the well was constructed, the rope is still in his hands. This was a great scene where the rope may have been used for dramatic effect but it does not make sense. If the losties happen to be huging a person belonging to a different time, do they travel through time as well. This begs the question, will we see this happen.

3.) It is till unclear as to who is supposed to come back to the island. Christian said to John Locke that "EVERYONE who left " has to come back. Does this include Desmond, (and Ben and Jeon for that matter)?


Theory:
The Smoke monster is THE ENERGY/SPIRITS OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE EVER DIED ON THE ISLAND