"In my view, Cassidy is projecting her own still-bitter feelings about Sawyer onto Kate's situation. Sawyer dumped Cassidy in one of the worst ways possible; Cassidy got a measure of revenge by turning him in, but she's obviously still hung up on him and what happened."

Oh, the time loop was kind of joking on my part…like some cruel cosmic forces decided that Locke must be duped and suckered and mocked at every turn. That was in reference to Hurley broadcasting the Numbers to make sure the "time strands stay woven together", as you put it recently.

One of the most important things to me, in forming a roster in professional sports, is the chemistry that players form over time. The best teams don't win in spite of each other, but because of how well they click.

Yeah, I screwed that up about the hatch vs. the food, and I knew that too…like you said, big story Lost is. :-)

Really interesting take on Sayid. Karma is a big part of these characters' fates, in my opinion, so I can see why Sayid would be in this state after the Ajira flight. He's been killing all these people under Ben's instruction, not asking questions as far as we can see.

"So if that's true, and the DI contained a fair # of candidates, the Incident would do exactly what MiB does in Season 6: get them into a contained space and then blammo."

My guess is that there's about a 2% percent chance that Sutherland does it again, so if they're going to get him involved, now would be the time to do it. Strahovski would definitely be a welcome presence too.

"Sayid was able to kill the chicken *not* because he was intrinsically a "blood-thirsty torturer" but because he was able to do what was necessary without being overly emotional about it."

On your last point, I've always wondered about that too. I'd think that Ben wants or needs to get back and forth quickly, for whatever reason. The Orchid is not to be taken lightly; Ben tells Hurley and Locke as much when he says the Island needs to be moved "very carefully". So what else does that leave besides…

Sawyer didn't have concrete proof of his own that the Oceanic 6 were still alive, but in The Little Prince, Locke tells him that they are and he's going to bring them back after they go to the Orchid. Locke was told by Richard that everyone was fine in The Lie when Richard treated his gunshot wound.

Considering where Locke stood with Kate at the time of the Oceanic 6 leaving the Island, I'm thinking Locke might as well be Ben in Kate's eyes. When he comes to visit her, she sees a desperate man, someone who will say and do anything just to keep everyone on the Island. Kate needed to see for herself the reason…

Yeah, I am thinking outside of the box, but it doesn't seem that far out to me. You've mentioned before about the beach being a safe haven from Smokey, for the survivors, and this is a little similar.

Yeah, and Frogurt was about a hundred times more annoying than Nikki and Paulo in my opinion. I didn't mind the two of them being introduced at that point in the show, but I do think the way it was handled was awkward.

I know that I would have been fine with the story staying with the 815 survivors all the way through. The mysteries were cool in Season 1, but in later seasons, I was simply enjoying the characters and letting the chips fall where they may.

I think you're right, especially about Kate. She never regretted what she did to try to help her mother, among other things. She's had some guilt over certain events, such as Tom Brennan's death, but for the most part, Kate's good at moving forward.

Convoluted??? I take offense to that. ;-)

Here's an interesting comparison for you…in Across the Sea it looks like MiB is the one who is supposed to be the eventual protector, and Jacob "steals" that from him, the end result being Jacob throwing MiB into the light and turning him into Smokey.

It's clear from reading the comments that nothing is going to change re: the finale, or perhaps the show in general. Either you love it or hate it, doesn't seem to be anyone in between.

I'll take Sayid with my next pick. He'll be a good person for Jack and Kate to have around; he cuts through the BS and tells it like it is. Plus, I just like envisioning that scenario where he's not driven to get off the Island, and is energized by what he can do with the available resources (kind of like in your…

Similar to what I wrote above, approaching this from Sawyer's POV…