You have had much more to say about Ilana than I have, but now in the midst of Season 6, I found myself thinking about her backstory and how much we didn’t see.

First, re: MiB’s recruiting, you’re absolutely right. If it doesn’t take a hard sell, no one would use it. But the question is, why doesn’t MiB feel like he has to make the hard sell? And I think the answer relates to what he told Jack in The Last Recruit: “John Locke was not a believer...He was a sucker.”

“Better times for whom, though? Jack, Locke, Desmond and Juliet are the only ones who seem happy. Everyone else: Sayid, Hugo, Kate, Sawyer, Sun, Jin, Charlie, Rose (and probably Bernard) are pretty much miserable.” 

I’d like to talk a bit about Jacob’s strategy vs. MiB’s strategy in recruiting the castaways to their side.

Another big storyline in the first part of Season 6 is Jack vs. Sawyer. Whether Sawyer is justified in blaming Jack for Juliet’s death or not, the fact remains that these two have always been somewhat at odds, and Jack is an easy target for him given that he came up with the plan to set off the nuke at the Swan.

OK, stef, I’m going to start off with the flash sideways...

I think some of this, at least with Kate, goes back to what you said in Season 4 about her ignoring some of her own issues while Jack is spiraling down.

I’ve talked about this a bit before, but in watching The Incident, I see alliances shifting faster than they do in the modern version of Survivor. Why not everyone is on board with Jack’s plan, and what makes them change their minds.

One thing I’ve noticed during this Season 5 rewatch is how the time travel plays out, relative to the known characters who are on the Island in the past. Richard, of course, who ends up visiting Locke several times before he comes to the Island in the plane crash, and notably, Eloise, who had this exchange with Jack…

I’m going to make another attempt at a random topic, because while it’s fun to discuss many aspects of the castaways’ relationships, or find little details that I hadn’t noticed on previous rewatches, it can also be a challenge to find criticisms of a show that I still love to watch so much.

It’s an interesting topic, one that I’ve honestly never really thought about before. Perhaps this is part of that 90% “under the iceberg” stuff that we never saw on the show.

I’m going to focus a bit on your last line re: Sawyer and Juliet...

Throughout this latest rewatch, I have talked more about Kate and Jack’s relationship and how it has progressed as we moved into Season 5. But now, eight hours in, the focus (especially in LaFleur) is shifting towards Sawyer and Juliet.

So the time travel of Season 5...you mentioned that you tend to avoid it, but we did have a few notes in recent discussions that I wanted to tie up.

“I don’t think Kate snapped with Wayne. She bought the house insurance policy ahead of time; that implies premeditation. First thing in the scene, we see her flicking the zippo lighter; we know there’s gas in the house because Wayne smelled it. She had to rig some kind of fuse, because she got out in time.”

“In my view, Jack doesn’t get help because ... unfortunately ... mental illness carries this huge stigma for him. He’s backpedaling at 90 mph away from “winding up like poor crazy Hurley,” and of course like in any self-respecting Greek tragedy, the harder he pedals, the closer he gets to what he’s avoiding.”

I haven’t gotten to this point in the rewatch, but I was thinking some more about the donkey wheel and what the aftermath is.

A short response to one of your comments: yes, Ben could have still used the donkey wheel to leave and go after Widmore’s men. But with Locke out of the way, why does he need to?

Finished Season 4 last weekend, and I have some more thoughts on Kate if you’ll indulge me. I think I’m beginning to talk about her more than you do with Hurley. ;-)

Notes from Cabin Fever: