Season 4 Predictions, Find 815 ARG, and Mobisodes 9-12

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We had a very fun live show on Thursday night! We discussed some predictions about Season 4, what's been going on in the Find 815 alternate reality game and how it might tie in with the main LOST storyline, and LOST: Missing Pieces (mobisodes) 9 through 12. You can listen to the show by clicking on the link above. Show notes follow.

Season 4 Predictions

• According to Desmond's flash, if Charlie went down into the hatch, enabled communications with the outside world, and then died, then Claire and Aaron would get off the island in a helicopter. This is probably one of the helicopters owned by Naomi's people. We don't know for sure, however, whether they will actually make it back home
• We know from the last scene of the Season 3 finale that Jack and Kate ultimately get off the island, although of course we don't know whether that will be thanks to Naomi's people
• Ben claimed that calling Naomi's people would cause every living person on the island to be killed, but it remains to be seen whether or not he was telling the truth
• Josh strongly suspects that we'll find out that Charles Widmore is behind Naomi's group, citing as evidence the unlikelihood of anyone else being able to gain access to a copy of the photograph that only Penny and Desmond had. Charles Widmore is obviously not a fan of Desmond, and he may be trying to make sure once and for all that Desmond dies and thus can never be with Charles' daughter Penny again.
  
• Curt Yanko from the Black Rock Podcast suggested that the Christiane I (the ship on which Sam Thomas is sailing in the Find 815 alternate reality game) may end up finding the island, and that the game's story line might intersect with Season 4

Find 815 Alternate Reality Game: Summary of What's Happened So Far

• Oceanic Airlines issued a press release in late December 2007 that indicated that the company would be resuming operations worldwide. Oceanic also had an advertisement that was seen on the Web site flyoceanicair.com and there were a few real-world TV spots as well as billboards.
• Shortly after the ads began airing, a man named Sam Thomas who used to work for Oceanic Airlines hacked the company's site and inserted his own video clip in place of the commercial. He said that his partner Sonya was on Flight 815, which up to this point in the game has apparently never been found. Sam felt that the search ended prematurely, and he set off on his own to discover what happened to the missing airplane.
• Sam received an e-mail from someone who claimed to know Sonya, and hidden in the message were some clue words including "Black Rock". With the help of his friend Tracey, Sam found out that the Black Rock was a slave ship that was returning from a gold mining expedition when it disappeared. Tracey also helped Sam get aboard a ship called the Christiane I that turned out to be looking for the Black Rock. Sam is currently on the ship.
• The person who sent Sam the e-mail with the hidden clues has continued to send Sam encoded messages, which have given Sam a pair of longitude and latitude coordinates. They give a location just off the coast of Bali, Indonesia.
  
• Josh suspects that these coordinates will lead to the fake Flight 815 crash site mentioned by Naomi
• Curt suggests that perhaps the coordinates are that of the real plane and/or the real location of the island
• Curt suggests that anything is possible considering the subtle references to faster-than-light travel, time travel, and wormholes on the show and in peripheral yet canonical parts of the LOST universe
  
• Josh argues that Naomi and Anthony Cooper independently confirmed in The Brig that they saw news reports about the complete wreckage of Flight 815 being found and all passengers deceased, but Curt points out that they both obtained this knowledge secondhand, and the information available to the press may have been incorrect.
• Josh also argues that there is a lot of evidence pointing to the LOST island being somewhere in the Pacific, northeast of Australia (probably somewhere near the flight path). For example, there have been connections between the island and Amelia Earhart, whose final flight path would have intersected with the path of Oceanic Flight 815. Another indication that the LOST island should be in the Pacific is that Desmond thought the island was due east of Fiji.
• Josh concedes that Curt's theory is definitely interesting and may prove true, and agrees that with the talk of Casimir effects, etc., then it's certainly possible that Amelia Earhart's plane and Flight 815 may have both wound up in an entirely different place via a wormhole. Curt also cites as additional evidence for his theory the fact that a short-distance aircraft from Nigeria inexplicably wound up on the LOST island.
• Sam's anonymous tipster works for a company called The Maxwell Group, a division of Widmore Industries. The Maxwell Group is responsible for the search for the Black Rock that the people aboard the Christiane I are undertaking.
• The Widmore connection also lends credence to Curt's theory that perhaps the Christiane I may be headed for the LOST island, especially assuming that Josh's theory of a Charles Widmore connection with Naomi's people turns out to be true. Either way, there have been lots of connections between Widmore and the island
  
• The timeline of events in the ARG is somewhat unclear. Although the press release clearly gave a date in December 2007, the events surrounding the search for Flight 815 and the finding of the plane's wreckage should have already happened a long time before the present day based on what we've seen on the show.
  

LOST: Missing Pieces (Mobisodes) 9 through 12:

• In the ninth mobisode, "Tropical Depression," Doctor Arzt admits to Michael that he doesn't really know anything about predicting the weather and tells his depressing story of how he ended up on Flight 815.
• In the tenth mobisode, "Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack," Ethan meets Jack and brings him a suitcase full of drugs that he says he found in the jungle. They talk about the fact that rescue is unlikely and discuss delivering Claire's baby. There's an awkward moment after Jack says to Ethan, "Well, if she does go into labor at least I know I've got an assistant," meaning Ethan. As he is walking away, Ethan turns toward Jack and tells him that his wife and child both died during labor.
  
• In the eleventh mobisode, "Jin Has a Temper-Tantrum On the Golf Course," well... the title pretty much sums it up. Jin expresses his frustration about losing the golf game and about not being able to communicate with anyone.
  
• In the twelfth mobisode, "The Envelope," we see part of the scene from the Season 3 premiere when Juliet burns her hands on the muffin tray. When Amelia arrives, Juliet swears her to secrecy and pulls out an envelope, but Juliet doesn't have time to show Amelia what's inside because the doorbell rings. This appears to be the envelope containing the X-rays of Ben's spine that reveal that he had a tumor.