If you were like me, then you had the awesome Rebel trench base with the big rotating gun, collapsing bridge, and the pop-off Probot from Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. What's this got to do with LOST? Not much. But I loved that little freakin' base. And I can't find fault in any episode of LOST that makes reference to Hoth. Things I Noticed:
Yeah, Sure... I'll Go
If you ask Neo, he'll tell you that the white rabbit always holds the key . Young Miles knows this through the use of his gift, channeling Haley Joel Osment to see things a 7-yr old kid would rather not see. And as the dead man from apartment 4's voice still echoes in Miles' head, Lara starts to realize that her son might've brought back a little tropical strangeness with him when they were exiled, Widmore-style, from spook island.
Some Like it Hoth is obviously a Star Wars reference, but that's only half of it. Some Like it Hot was an old movie about two musicians who witness the St. Valentine's Day massacre; the story details their attempted escape from the city before the mob can kill them. You can make a loose comparison to Hurley and Miles here, with at least one of them having indirectly witnessed a massacre (the Purge), and together they make dialogue this episode on how to avoid or somehow escape it. Hopefully they don't dress up like women, though.
Hot, heat, temperature... these things are found all throughout this episode. From the single white fire extinguisher on the door in the opening scene to row after row or red ones Miles passes as he walks along the rows of apartments. There's a picture of a volcano spewing lava in the schoolhouse next to Jack. There's a poster behind Naomi in the restaurant kitchen that reads 'Think about Temperature'. Things are about to heat up, and we're all getting a sense of it. As Juliet would say "Here we go".
Punk Miles Should've Hooked up with Goth Claire
I think that would've made Aaron a lot more interesting. And it's a good thing he didn't go anywhere near the magnetic anomaly with all that stuff in his face.
Hard Hats, 10-Ton Cranes, Underwater Stations, and a Big-Ass Sonic Fence
Is there a Home Depot nearby or something? Where does Dharma get the manpower or materials to make all this crap? Multiple stations across multiple islands, a whole damned zoo, cameras monitoring what must be a miles-long perimeter of encampment guarded by the best mid-70's sonic technology... hell, the Looking Glass alone must've taken a team of engineers, hundreds of workers, and assloads of time. And now we're treated to the construction of our beloved Swan hatch, and on the other side of the truce-line too.
Were the Others on vacation for a few years? How'd they not know about all this stuff? It's one thing to live peacefully with other inhabitants... but letting someone turn your sacred island into a multi-decade construction zone is quite another. My point here is this: is Chang's ultra-cool camouflage jungle-fence really what's keeping the Others in the dark here? What's their plan for drowning out the sound of 10-ton cranes and jackhammers? You got me.
And so as Miles joins Ben Stiller in the circle of trust, I'm not so sure it's really needed. Something must be happening during this time period to really occupy the Others' time. Either that, or they're not opposed to new construction. LOTS of new construction. You guys tell me, because I'm baffled. Much of the stuff Dharma does is largely bullshit, as evidenced by Chang's derision over the polar bear fecal studies and what we saw of those poor saps in the Pearl launching message tubes of gibberish into the jungles of nowhere. Maybe the Others (wrongly) hoped Dharma would just spin their wheels for a while before finding nothing significant and going away.
I thought it ironic though, to see Radzinsky overseeing the excavation of the Swan hatch. Unknown to him, he's digging his own grave.
Seems It Never Rains in Southern California...
This song was very interesting in that all of a sudden, I realized it might be right. We've seen rain come and go very quickly all throughout LOST - during deaths, impending events, right before the whispers, and recently on and off throughout the time skips. But ever since everyone arrived at 70's Dharma? I can't think of a single time it rained. If I forgot one please remind me, but yeah, it hasn't rained on-island in a long, long while now. Does this mean they're all in Southern California? No comment. I will however, agree with the last line of the chorus: it's going to pour.
Behold! My Swingset Theory
AGAIN we see the swingset. That makes 10 or 11 separate times now. Last week I suggested that soon the swingset might need its own flashback episode, and maybe I wasn't kidding. Tonight we see that there are actually two swingsets, one of them being the evil mirror (bad) twin of the other! So here's my theory: in the last episode of LOST, the screen blurs to pure white... when it finally fades back into focus every one of our main characters is just a little kid playing on the same swingset. All the people who've ever died were merely called into the house for supper. The camera pans in on Vincent, sleeping in the grass under the see-saw, and then the LOST logo slams onto the screen with a thunderclap. Cue credits, and about 60 million angry phone calls.
Jack's Janitorial and Damage Control Clean-up Service
There was lots of juicy writing on that blackboard behind Jack, all having to do with Egyptian mythology. When dealing with clues that obvious, I usually don't put much stock into them. More interesting though, was the way Jack erased the boards from right to left, one board at a time. It kinda reminded me of someone showing a list of possible answers, and then one-by-one removing the wrong ones until only the correct answer remains. Not sure if that was the case here though.
I thought Jack's handling of Roger's suspicions was pretty terrible. His intentions were to protect Kate, but his actions were foolish. He would've been better off pretending not to know Kate at all, then clapping Roger on the shoulder and telling him he's just being paranoid. Offer to drink a beer or two with him later, and the whole thing's done. Instead, I think Jack's defense of Kate made Roger even more suspicious.
And if you think the "Use Your Imagination" poster behind Jack was only referring to Arts & Crafts day, think again. Ditto for the butterfly.
I Can Talk To Dead People - Anytime, *Anywhere! (*certain cremation rules may apply)
As we endure yet more flashback daddy-issues pushed upon us by the writers of LOST, we get to see how Miles uses his unwanted gift to pay off what must be some pretty exorbitant Hot Topic bills. We learn that his abilities are limited to the vicinity of the corpse, and that not being near the body prevents him from being able to commune with that person. We also learn, through his explanation to Hurley, that he can't really "speak" with the dead at all. His knowledge is limited to their own knowledge and thoughts up to the point where they died.
I have to say, this seems pretty inconsistent with what we saw in Confirmed Dead. Didn't Miles talk back and forth with that dead woman's grandson? And didn't he answer Miles by knocking on the wall to show him where his bankroll was hidden? This goes against the residual life-only information Miles claims to have privy to, and points more toward what my good buddies at GhostHunters would call an 'intelligent' haunting. But maybe the scriptwriters changed their minds since then, so who knows.
It doesn't really matter for poor Mr. Gray, who gets a very unwanted refund. Miles gave this guy his money back because he didn't want him to let him off the hook for the same type of thing his father did to him. The funny part here is that Miles had inwardly convinced himself he was doing it because he'd scammed the guy... it's not until the guy gets all upset that I think Miles realizes he did it on purely on the revenge tip. Daddy issues hurt more than you think, something Hurley calls him on later.
I Think We All Know What Happens If Miles Changes His Own Diaper...
Okay, now the meaty stuff. We get confirmation of two big things here: first, that someone (Miles) can absolutely positively exist twice in the same timeline - we already pretty much knew that, but there were still skeptics. Second, we learn that Chang is not only Miles' father, but that he abandoned both him and his mother when he was just a baby. Daddy douchebag? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
All you ever really need to know about life can be found in the movie Point Break (this isn't just opinion, it's proven FACT). And all you ever really need to know about time travel can be found in Jean-Claude Van Damme's Time Cop. Matter can travel through time and space, but it cannot occupy the same time AND the same space at the same time. And if it does - well, really bad shit apparently happens. Bill Murray would tell you that shouldn't cross the streams, either.
Assuming this is true, perhaps this is the reason why Pierre Chang shoots his wife and baby back to the mainland like he's launching skeet. Let's go out on a limb and say that in the next episode or two, Chang realizes that grown-up Miles is really his son Miles. Remember how wigged out he got with the double-rabbit situation in the Orchid orientation video? Miles changing his own diaper would probably have similar catastrophic results. Couple this with the fact that the Swan hatch is currently being built - which means that the incident can't be far off - and all kinds of crazy discoveries are about to happen with the Orchid... and the DI timeline is winding up to some pretty hairy stuff. I'm willing to bet Chang simply wanted to protect his family rather than abandon them. In watching the loving way he was reading Miles that polar bear book at the end of the episode, I can come up with no other conclusion. I'll bet it all happened so fast that his mother never really knew it either, which is kinda sad.
Did Sawyer Just Call Jack a Dyke?
I think he did! Jack helps Sawyer out this scene with some vital information, letting him know that he's still got his back. Sawyer shows genuine appreciation of Jack's help, too. This was good to see, because both of them are powerhouse LOST characters from the show's inception. They've also always been out of sync with each other: as one of their stars is rising, the other one seems destined to fall. Just as Jack and Locke argue Science and Faith, Jack and Sawyer's power and popularity are stuck in their own kind of Ying-Yang balance, going all the way back to supremacy of the ping-pong table and ending with the battle for Kate's panties.
I for one am looking forward to them forming the dream-team again, both finally getting back on the same side like they did when they kicked some Other ass a few seasons ago. Each of them are good, but together they're worth more than the sum of their individual parts. I think we're all ready to see another 815 rally, and I hope it comes soon. And maybe somewhere along the lines, someone should mention to Juliet that she's wearing a red shirt, too.
Hurley Couldn't Be More Right About Those Damned Ewoks
The Ewoks were a lot like Kate in that they totally ruined everything. Even as a child I knew those rocks and sticks weren't penetrating stormtrooper helmets or armor, but somehow I suspended my disbelief long enough to swallow that whole 30 minutes of sappy kiddie-shit. Damn.
The whole Hurley and Miles Star Wars scene was hilarious and awesome, but you should also take something a little bit more significant away from it. Hugo mentions having seen The Empire Strikes Back over 200 times. More repetition. More circles (Pierre Chang: "I wasn't aware there were circles"). Then Hurley explains how he wants to send George Lucas a script with a couple of his own improvements. Miles tells him he's being stupid. But is he?
Just as Hugo knows the Rebel base on Hoth will be overrun by AT-AT's (unarguably the best scene in any of the movies!) he also knows that Dharma will be overrun by the Others. He knows ahead of time that everyone's going to die. Miles, Dan... both of these people have told Hurley that this is inevitable - it can't be stopped no matter what they do. But here we have Hugo trying anyway, writing a new script, attempting to change certain things. Hurley's silly belief that he can change this upcoming Star Wars movie is a reflection that he believes change can occur at all.
Later on he tells Miles at the gas pump: "The best thing I ever did was give my dad a 2nd chance". And while he is referring to Miles' dad here, I'd suggest maybe Hugo's also referring to the whole outcome of the Dharma purge. And do his words sink into Miles' head? Maybe he somehow gets through to him, causing Miles to tell his father who he is. Maybe this leads to change... or maybe it leads Pierre Chang to hurriedly send his wife and kid off-island in order to avoid the ramifications of time travel, the purge, or anything else Miles might tell him about the near future. This makes Miles himself responsible for his own bastardization! Total craziness.
Either way, Hurley should be giving Lucas scripts for Episodes 1 through 3. Those movies were a total crapfest and the whole world knows it. Back in 1977, maybe just a quick sketch of Jar-Jar with his fingers in his ears while sticking his tongue out might've been enough to save us all from that silliness.
Charlie Bronson Always Had Rope...
Sorry, but Phil had it coming. That little monobrowed punk has been sticking his nose where it doesn't belong for several episodes now, and he was one flaming arrow away from being Frogurt. Sawyer's punch was the merciful hand of justice, but now LaFleur's dike has yet one more hole in it. And he's running out of fingers.
Shadow-Statue People: 1 Fish-Tacos: 0
Seeing Bram and his mysterious masked van crew was totally unexpected for me, but then again if they're going to introduce new enemies I suppose they'd better get moving. The van-napping of Miles was non-violent, and some of the things said to him during this scene are open to a lot of interpretation. To get anything out of it we'll have to draw some sketchy conclusions.
The most telling fact of all was that Bram and his people needed Miles to not want to get on the freighter. They could've just kept him for a week or two, causing him to miss the boat... but instead they sat there trying to convince him. This obeys one of the quintessential LOST rules: there are times when you can't make someone do something. You've got to want them to do it, so you need to incentivize them the way Naomi did in the back of the restaurant by offering Miles 1.6 million dollars.
Widmore had done his homework, he knew money was the best way to get through to Miles. But when he asks Bram for double the amount, Bram just shakes his head. "Uh uh. We're not paying you". He goes on to promise Miles something much more important than Money: enlightenment. He promises answers for Miles, answers to the questions he's been searching all his life for: who he is, why he has such a gift, and what exactly happened to his father. Even though Miles balks sarcastically at Bram's mention of the empty hole inside him, I think he does realize that these people are pulling on some very personal strings. Where and how they got this knowledge is a mystery at this point.
The more we hear about Ann Arbor, the more we should realize that important stuff happens off-island while Dharma is pouring cement and building cool lab crap everywhere. When the D.I. presence on the island disappears all at once (the Purge) we can't assume these people just forgot all about the island. Even if they couldn't find it, they were probably always working on a way back to it - just like Widmore. Seems maybe they found it with the Ajira flight, just as Widmore's freighter did once before. And no, I don't think they were still making 'food drops'.
Still, I'm not fully convinced that Bram & co. are nothing but Dharma/Hanso people. They could very well be related to Hawking, especially since we don't have a clue how she got off the island or if she ever wanted back on. I get the nagging impression they could also represent another much older interest group. But no matter who they are, they obviously represent the 3rd party that Widmore mentioned in the war that's about to be waged. And Bram seems pretty confident they're going to be the winning team.
How Daniel Got His Groove Back
Faraday steps out of the sub in a badass new black Dharma jumpsuit, complete with ultra-top secret Swan clearance and ball-kicking confidence. This explains where he's been for the last long while (three years?) although it doesn't tell us anything about what he's been up to. Yet whatever that is, he's either crazy or stupid enough to drag himself back to the island. And so the big question: why?
As huge a proponent of the 'Whatever happened happened' theory Daniel's always been, I'm willing to guess he might've been looking for a way to change that ideology. The Daniel who left the island was a gibbering, resigned, broken man. The guy who steps out of the sub looks newly confident and ready to rock. Just like Benjamin Linus, I think Daniel is now prepared to fight the inevitable. Whatever he did in Ann Arbor, it probably involved some rats and some mazes and some insane mathematics. I'll bet he came back to save his friends, but mostly to save one other person from the inevitable: Charlotte. Whether he succeeds, or whether the Ewoks take over the later half of a really kickass trilogy... we'll just have to wait and see.
Hot, heat, temperature... these things are found all throughout this episode. From the single white fire extinguisher on the door in the opening scene to row after row or red ones Miles passes as he walks along the rows of apartments. There's a picture of a volcano spewing lava in the schoolhouse next to Jack. There's a poster behind Naomi in the restaurant kitchen that reads 'Think about Temperature'. Things are about to heat up, and we're all getting a sense of it. As Juliet would say "Here we go".
Punk Miles Should've Hooked up with Goth Claire
I think that would've made Aaron a lot more interesting. And it's a good thing he didn't go anywhere near the magnetic anomaly with all that stuff in his face.
Hard Hats, 10-Ton Cranes, Underwater Stations, and a Big-Ass Sonic Fence
Is there a Home Depot nearby or something? Where does Dharma get the manpower or materials to make all this crap? Multiple stations across multiple islands, a whole damned zoo, cameras monitoring what must be a miles-long perimeter of encampment guarded by the best mid-70's sonic technology... hell, the Looking Glass alone must've taken a team of engineers, hundreds of workers, and assloads of time. And now we're treated to the construction of our beloved Swan hatch, and on the other side of the truce-line too.
Were the Others on vacation for a few years? How'd they not know about all this stuff? It's one thing to live peacefully with other inhabitants... but letting someone turn your sacred island into a multi-decade construction zone is quite another. My point here is this: is Chang's ultra-cool camouflage jungle-fence really what's keeping the Others in the dark here? What's their plan for drowning out the sound of 10-ton cranes and jackhammers? You got me.
And so as Miles joins Ben Stiller in the circle of trust, I'm not so sure it's really needed. Something must be happening during this time period to really occupy the Others' time. Either that, or they're not opposed to new construction. LOTS of new construction. You guys tell me, because I'm baffled. Much of the stuff Dharma does is largely bullshit, as evidenced by Chang's derision over the polar bear fecal studies and what we saw of those poor saps in the Pearl launching message tubes of gibberish into the jungles of nowhere. Maybe the Others (wrongly) hoped Dharma would just spin their wheels for a while before finding nothing significant and going away.
I thought it ironic though, to see Radzinsky overseeing the excavation of the Swan hatch. Unknown to him, he's digging his own grave.
Seems It Never Rains in Southern California...
This song was very interesting in that all of a sudden, I realized it might be right. We've seen rain come and go very quickly all throughout LOST - during deaths, impending events, right before the whispers, and recently on and off throughout the time skips. But ever since everyone arrived at 70's Dharma? I can't think of a single time it rained. If I forgot one please remind me, but yeah, it hasn't rained on-island in a long, long while now. Does this mean they're all in Southern California? No comment. I will however, agree with the last line of the chorus: it's going to pour.
Behold! My Swingset Theory
AGAIN we see the swingset. That makes 10 or 11 separate times now. Last week I suggested that soon the swingset might need its own flashback episode, and maybe I wasn't kidding. Tonight we see that there are actually two swingsets, one of them being the evil mirror (bad) twin of the other! So here's my theory: in the last episode of LOST, the screen blurs to pure white... when it finally fades back into focus every one of our main characters is just a little kid playing on the same swingset. All the people who've ever died were merely called into the house for supper. The camera pans in on Vincent, sleeping in the grass under the see-saw, and then the LOST logo slams onto the screen with a thunderclap. Cue credits, and about 60 million angry phone calls.
Jack's Janitorial and Damage Control Clean-up Service
There was lots of juicy writing on that blackboard behind Jack, all having to do with Egyptian mythology. When dealing with clues that obvious, I usually don't put much stock into them. More interesting though, was the way Jack erased the boards from right to left, one board at a time. It kinda reminded me of someone showing a list of possible answers, and then one-by-one removing the wrong ones until only the correct answer remains. Not sure if that was the case here though.
I thought Jack's handling of Roger's suspicions was pretty terrible. His intentions were to protect Kate, but his actions were foolish. He would've been better off pretending not to know Kate at all, then clapping Roger on the shoulder and telling him he's just being paranoid. Offer to drink a beer or two with him later, and the whole thing's done. Instead, I think Jack's defense of Kate made Roger even more suspicious.
And if you think the "Use Your Imagination" poster behind Jack was only referring to Arts & Crafts day, think again. Ditto for the butterfly.
I Can Talk To Dead People - Anytime, *Anywhere! (*certain cremation rules may apply)
As we endure yet more flashback daddy-issues pushed upon us by the writers of LOST, we get to see how Miles uses his unwanted gift to pay off what must be some pretty exorbitant Hot Topic bills. We learn that his abilities are limited to the vicinity of the corpse, and that not being near the body prevents him from being able to commune with that person. We also learn, through his explanation to Hurley, that he can't really "speak" with the dead at all. His knowledge is limited to their own knowledge and thoughts up to the point where they died.
I have to say, this seems pretty inconsistent with what we saw in Confirmed Dead. Didn't Miles talk back and forth with that dead woman's grandson? And didn't he answer Miles by knocking on the wall to show him where his bankroll was hidden? This goes against the residual life-only information Miles claims to have privy to, and points more toward what my good buddies at GhostHunters would call an 'intelligent' haunting. But maybe the scriptwriters changed their minds since then, so who knows.
It doesn't really matter for poor Mr. Gray, who gets a very unwanted refund. Miles gave this guy his money back because he didn't want him to let him off the hook for the same type of thing his father did to him. The funny part here is that Miles had inwardly convinced himself he was doing it because he'd scammed the guy... it's not until the guy gets all upset that I think Miles realizes he did it on purely on the revenge tip. Daddy issues hurt more than you think, something Hurley calls him on later.
I Think We All Know What Happens If Miles Changes His Own Diaper...
Okay, now the meaty stuff. We get confirmation of two big things here: first, that someone (Miles) can absolutely positively exist twice in the same timeline - we already pretty much knew that, but there were still skeptics. Second, we learn that Chang is not only Miles' father, but that he abandoned both him and his mother when he was just a baby. Daddy douchebag? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
All you ever really need to know about life can be found in the movie Point Break (this isn't just opinion, it's proven FACT). And all you ever really need to know about time travel can be found in Jean-Claude Van Damme's Time Cop. Matter can travel through time and space, but it cannot occupy the same time AND the same space at the same time. And if it does - well, really bad shit apparently happens. Bill Murray would tell you that shouldn't cross the streams, either.
Assuming this is true, perhaps this is the reason why Pierre Chang shoots his wife and baby back to the mainland like he's launching skeet. Let's go out on a limb and say that in the next episode or two, Chang realizes that grown-up Miles is really his son Miles. Remember how wigged out he got with the double-rabbit situation in the Orchid orientation video? Miles changing his own diaper would probably have similar catastrophic results. Couple this with the fact that the Swan hatch is currently being built - which means that the incident can't be far off - and all kinds of crazy discoveries are about to happen with the Orchid... and the DI timeline is winding up to some pretty hairy stuff. I'm willing to bet Chang simply wanted to protect his family rather than abandon them. In watching the loving way he was reading Miles that polar bear book at the end of the episode, I can come up with no other conclusion. I'll bet it all happened so fast that his mother never really knew it either, which is kinda sad.
Did Sawyer Just Call Jack a Dyke?
I think he did! Jack helps Sawyer out this scene with some vital information, letting him know that he's still got his back. Sawyer shows genuine appreciation of Jack's help, too. This was good to see, because both of them are powerhouse LOST characters from the show's inception. They've also always been out of sync with each other: as one of their stars is rising, the other one seems destined to fall. Just as Jack and Locke argue Science and Faith, Jack and Sawyer's power and popularity are stuck in their own kind of Ying-Yang balance, going all the way back to supremacy of the ping-pong table and ending with the battle for Kate's panties.
I for one am looking forward to them forming the dream-team again, both finally getting back on the same side like they did when they kicked some Other ass a few seasons ago. Each of them are good, but together they're worth more than the sum of their individual parts. I think we're all ready to see another 815 rally, and I hope it comes soon. And maybe somewhere along the lines, someone should mention to Juliet that she's wearing a red shirt, too.
Hurley Couldn't Be More Right About Those Damned Ewoks
The Ewoks were a lot like Kate in that they totally ruined everything. Even as a child I knew those rocks and sticks weren't penetrating stormtrooper helmets or armor, but somehow I suspended my disbelief long enough to swallow that whole 30 minutes of sappy kiddie-shit. Damn.
The whole Hurley and Miles Star Wars scene was hilarious and awesome, but you should also take something a little bit more significant away from it. Hugo mentions having seen The Empire Strikes Back over 200 times. More repetition. More circles (Pierre Chang: "I wasn't aware there were circles"). Then Hurley explains how he wants to send George Lucas a script with a couple of his own improvements. Miles tells him he's being stupid. But is he?
Just as Hugo knows the Rebel base on Hoth will be overrun by AT-AT's (unarguably the best scene in any of the movies!) he also knows that Dharma will be overrun by the Others. He knows ahead of time that everyone's going to die. Miles, Dan... both of these people have told Hurley that this is inevitable - it can't be stopped no matter what they do. But here we have Hugo trying anyway, writing a new script, attempting to change certain things. Hurley's silly belief that he can change this upcoming Star Wars movie is a reflection that he believes change can occur at all.
Later on he tells Miles at the gas pump: "The best thing I ever did was give my dad a 2nd chance". And while he is referring to Miles' dad here, I'd suggest maybe Hugo's also referring to the whole outcome of the Dharma purge. And do his words sink into Miles' head? Maybe he somehow gets through to him, causing Miles to tell his father who he is. Maybe this leads to change... or maybe it leads Pierre Chang to hurriedly send his wife and kid off-island in order to avoid the ramifications of time travel, the purge, or anything else Miles might tell him about the near future. This makes Miles himself responsible for his own bastardization! Total craziness.
Either way, Hurley should be giving Lucas scripts for Episodes 1 through 3. Those movies were a total crapfest and the whole world knows it. Back in 1977, maybe just a quick sketch of Jar-Jar with his fingers in his ears while sticking his tongue out might've been enough to save us all from that silliness.
Charlie Bronson Always Had Rope...
Sorry, but Phil had it coming. That little monobrowed punk has been sticking his nose where it doesn't belong for several episodes now, and he was one flaming arrow away from being Frogurt. Sawyer's punch was the merciful hand of justice, but now LaFleur's dike has yet one more hole in it. And he's running out of fingers.
Shadow-Statue People: 1 Fish-Tacos: 0
Seeing Bram and his mysterious masked van crew was totally unexpected for me, but then again if they're going to introduce new enemies I suppose they'd better get moving. The van-napping of Miles was non-violent, and some of the things said to him during this scene are open to a lot of interpretation. To get anything out of it we'll have to draw some sketchy conclusions.
The most telling fact of all was that Bram and his people needed Miles to not want to get on the freighter. They could've just kept him for a week or two, causing him to miss the boat... but instead they sat there trying to convince him. This obeys one of the quintessential LOST rules: there are times when you can't make someone do something. You've got to want them to do it, so you need to incentivize them the way Naomi did in the back of the restaurant by offering Miles 1.6 million dollars.
Widmore had done his homework, he knew money was the best way to get through to Miles. But when he asks Bram for double the amount, Bram just shakes his head. "Uh uh. We're not paying you". He goes on to promise Miles something much more important than Money: enlightenment. He promises answers for Miles, answers to the questions he's been searching all his life for: who he is, why he has such a gift, and what exactly happened to his father. Even though Miles balks sarcastically at Bram's mention of the empty hole inside him, I think he does realize that these people are pulling on some very personal strings. Where and how they got this knowledge is a mystery at this point.
The more we hear about Ann Arbor, the more we should realize that important stuff happens off-island while Dharma is pouring cement and building cool lab crap everywhere. When the D.I. presence on the island disappears all at once (the Purge) we can't assume these people just forgot all about the island. Even if they couldn't find it, they were probably always working on a way back to it - just like Widmore. Seems maybe they found it with the Ajira flight, just as Widmore's freighter did once before. And no, I don't think they were still making 'food drops'.
Still, I'm not fully convinced that Bram & co. are nothing but Dharma/Hanso people. They could very well be related to Hawking, especially since we don't have a clue how she got off the island or if she ever wanted back on. I get the nagging impression they could also represent another much older interest group. But no matter who they are, they obviously represent the 3rd party that Widmore mentioned in the war that's about to be waged. And Bram seems pretty confident they're going to be the winning team.
How Daniel Got His Groove Back
Faraday steps out of the sub in a badass new black Dharma jumpsuit, complete with ultra-top secret Swan clearance and ball-kicking confidence. This explains where he's been for the last long while (three years?) although it doesn't tell us anything about what he's been up to. Yet whatever that is, he's either crazy or stupid enough to drag himself back to the island. And so the big question: why?
As huge a proponent of the 'Whatever happened happened' theory Daniel's always been, I'm willing to guess he might've been looking for a way to change that ideology. The Daniel who left the island was a gibbering, resigned, broken man. The guy who steps out of the sub looks newly confident and ready to rock. Just like Benjamin Linus, I think Daniel is now prepared to fight the inevitable. Whatever he did in Ann Arbor, it probably involved some rats and some mazes and some insane mathematics. I'll bet he came back to save his friends, but mostly to save one other person from the inevitable: Charlotte. Whether he succeeds, or whether the Ewoks take over the later half of a really kickass trilogy... we'll just have to wait and see.