More on LOST "Confirmed Dead"

Some random observations...

I was dead on when I predicted that Naomi's "Tell my sister that I love her" was a coded message she was under duress. Go me! I am spoiler-free so any of the predictions I'm making are just educated guesses.

Daniel Faraday calls himself a physisist but says he doesn't like to be pigeonholed - apparently he is multidisciplined. His name is a reference to Michaeal Faraday. one of the most influential scientists of all time. Among his discoveries were the relationships between light, electricity and magnetism. He showed that magnetic fields could change the polarization of light rays. That's probably why the character of Dan Faraday commented that light didn't scatter quite right on the island. Wonder why he was crying when he saw the report on Flight 815? Whatever the reason, he was probably upset enough to call the 815 hotline, which eventually got him on Namomi's team (or more accurately, Abbadon's team).

Charlotte Staples Lewis is obviously a reference to the writer C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and champion of Christianity. Not sure of the connection, although there is an unfinished novel called The Dark Tower that is attributed to Lewis and deals with interdimentional travel. The character is an anthropologist. When she finds a DHARMA Hydra Station logo with the remains of a polar bear in Tunisia, she smiles. I think she has encountered signs of DHARMA in other excavations from other eras. From such evidence she researched the DHARMA Initiative and deduced their experiements with spacetime. I wouldn't be surprised if she went to Widmore with this information, looking for a sponsor to help her locate the island, and resulting in Naomi's "covert op".

Miles Straume is a spiritualist. His name sounds like a play on "maelstrom" which is a turbulent whirlpool. He appears to have the ability to communicate with the dead, which may or may not be why he's always angry and sarcastic. How he got on the team isn't yet clear. I don't like him. I think he is there, and Daniel is there, because those who sent them are, like us, unsure if the secret of the island is natural or supernatural. They're covering all the bases.

Frank Lapidus was supposed to be a pilot on 815 but was replaced for reasons unknown. Naomi calls him a drunk. Could it be he's drinkng for the same reason Jack starts drinking in the flash forwards - he's supposed to be on the island and he's not? My theory on Frank is that he was chosen for the team because the island wants him there, therefore his presence allows the team to access the island.

Equipment thrown from the helicopter includes gas masks and haszmat gear. Since they were coming for Ben, it's reasonable to assume they knew about Ben's purge of DHARMA and took appropriate precautions. And why do they want Ben? For his knowledge of the island I suppose.

Because the body identified in the ocean wreckage was not that of the real pilot, I think we can dismiss theories about duplicates or alternate realities. It seems likely the wreckage was staged and there is only one copy of our survivors. Staged by who? Widmore. Why? To stop furher searches or inquiry into the crash.

What a ride!