Is This The Face of Rousseau's Sickness?













Did the Others somehow implant Rousseau's team perhaps with a plan to create a crisis they could solve as a way to integrate those intruders into Island culture only to lead to the unintended consequence of Rousseau wigging out and killing the team before the Others could get to them? Claire was lucky Rousseau wasn't lurking around the Beach Camp the night Jack returned. After all in the case of infection, "you know what must be done."

I Can't Wait To Get The Rest Of
This Story!













Danielle returns and so do the questions. For example,
why doesn't she just tell Sayid I have a guy in a net instead
of the rifle trust exercise? Why doesn't she just question
Ben herself? She managed torture Sayid just fine. Granted
that torture pad is now Kablooey, but she's creative.
How does Danielle know Sayid is a torturer? I couldn't find
it, but I didn't look very hard.

And what about Ben? Why did he run when Sayid released
him from the net? Afraid Danielle would recognize him kind
of like Claire's flashes in the next episode?

More Ben -- his cover story is that he crashed 4 months ago.
Do you think the real Henry Gale crashed then, a mere
2 months before Flight 815? And then the story of his wife's
death--sick and 2 days later dead. I guess that wasn't based
on Danielle's team's "sickness" or she wouldn't have needed
to shoot them.

Can anyone remember whether or not they thought the man in
the orange polo was telling the truth or lying? Michael Emerson
was so good I'm pretty sure I changed my mind each and every
scene he was in. We've been promised more information on what
Ben was up to when he was trapped, accidentally. I hope
it's soon.

Plot Payoff














I had not remembered that Claire has "flashes" of memory
of scratching Danielle during Exodus, Part 2. It still doesn't
explain the scratches on Ethan's face in Homecoming. But
at this point the ground work was laid for Maternity Leave
fifteen episodes later. It's nice to be able to look back at these
sort of payoffs.

What Is Up With The Sickness?

When are we going to learn more about the sickness Danielle
claims her team had? Was it real? Is she the sick one?

Is it related to the shots Desmond and Kelvin took, to the injections
Ethan gave pregnant Claire? Were those shots just part of the
stagecraft or were they real?














According to Lostpedia the LOST jigsaw puzzles have a coded
message that "there is no sickness." Is that just Kelvin and
Radzinsky's conclusion with regards to Dharma's quarantine
claim, or does it relate to Danielle's experience as well?

I wish someone would sit Danielle down and ask her about the
symptoms of the sickness. Dull TV? Maybe, but at least
I'd know.

More Danielle

There are a few other things I noticed about Danielle
in Exodus Part 1 but unfortunately could not find
screen caps for. Here they are for you reading and
rewatching pleasure.

When the A-team arrives in The Dark Territory, it's
marked by a black cloth. This marks another set of
boundaries on the Island. Others include the line Tom
indicates to the 815 survivors in The Hunting Party, the
sonic fence and the ash ring near Jacob's cabin. I wonder
why Danielle or Danielle's people felt it was necessary to
mark off this area.

When the "security system" makes its way
through the trees in The Dark Territory Danielle runs from
it and hides in the trees. It's an interesting response given
how we've seen other Island dwellers deal with Smokey. I
wonder if Smokey's taken any flashes of Danielle like it did
with Juliet or if Danielle has ever stared it down like Locke
and Eko.

Is This Danielle's Con?














In Exodus Part 1 Danielle arrives in the beach camp,
announces the Others are coming, and tells the story of how
Alex was taken.

The others are coming. Our ship went aground on
this island 16 years ago. There were 6 of us...
my team, 6. At that time I was already 7 months
pregnant. I delivered the infant myself. The baby
and I were together for only 1 week when I saw black
smoke... a pillar of black smoke 5 kilometers inland.
That night they came they came and took her... Alex.
They took my baby. And now, they're coming again.
They're coming for all of you.

And then wouldn't you know it, hours later, but while
Danielle is still in the camp, we see a pillar of black smoke.

When we finally see the source of the smoke,
it's on the beach, not inland and there's no one there
but Danielle. And at this point, Danielle claims: I heard
them whispering. . . . I heard them say they were coming
for the child. The others said they were coming for the boy.

This fire is baffling to me. Why would the Others signal
their intentions with a big pillar of black smoke? They
didn't use one when they removed people from the camp
of the Tailies.

Was this a case of Danielle trying to lure the Others to the
fire to perform her exchange of Alex for Aaron (which
would be reminiscent of Sayid's bang-up plan in The
Glass Ballerina)? In response to the whispers was she
trying to "help" the Others by giving them a way to get
"the boy" without interference from the 815 survivors?
And did she use a slow fuse to start the fire while she was
in the camp as Locke suggested Sawyer had done way
back in The Moth?

BONUS POST!

Sorry, no photos in the bonus post. I'm thinking about my
favorite mysterious French woman, and it finally dawns
on me, the Others took Alex to keep the crazy French chick
from killing her like she did everyone else she arrived on the
Island with. Duh! It's not like it was some devious plan or
Alex was the golden child, it was merely the only way the
baby could survive.

Now why the Others left Danielle to roam the Island for
16 years, you got me on that one. But it would make sense
to me that when Rousseau's team arrived, not long after the
Purge, that the Hostiles would have remained hidden watching,
evaluating only to watch Rousseau go nuts or her team get
sick or whatever happened, and be unable or unwilling to
interfere until there's no one left but Danielle and Alex.

Did Danielle Get The Batteries And
Jumper Cables To Make This Torture
Device














From Here?














Rewatching Solitary has left me with more Danielle
questions than ever. For example:

1. Where did Danielle get her booby trap knowledge?
2. How many languages does Danielle know? As many
as Naomi?
3. Can anyone translate or find a translation of what
Danielle says before she says to Sayid: 16 years.
Has it really been that long?
4. Where did Danielle get that sedative and needle,
and how does she know how to use it?
5. She's seen the bears and knows there's no monsters,
and has heard the whispers, but never sees the Others?
6. So did Alex disappear from her cradle while Danielle
slept?
7. How does she know the Others are the carriers
for the sickness, and that they gave it to her team
on her team's way back from the Black Rock?

Seriously, the French Chick has a lot of 'splainin to do.

And ironically there was a woman at the beach with me this
week who looked like Danielle. I considered snapping a photo,
but decided to respect her privacy. And no, it was NOT Mira
Furlan; this woman looked like Danielle, not the actress.

Liar or Not?
























The only things we know about Rousseau and her history are the
things she's told us about herself. Do you believe her story? And
while you're thinking about her -- did she arrive on the Island
before or after the Purge?


Sayid: And how did you come to be on this island, Danielle?
Danielle: We were part of a science team.
Sayid: A science team armed with rifles? Was Robert on the team?
Danielle: Yes.
Sayid: And Alex, was he, too?
Danielle: Our vessel was 3 days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned. It was night, a storm, the sounds. The ship slammed into rocks, ran aground, the hull breached beyond repair. So, we made camp. Dug out this temporary shelter. Temporary. Nearly 2 months we survived here, 2 months before...
Sayid: Your distress signal? The message I heard, you said, "It killed them all."
Danielle: We were coming back from the Black Rock. It was them. They were the carriers.
Sayid: Who were the carriers?
Danielle: The others.
Sayid: What others? What is the Black Rock? Have you seen other people on this island?
Danielle: No, but I hear them. Out there in the jungle. They whisper. Oh. You think I'm insane. From Solitary

Danielle: The firing pin has been removed. Robert didn't notice it was missing either when I shot him.
Sayid: But you loved him.
Danielle: He was sick.
Sayid: Sick?
Danielle: It took them, one after the other. I had no choice. They were already lost.
Sayid: You killed them.
Danielle: What would have happened if we were rescued? I couldn't let that happen. I won't.
From Solitary

Hurley: Look, I came here to find... oh, easy, easy, easy. I'm... Im just getting your notes. Please, tell me why you wrote this. What do these numbers mean? Please.
Danielle: I don't know.
Hurley: What? You don't know? Okay, that thing in the woods, maybe it's a monster, maybe it's a pissed off giraffe, I don't know. The fact that no one is even looking for us, yeah, that's weird, but I just go along with it because I'm along for the ride, good old fun time Hurley. Well guess what? Now, I want some friggin' answers.
Danielle: Our ship picked up a transmission, a voice repeating those numbers. We changed course to investigate. After we shipwrecked my team continued to search for the transmission source. It was weeks before we found the radio tower.
Hurley: There's a radio tower on this island?
Danielle: Yes, up by the black rock. Some of us continued to search for the meaning of those numbers while we waited for rescue, but then the sickness came. When my team was gone, I went back up to the tower and changed the transmission.
From Numbers

Danielle: The others are coming. Our ship went aground on this island 16 years ago. There were 6 of us... my team, 6. At that time I was already 7 months pregnant. I delivered the infant myself. The baby and I were together for only 1 week when I saw black smoke... a pillar of black smoke 5 kilometers inland. That night they came they came and took her... Alex. They took my baby. And now, they're coming again. They're coming for all of you.
From Exodus, Pt. 1