We open with a familiar scene to anyone who was following the Fund 815 ARG in the lead up to the premiere, we see two remotely operated vehicles (ROV) searching for something in the depths of the ocean. Low and behold what do they find but the wreckage of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of a trench.

There are a couple of inconsistencies between the way it played out in this episode and how it played out in Find815, but I think thats probably something to do with them being produced separately. After all they do say that it was the crew of the Christiane 1 that found it, so that fits, but in Find 815 there was only one ROV. At least I’m pretty sure there was.

They do mentioned that they are following a “guys map”, not sure who’s map this would be though. In Find815 they were searching in a rough area supposedly mentioned the journals of Magnus Hanso (captain of the Black Rock), but they weren’t following it as such.

The first of the freighters to be introduced via flashback is Daniel Faraday and we see him sitting watching the news about the discovery of 815. What’s more is he’s just sitting there sobbing, when asked why he replies he doesn’t know. Odd. The on screen text tells us that he’s in Essex Massachusetts, is this significant? I don’t know yet, but I kind of feel it might be otherwise why tell us?

Back on the island Daniel phones George on the boat to find out where everyone else is. George didn’t seem to pleased when he realised he was on speaker phone, I wonder why that is? And I wonder what the conversation he had with Dan after that was.

Meanwhile with Team Locke, Locke is upto his old tricks, you know, the one where he is standing in the rain and he says its about to stop…and then it does. How does he do that, bit creepy really.

When Locke tells them that they are heading towards the cabin Hurley says “I thought the cabin was back that way”. Why did Locke seem surprised? See if it ‘was’ Locke in the Cabin when Hurley found it, then he would have understood what Hurley was talking about. Maybe he did understand, but was pretending to not know what Hurley was talking about. Maybe it simply wasn’t Locke in the cabin. You could also sense that Ben knew what they were talking about.

Then Locke justs drops that Walt told him what to do…well thats what he thinks anyway…

Why were the freighters carrying what appears to be some sort of hazmat gear? When Jack discovers the metal case its got gas masks, and something red, are they protective suits maybe? Like what we saw Kelvin and Desmond wearing while they were in the Swan station.

“Rescuing you and your people, can’t say its our primary objective”. Now thats something that if it were season 2 or 3 would have been left right there, but instead we actually find out why they are really there by the end of the episode.

Locke says that he probably would have died if he still had his kidney, I wonder if Ben intentionally shot him there because he knew that the was missing that kidney.

The second freighter to be introduced was Miles. We see that his flashback is taking place in Inglewood California, again the significance of this is unknown. Apart from the fact that Miles’ flashback is just plain strange why did they focus so much on the picture frames more to the point why do they change from wooden to metal frames. So he’s a “ghostbuster”? Talking to the dead? I can see the potential usefulness of a “skill” like that on the island.

Miles reveals who Naomi’s sister is…dur…it was code for “help I’ve got a gun to my head”. Kind of figured that would be the case.

Back at Team Locke again, Ben is trying to talk to Alex and is about to tell her something before Carl “bravely” interrupts. I wonder what he was going to tell her. Maybe he was going to try and convince her to run off into the jungle so that the freighters can’t find her.

After Kate and Jack take Miles and Dan back to Naomi’s body Miles kneels down and “does his thing” after which he actually believes what Kate had already explained to him. So does he really communicate with dead people, if so, how?

Anyone else notice that when Sayid and Juliet turn up with the guns it was very much like the encounters that the losties used to have with the others, ie. friendly conversation going on, one side says “we’ve got people in the bushes with guns to your heads”…and what do you know they actually do.

The third freighter to be introduced is Charlotte. More specifically Charlotte Staples Lewis….C.S. Lewis. We find her in Medenine Tunisia at the site of an excavation. And what are they excavating…a freaking polar bear skeleton…in the middle of the desert no less. So why doesn’t this phase Charlotte, its almost as if she expected to find it there. How did she know to dig for the collar, and why did she smile when she saw the Dharma/Hydra station logo on the collar? Did she recognise it? Is that what she (or her employer…) was looking for?

Charlotte said that it was “amazing” that Claire had had Aaron while on the island. Was this a simple statement because Claire survived the plane crash and still had her baby while on the island or does Charlotte somehow know about the “issues” surrounding pregnancy on the island…

The fourth freighter to be introduced is Frank Lapidus. He’s in Eleuthera in the Bahamas and he’s watching the reports about Flight 815 on the news. The reports reveal the identity of the pilot to be Seth Norris, they are “confirming” that he was the pilot of 815 and are showing footage of his body in the wreckage. Frank notices that there is no wedding ring on Seth’s hand and calls to report what he knows. How does he know? Oh, it just happens that Frank was supposed to be flying 815 on the day is crashed/disappeared. Question is, why wasn’t Frank the pilot? He’s later referred to as “a drunk” so maybe thats what “prevented” him from being on 815.

Presumably the bull that Frank encounters is one of the animals that was being kept at the Flame station. I seem to recall that there were a few animals there. That could also explain the horse that Kate saw a while back too.

In the lead up to Ben shooting Charlotte, you could see him eyeing off Carl’s gun.

In the final flashback we see Naomi seemingly being given her mission. So it would appear that she was the leader of their merry little troop, it’ll be interesting to see how things go without her around. Oh and who else would be handing out the instructions to her but Matthew Abaddon the mysterious man from Hurley’s flashforward in the last episode. So who are they working for? And why did they select the four people that they did? Interesting choices, were they chosen simply for the areas of expertise or for a different reason? Abaddon was also very adamant that “there were no survivors” of flight 815.

Back to the island again. When Miles calls the ship to speak with George he’s not available, so why couldn’t he just tell Regina what he wanted to say, or get her to pass on the message. I sense disunity amongst the freighters.

When Frank realises that Juliet wasn’t on the plane he refers to her as a native, but she’s not truly a native (who is?) since she’s has only been there for about 3 or so years. Miles storms towards her asking “where is he”, he who? he’s just assuming that she instantly knows who they are looking for.

Now we get the big reveal, the freighters are looking for Ben. But they don’t tell us why, typical. The photo they have of Ben looks like it could have possibly been taken at an airport, but it definitely seems to be somewhere off the island, where? And perhaps more importantly, when?

My personal favourite moment from this episode was when Locke is threatening to kill Ben (again), Ben says that he has answers. Locke flat out asks the question we’ve all been asking since the very beginning, “what is the monster, the black smoke”? Ben says he doesn’t know, could it be true that Ben truly doesn’t know what it is. After all the Others do have that sonic fence to keep it away from the barracks, and the fence precedes Ben’s arrival on the island.

Then Ben starts to rattle off a large amount of facts about the identifies of the people from the freighter, on piece of information was that Charlotte was born in Essex, England. Is this a deliberate connection between her and Dan? (remember his flashback took place in Essex Massachusetts). Not that it matters really…

Oh, and how does Ben have all this wonderful knowledge about the freighters… because he has a man on the boat. Damn. Who? is it someone we already know about ie. Regina or George? or are there even more people on the boat we don’t know about yet.

On the Island it is supposedly almost Christmas 2004, remembering that the plane crashed on the 22nd September 2004.

In Find815 the main character Sam made mention that he wouldn’t be home for Christmas (no year mentioned), which would lead you to believe that the expedition he was on was taking place around December/January. Originally I thought this was taking place at the end of 2007/start of 2008, to coincide with the “press release” from Oceanic stating that they would begin flying again on the 31st December 2007. Seemed to make sense that they would abandon the search, and then resume flying. Right?

The conclusion of Find815 saw the discovery of Flight 815 in the Sunda trench. This is then reported at the beginning of “Confirmed Dead” linking the two stories together, but creating more questions than it answers…as usual.

In order for the team of Freighters to be assembled and then sent to Island you could assume that the “wreckage” of 815 was discovered no later than mid-December 2004. Of course its likely that it could have been discovered earlier, but thats not my argument. Even if what we saw in Find815 was taking place in 2004 it doesn’t line up, since the freighters have landed on the island before Sam Thomas and Christiane 1 have discovered the wreckage…

From ‘Confirmed Dead’, we know that the wreckage was definitely discovered before they were assembled and sent to the island. So the question is, were the ‘flashes’ that we saw in this episode ‘flashbacks’ or ‘flashforwards’…stay with me.

I have a theory that the freighter is in fact connected to Penny, but not the Penny that Charlie spoke to when he disabled the jamming equipment. That was 2004 Penny, who knows nothing about any freighter. A ‘future’ Penny might know something about it. Why do I think Penny is connected to the boat, because when Naomi first lands on the Island she is in possession of a photo of Desmond and Penny.

Timeline could then be something like this. Plane crashes in September 2004, wreckage found end of 2004 (by Christiane 1), freighters assembled in 2005, freighters land on Island end of 2005 (their time…which is only the end of 2004 on the island), some of the Losties are rescued early 2006, Hurley goes nuts late 2006, Jack goes nuts early 2007…weirdness ensues…Jack gets back to the island for the series finale…

In other words time on the island is running at a different rate to time off the island. And really what other good reason is there for the obvious lack of years being mentioned around certain events if there is nothing strange happening. I think that makes sense.