Season 2, Episode 2: "Adrift"

The logo/emblem that you see on everything in the hatch (Desmonds uniform, the food labels, etc.) is the symbol for DHARMA. If you look closely, it actually says Dharma in small letters written across the logo. Dharma is the wheel of life in Tibetian/Buddhist mythology and religion and needs to be constantly pushed around to keep moving. It is the undefineable everything. The basis of life itself, Energy. The numer 108 is an important number in the Dharma philosophy. It means a harmonious universe or the center of the universe. As we saw, 108 is on the painting on the wall, written inside a sun.

After Locke types into the numbers and Desmond tells him to push execute, all that we are able to see is the shuffling of the numbers (some kind of time countdown?) when it resets to 108. Actually, it is 10800. If you count that in seconds, it is equivalent to 3 hours (10,800 seconds). Well, we know that right before Jack came to the hatch to find them, he told the rest of the group that the sun was going to come up 3 hours. SO, my theory is that this timer is counting down how long until the sun comes up. We know that this "Dharma" philosophy has something to do with the sun, something to do with 108. Also, remember that Desmond is using artificial sunlight down in the hatch. I think there may be something having to do with the "sun" that is bad, that he has to keep from things happening during the sunlight hours...?

The riddle that Desmonds asks Locke to see if he is really "him." He asks, "What did one snowman say to the other snowman?" Locke doesn't know the answer. This riddle was in a previous episode last season when Hurley is on the beach trying to make jokes and lighten the mood amongst the survivors. The answers is "Do you smell carrots?" I think that maybe the person Desmond is waiting for could be Leonard (the guy Hurley knew from the psych ward, who repeated the numbers over and over) - We know he was lost at sea, doing some kind of Navy/goverment testing...he may have been trying to get the hatch and just never made it. After all the hatch has those numbers on it that Leonard was calling from the boat. If Hurley was in the psych ward with Leonard, he may have heard the snowman joke from Leonard (repeating it just as he did the numbers) - the joke is obviously code for something.

Desmond apparently thinks the world has come to an end. After Locke tells him about the plane crash and they were flying from Sydney to LA, he says something like "So, the world is still out there, then?" He also thinks everyone is sick. Apparently, the hatch is a quarantine from the ISLAND. The hatch is not where sick people are quarantined, but yet where they stay safe from the sickness of the island. Desmond truly seems to believe that he is safe down there, using artificial sunlight, having plenty of food stocked, etc. - he thinks the world has come to an end. He also seems shocked to find out they have been there for 44 days, almost like he doesn't believe it.

Another interesting point, about the candy bars that Kate grabs. They are Apollo bars, which are a discontinued brand of candy bar. (Once again, everything in the hatch seems to be about 20-30 years behind). Interestingly enough, in greek mythology Apollo was the sender of the PLAGUE. His wrath punished the Greeks when he fired his arrows of plague upon the Greek camp during the Trojan War. As a healer, he teaches people the importance of cleanliness and he is the father of Asclepios, the god of Medicine. (Kind of
weird how this all relates to sickness, plague, healing, etc.)

The same emblem (dharma symbol) that appeared on everything in the hatch was also on the shark, down by its tail. It is hard to see but it is definitely there (thanks Tivo!) I don't know what that means, but I am thinking that maybe Desmond is able to "control" the shark? Obviously the shark is somehow related to Desmonds team. It could be another kind of "security system" (just like the monster) that he is able to control. Or maybe his team, if they are in fact there as some kind of experimental research group, maybe
they actually created the shark? I don’t know.

The people at the end of the show who were holding Jin captive (this whole scene reminded me of the Blair Witch Project, by the way!) but...I do think those people are other survivors of the crash, and not "the others." I think that the back end of the plane crashed on the other side of the island. I have two theories about this...(1) they have all turned on each other (a la Lord of the Flies) and some of them are holding one another captive. Remember earlier in the season, Locke and Jack were talking about how people are starting to turn on eachother, and Locke says something about how human nature is the worst kind of predator, worse than any animal or beast, that sooner or later they will turn on eachother. As soon as he said that, I thought definite foreshadowing! Okay, and my other theory(2) is that they were "infected" with the sickness. Remember they crashed on a different area of the island, away from everyone else. It is possible that where they are is where they can get sick. This "sickness" could be causing them to turn on eachother, to turn evil. Remember how Danielle told us that her crew was infected with the sickness, and she ended up having to kill them all. I think that maybe they got "sick" and became evil, so she had to kill them.