Michael and Tom's Semi-Official Off-the-Island Timeline

Did it seem fishy to anyone else that during Michael's absence, he was able to leave the island, travel to NYC, drop Walt off at his mother's, try to kill himself, hang out with Tom, travel to Fiji, get on a freighter, and return to the island? He left at the end of season two; by the seventeenth episode of season three, the freighter was close enough for Naomi to parachute onto the island.

That's twenty days - Michael and Walt rode off on November 27th, 2004, and Naomi arrived on December 17th. Possible? Here's another question: how about Tom? He was still around in Season 3, so how did he sneak in a trip to New York? He was still with the Others when they left the mini-island in episode 9, and then reappeared to play football with Jack at the end of episode 12.

For such details, I turn to the completely awesome timeline on Lostpedia. These are the dates they claim - and I don't doubt them:

November 27th: Michael and Walt ride off in the boat.

Between November 27th - December 4th: Michael tells Walt he murdered Ana-Lucia and Libby. They arrive in NYC, where Walt goes to live with his grandmother.

December 4th: Tom returns with Jack and the Others back to Othersville.

Between December 5 - 10th: Tom arrives in New York and stops Michael from shooting himself. The wreckage of Oceanic 815 is found and makes the news. That same night, Michael meets Tom at the hotel. Michael then presumably gets his butt to Fiji real quick, because Tom is still in New York when he calls Michael on the freighter. Tom then presumably gets his butt back to the island real quick.

December 10th: Tom plays football with Jack in Othersville.

December 17th: Naomi parachutes in.

Conclusion: they pretty much made it as tight as it could be, but it seems to be at least possible that everything fits. What's interesting to me is Michael's rapid transformation into a man who wants to kill himself. He finally gets his son back at the end of November, and by the beginning of December, he's lost him again and drives into a wall.

Of course, an explanation that would buy Michael and Tom more time would be that they both passed through the wormhole on their way out of the island and went back in time any number of days. But that might cause my head to explode.

TAGS: Michael, Season3, Season4, Timeline, Tom, Walt
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