Lost: Let's Do The Time Warp Again

I don't quite know what to make of the Lost universe after last night's episode. We are led to believe that Desmond was transported back to his life with Penny Widmore in London at the moment of the hatch implosion when he turned the key. The flashback then follows him to the point where he meets an older woman jeweler who knows all about everyone's future and insists that Desmond not marry Penny so he can find his was to the Island and push the button for three years. Is this person real or a dream? How can she possibly know all of this? Is she and older, future version of some one we know already? Penny? Desmond is then transported back to the Island just after the implosion, naked, as we had seen him before. Where are we in time? What is the present? Totally confusing for the moment, but I'm willing to go along until future episodes make things clearer.




As an aside, in the flashback Desmond encounters Charlie singing for coins in the street. The sign on Charlie's guitar case announce that he is "Charlie Hieronymous Pace", a clear easter egg reference to H. Bosch, the 15th Century painter. Above is a possibly relevant one of his paintings, "Ship of Fools".