At the end of the episode the head monk tells Desmond that brother Martin is heading into town in a few hours and HE can give you a ride. Unless Brother Martin is driving Penny's car isn't in a little weird that when the monk is leaving he says Goodbye to Desmond right before Penny asks him to go with her. Almost as if he knew that was what was gonna happen, and him having the picture of the ring lady on his desk i don't find it so hard to believe that maybe he did. what do you think?

We took it that Desmond might have had other plans to leave the monks but that they changed when Penny started getting friendly.
As for the ring lady, that was perhaps the most interesting part of the episode for us. We went back and watched it slowly and carefully just to make sure. On closer inspection, it looks like someone who wasn't too hot with Photoshop put that together, and I don't know if that was intentional or not. If the monk and the ring lady are related, that would help explain why he was so eager to move Desmond along.

yeh i thought the same. that was a poorly produced photo. Sorry props department but wow did it look fake. Likely the actress wasnt available for a photo with the monk actor so they pieced something together. It might have been a last minute idea because even i could have done better than that. Still...its a nice twist and we need to be reminded of this curious character from time to time. I am anxious to know her story...

desmond doesn't seem surprised by the monk saying goodbye, so he must have been leaving very soon. and i think that is pretty likely that the monk is leading desmond to the island and knows the future by the way he talks

At the end of the episode the head monk tells Desmond that brother Martin is heading into town in a few hours and HE can give you a ride. Unless Brother Martin is driving Penny's car isn't in a little weird that when the monk is leaving he says Goodbye to Desmond right before Penny asks him to go with her. Almost as if he knew that was what was gonna happen, and him having the picture of the ring lady on his desk i don't find it so hard to believe that maybe he did. what do you think?

No, I think your definitely onto something with this, cause that is how I took it too. That's why they kicked him out. it's like they are trying to get him to follow his path. He sent him to help load the wine. I definitely think the monk knew what was going to happen.

We took it that Desmond might have had other plans to leave the monks but that they changed when Penny started getting friendly.
As for the ring lady, that was perhaps the most interesting part of the episode for us. We went back and watched it slowly and carefully just to make sure. On closer inspection, it looks like someone who wasn't too hot with Photoshop put that together, and I don't know if that was intentional or not. If the monk and the ring lady are related, that would help explain why he was so eager to move Desmond along.

I thought the same thing to, and wondered why they would put such a fake in such an obvious shot. What if the lady is a flash of the future (or maybe the past:undecide: ), kind of like on fight club, when there are flashes of "tyler durden" spliced into different scenes before the ed norton's character actually encounters him. That would be kind of cool.

I got the impression Desmond was going to hook up with Martin after he helped load up the wine, and thats why the other guy said goodbye. But after Desmundo met Penny, his plans changed.

Im still under the impression that the ring lady was just Des's subconcious. Maybe this picture was where he saw her, or in the ring shop, or both.