LOST Thoughts For S6E17 The End May 23rd, 2010 Part Two

When the decision was made to end LOST after six seasons, I felt it was a sad, but great move. The problem with a show like LOST is that you can find yourself hard pressed to figure out the ending when you keep getting renewed each season. A lot of things can happen in a year’s time. The continuity of your storytelling model can sometimes be left to the mercy of contract negotiations and puberty, as in the case of Walt growing up faster than the timeline of the island being shown each season. Not to mention, if you find yourselves dragging out mysteries, you need to pay attention to what has already been shown in previous seasons. You need to establish the continuity of something an actor did three years ago with how they finish a plot line next year, as in the case of the skeletal remains of Jacob’s family (a.k.a Adam and Eve) appearing to change positions from season one to season six. So, I applaud the creative team for picking a point in space and moving towards it. That gives them some framework in which to explore and tie up story lines and mysteries on the island. Where they did come up short was that there was no shortage of additional mysteries being added to the mix in season six.

So, now that the show is over, are you satisfied with the way it ended in terms of answering all your questions? I’m not. It’s not that I’m and jumping up and down mad that there was some ambiguity left out on the field but man, they knew where we were heading. Don’t you think they could have tied everything up this season?

There’s a great video from collegehumor.com that illustrates the many, many questions that some LOST fans might still be asking. I know I’ve had a few of my own.  First and foremost the one question I thought would be answered above all others was never solved. Those who have read my posts about LOST can probably answer this without any prompting.

WHO WAS SHOOTING AT SAWYER?
This had to occur in the present day (2007) Why? Because there was an Ajira bottle in one of the outriggers. So, how hard would it have been to just show a scene of red shirts from Widmore’s team patrolling the shore in the other outrigger this season? No big mystery. Problem solved.

WHO WAS ZOE?
There was a lot of speculation that she was really important. She was searching the island for something. It made her character overly annoying and I was glad MiB killed her. It was almost a nod to the fan base. Nobody liked her. She was equal parts Nikki and Paulo.

WHO’S SIDE WAS WIDMORE REALLY ON?
From day one of his introduction he was labeled the bad guy. Since we know that Ben was acting on orders from MiB and not Jacob that makes it seem like Widmore was really the good guy. But if that’s the case then why didn’t Richard already know that and say, “Hey, everybody. I’ve been on the island longer than anybody else alive, I can vouch for this guy?”

WHY DID THEY KIDNAP WALT ONLY TO LET HIM GO?
It seems to me if you are going to make a big deal about a kid being special then you better at least explain why you kidnapped him, subjected him to Room 23, made him jump through all sorts of hoops and then just let him go. Beyond that, how the hell did Walt show up on the island in different places like talking backwards just before Shannon got shot and standing above John Locke who was lying in the D.I. burial pit. We know that MiB could only take the form of someone dead so we know it wasn’t him impersonating Walt. We also know that John Locke saw Walt after he left the island and there wasn’t a clear acknowledgement of that little pep talk at the edge of the pit. What gives?



WHERE WAS CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD’S BODY?
MiB impersonated Jack’s Dad in "White Rabbit." He led Jack to the caves. But, the coffin was empty both in that episode and… oddly enough at the end of the series. Where the hell was it? My one and only theory was that the body never left Australia. Remember when Jack fought with someone at the airport in Sydney about lacking the proper documentation to store the coffin on Oceanic 815? Well, what if they removed the body but left the coffin? We get a similar sense of this in the afterlife flash forwards as Jack finds out that the airline lost his dad’s body. I think Christian Shephard became a lost piece of luggage in Australia and was probably buried in an unknown location.

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE STATUE AND PREGNANCY ISSUES ON THE ISLAND?
I’ve theorized that all the different people brought to the island over the last few millennia were done so in order to debate the bargument that Jacob and his brother had. “You say that humanity is inherently evil and will always chose the wrong way and I say that free will exists and allows people to chose to do the right thing with little encouragement.” So, in that case, while they are stranded on the island bickering and killing and being generally naughty they have explained their surroundings and experiences in the form of structures (i.e. The Statue and The Temple) that are native to their own culture back home… Across The Sea. But… What the hell did it all mean in terms of the statue being depicted as Taweret in regards to pregnancies on the island? Jacob and his brother were conceived elsewhere and born on the island. Aaron was conceived elsewhere and born on the island. Sun and Jin conceived Ji Yeon on the island but gave birth away from it. Miles, while not specifically shown being BORN on the island was obviously conceived there. So, why is it that Juliet was really brought to the island? Why do pregnant woman die if the child is conceived on the island? Was this all part of Jacob’s plan? Did he intend for women to not be able to give birth on the island? Did his brother? WTF?!?!?!?

THE SWAN
What the hell did the Blast Door map have to do with anything? It showed the LOSTIES some of the stuff on the island such as other hatches but who cared? Kelvin took over for Radzinsky when he died… supposedly from suicide… I think Kelvin shot him. He was a tool. But why was Radzinsky stuck in the swan? Punishment for the Incident? Why did nobody bother to relieve him from DI? Was it because he was stuck down there during the purge and no one bothered to come back and find out what happened? It’s obvious that there were still Supply Drops made by… someone. I think if I spent a hell of a lot of money on something like the Dharma Initiative I’d want to check up on it from time to time. Was it like Isla Sorna in The Lost World Jurrasic Park… left for dead? Was the quarantine on the hatch written to keep people in because of the purge or a sick psychological experiment perpetrated by DI? Why would Ben tell Locke that nothing would happen if he pushed the button. He was in the Dharma Initiative? He ended the Dharma Initiative. He saw exactly what happened when you didn’t push the button (Oceanic 815) And why didn’t someone just turn the fail safe earlier?

THE DHARMA INITIATIVE ITSELF
Was this all red herring? Did the DI serve only to be the newest players in Jacob and MiB’s game of free will? Instead of Egyptians or Romans there were scientists and hippies? The hatches and stations were simply the temple and the statue of the latter 20th century? Who built the Lamp Post and why was Eloise Hawing off island, anyway? If Eloise was an Other, then why was she involved at all? After spending an entire season with the characters in the damn thing (D.I. circa 1977), did it mean nothing in the end? Probably. Just another plot line being launched into an open field somewhere in the framework of the show.

THE RULES
Jacob and his brother were told by their mother that they could never kill each other and that there were rules. So, are we to believe that MiB was not killed by being thrown down the into source waterfall? His body was merely resting in the caves for 2000 years. He was mostly dead? And why did the rules apply to Ben and Charles? Were they the same rules? Obviously, not since Ben unloaded a clip into Charles during the finale. Also, if Charles broke the rules by having a life as well as a family, off island, then why wasn’t Tom reprimanded for his little off island escapades? Was Charles’ indiscretions more about Eloise than anything else? Was his sentence proposed by the same governing body of Others that branded Juliet? Why was Richard Alpert not more vocal about their dealings as an advisor to Jacob?

OFF ISLAND ADVENTURES
Why is it, or more to the point how is it that Jacob knew where the Candidates were and were able to contact them? What means of transportation did he use? If we are to believe that Christian Shephard was primarily being worn as a suit by MiB then how did he appear to Jack in "Something Nice Back Home?" Was his appearance off island a hallucination? If not, then why the hell was MiB trapped on the island?

PENNY
Why did she appear to be in front of an Olan Mills photography backdrop in video communication with Charlie? Did she ever reunite with Desmond and how?

BEN
Why was he a globe trotter? Was he working for MiB all along and never for Jacob? Why didn’t Richard make that distinction? Why did Richard go to the foot and say, “Jacob, you know that cabin out in the woods? Do you still use it? Is that you telling Ben what to do?” How did Ben acquire so much money?

LIBBY
Why was she mental and how did she get out?

THE FROZEN DONKEY WHEEL
Who finished the work MiB started? Why was the chamber frozen? How did the DI get a polar down there to turn the wheel? Why does the island move? How is water involved? Why are you never allowed to return if you spin the wheel? Ben did. Locke did. If the wheel was just a piece of a larger mechanism how did that get built and did all the workers turn into smoke before completing the machine?

THE SOURCE
Why did the water stop flowing when the plug was removed? The water did not flow backwards. It did not continue to simply flow down the drain when it was removed. Where did that drain go? Why did the MiB instantly turn into a smoke monster upon falling over the waterfall but Jack and Desmond had to walk a ways before reaching the plug? Who drew on the plug and how did they do so without dying? If being in the pool caused a fate worse than death, then why did Jack die and go to church with his friends?

I could go on but you get the idea here. There were more questions left open than answered by series end. Next up, a report card on my theories throughout S6. I promise this is the last one…

LOST Thoughts For S6E17 The End May 23rd, 2010 Part One

Notice the title change? That’s because there’s no need to post theories or think about how things will play out because it’s over. Well, what did you think? Me? I loved the finale. I thought it was a beautiful tale of moving on and letting go. I got choked up more in those two and a half hours then I had the entire series. As far as Series Finales go that was one of the best. The only problem is that I have no idea what series it wrapped up.

I have so many thoughts in my head and I don’t want to sound pedantic but the episode did nothing for me in terms of wrapping anything up on the island. It was like watching the opening five minutes of Evil Dead II, which asked me to completely forget about what happened in the first movie since they rewrote it all in that span of time. Again, do not jump on the pitchfork and torch bandwagon yet. Let me reiterate, I LOVED WHAT I SAW, but I just don’t get why I saw it.

You know I am going to bore you to death with my ramblings.  I attempted to swallow the pregnant Metis, also known as my ability to go to Erie to tell a story, but couldn’t.   If I don't, the Athena-like rant shall spring forth from my head. So, I will break it all up into a couple of posts because, quite frankly, I’ve been mailing it in lately with reposting CarTalk puzzlers and I really don’t have the time to get all pop culture geeky on you with new stuff. So, let’s start off with this past Saturday’s repeat of the pilot episode, OK?

SHOW OF SCIENCE, SHOW OF FAITH

When LOST was first announced on the fall schedule I thought it was going to be utter crap. Why? Because I didn’t think a show about people shipwrecked on a island was going to be able to hold my attention. I made an attempt to watch Alias and after I missed two episodes I was completely… LOST.   My wife was also not interested in watching the show, which kind of made it easier for me to just let it slip into the pile of missed shows. Still, I was willing to give the show a chance with the pilot. Why? Because I hate to miss things.

That opening scene was quite simply one of the best things I had ever seen. And remember, this was a season that boasted Rescue Me, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, albeit in March, CSI: NY, Deadwood, Veronica Mars, Boston Legal, and House. Unfortunately it also had Joey and The Apprentice. So for me to put LOST’s premiere ahead of these other really decent shows gives me a newfound appreciation for appointment television. Until now, I had only done that with Buffy, Angel, West Wing, and The Oscars.

Here was a show that defied convention. It was a piece about characters and people and it just so happened that they were stuck on a tropical island. Had that been it, it may have lasted two seasons and I probably would have been happy with it. Then that pesky noise in the jungle came about and things took a turn. Still, even with that noise, that mechanical roar accompanied by the swaying and cracking of trees, the show stayed rooted in the focus of the people who survived. We had little snippets of back story concerning each castaway. There was a doctor, a con man, a rocker, a fugitive, a sad sack, a couple isolated by social mores and language, a father and son, a broken man, the pretty young over privileged rich girl and her infatuated step brother, and a torturer. Talk about The Real World. This was almost a slap in the face of reality shows that pit opposing personalities and backgrounds against each other to see if they can coexist in a confined space. Then Greg Grunberg got sucked out of the cockpit. After a bit, we saw how the passengers were flawed. We saw the post 9/11 fears play out as Sawyer attacks Sayid. We saw Jin tell Sun to stay covered and keep a low profile. We saw one of the most terrifyingly real depictions of a plane crash I’ve seen since Alive. We saw a spoiled brat refuse to help out and face the facts that no one is coming. We saw the first steps of a group of strangers working together towards becoming a community by looking for help. Then Sawyer shot a polar bear. “Guys, where are we?”

THE REST OF SEASON ONE

Those two hours held the world on edge for something different. It strayed into the bleeding edge of drama and hovered around science fiction but it stayed firmly rooted in its storytelling about people and their problems. How they were lost in life and how their time on the island might help them. From then on it became a finely tuned instrument that delved into the nature of what happened, happened. But I am referring to what happened off the island. Here it didn’t matter. Daddy issues, mental issues, abandonment issues, and Spanish Graphic Novel issues aside, everyone on the island was given a blank slate with the chance to redeem themselves. It only took four seasons to change all that.

It started with that damn hatch. That pill bottle lid that just stuck out like a piece of the alien ship in Tommyknockers. Once the characters began digging in the dirt looking for answers the show became more about science than faith. With the end of the first season we had found that somehow people and things on the island were connected off the island. Soon, the show became more about spotting the connections, the numbers, the crossed paths, and less about people’s atonement and relationships. Sure that was still there, but the questions and mysteries took over. Some of the highlights of that first season include some of the best music I’ve heard in a series. I can’t help but love Michael Giacchino as a composer. For me, he ranks up there with Christophe Beck and Snuffy Walden. I still get weepy when I think of that church scene from the finale with the “LOST theme” playing over it just like I used to when Beck’s theme for Season 2 of Buffy played as Angel got skewered into oblivion.

In fact there were so many great scenes from Season One that were punctuated with that damn heartstring tugging tune. Boone’s death while Aaron is born was one. The launching of the raft was another. I was immediately struck with the imagery of Tom Hanks leaving his island captivity on a raft outfitted with a port a john. The same kind of weepy music accompanied Hanks as he looked back on four years of his life as a different man, island man. As the rafties made their way out to sea to look for rescue I felt that same twinge of longing for a place that had become home for several months, even though it had been like two weeks for them.

But nothing could have prepared an audience, so willing to accept the small quirks of the island like evil others and a faceless monster, for what was about to happen. The other pillar of black smoke came and they hid, the raft encountered salvation only to find it was taking something away, and a cork was pulled out of the bottle that unleashed the island’s mysteries upon the castaways when that damn hatch lid blew. Season One was full of everything that made LOST so engaging and intriguing. It beguiled us and bugged as for the next five seasons until it had to come to an end.

Next up, Did Season 6 answer all those pesky questions?

LOST Theories For S6E16 What They Died For May 18th, 2010

Responsibility. We all have responsibilities. I have ones to my work and my family. I also have a responsibility to act a certain way in accordance to rules established by society. For the island, responsibility plays a role in what the island is. There is someone responsible for protecting it and making sure that no one tries to destroy it. Desmond had a responsibility for pushing the button, like the castaways did for a season. Sawyer felt he was responsible for the deaths of Frank (maybe), Jin, Sun, and Sayid. Hurley feels he is responsible for making sure that Jacob’s wishes are carried out. It all comes back to having a stake in something. To that end. Jack feels it’s his responsibility to become the island protector. This is a huge ‘fix’ for him because he had been trying so hard to get off the island and now he’s going to stay there for a very long time.

DESMOND
Desmond still has some huge part to play and I feel that he will end up dying in the end. It’s his sacrifice that will allow Jack or whoever to kill MiB once and for all. But should he be killed? (More on that in a bit) So, who let him out? Did the Losties get there and rescue him ahead of MiB and Ben? Or did Sayid leave him a rope to help himself while he went off to play suicide savior?

In the Alterverse, Desmond tries to nail Locke again in the wheelchair, and I had to chuckle when he started up the car because I was so thinking that the same damn thing was going to happen. However, Ben, of all people, shows up to stop him and gets beat up by Desmond in two universes and that flicks on the Déjà vu switch that shows Ben his other self. How much does he know, though? It seems as if there is an ability to gain more memories than just what are shown in the flashes as evidenced by Hurley’s recognition of Ana Lucia. For that matter, Desmond knows more than he was originally shown because he has become a sort of shepherd, going after the rest of the castaways to show them the way.

MIB’S PLAN
All this time we’ve been wondering how Smokey, or whatever I choose to call him in this paragraph, plans to get off the island. I’ve been speculating that by simply turning the Donkey Wheel everyone could have been off the island in Season One but maybe that is not the case. Or it’s just a continuity error in the show. However, it seems as if this is Smokey’s only chance since all other means of escape are gone. But his plan had some snags along the way. First, Desmond was supposed to be killed by Sayid because he was a possible candidate, or so he thought. Turns out, Desmond is more. He is a failsafe. A key around the neck of Jacob that can make this all go away. I find it ironic that Desmond and Locke were both in the hatch when it blew in Season Two. Locke destroyed the computer controlling the button and Desmond had to use the failsafe key to release the built up electromagnetic energy. Here, it appears that once again, Locke, now Smokey, will try to destroy the island at its source and Desmond might be how he chooses to do it.

THE CHOOSEN ONE
First off, let me say that I have not been a fan of Kate since she started playing the middle of the road between Jack and Sawyer. Last night was a prime example of why I don’t like her. “What about me?” While Jacob gave her a more straightforward and kinder answer than he gave Ben back in the end of Season Five, I still felt as if she was whining. A friend pointed out that after all this trouble, she deserved to know why her name was crossed off the list. Frankly, I never thought she would have been the chosen one I am glad she’s not. She doesn’t exactly like to do what she’s told to do.

You have to love Hurley. He has been burdening such a load since the show began. He started the Island Golf League to help them blow off steam. He felt that he needed to destroy the food from the hatch pantry because it would have been gone quickly and people would have been mad at him. He feels unlucky at every turn and feels responsible for the bad things that have happened to those he cares about. The fact that he knows he has limits and doesn’t like to leave his comfort zone is evidenced ad he did not volunteer for the job of island janitor. But Hurley may be the best person of all in the world. It’s kind of like he has all the qualities that make an excellent leader except the desire to be one.

Sawyer is a candidate but still would never take the job of island protector, even though he’s been shown to serve and protect the Dharma Initiative and the people of Los Angeles in the job of law enforcement. But, he still wants off the island and he knows that taking this job saddles him on that rock for a long time.

Kwon was a name on the wall in the cave but we didn’t know which one it referred to. Was it Jin or Sun? Guess it doesn’t matter now because they both drowned in the sub. However, given that Kate was disqualified on account she was a “mom” leads me to believe that Sun would have been DQ’d as well. For that matter, Littleton was also a name but since she was a mother it was crossed out as well as Kates. So that leaves Jin, right? Why not say he’s disqualified for being a father? That leaves Ji Yeon and now that she’s an orphan, she could be a prime candidate, but Jack already stepped up.

In perhaps one of the biggest reveals of all, we finally get the low down on Jacob’s process. He chose people who were flawed yet had all the same qualities as him. They were unhappy where they were at and needed the island as much as the island needed them. Kate was on the run, Sawyer was filled with vengeance, Hurley was unlucky, Jack had father issues and a failed marriage. The Kwons were troubled by their families and their own problems. Sayid was haunted by his past and his search for Nadya made him melancholy. Michael had issues with his son and their relationship. Locke had a need to prove he was capable and was constantly put down. I could go on but there is your core castaways.

THEORY DEBUNK TIME
“Dr. Linus”

1. Widmore is able to find the island because:


1. He is the friend Jacob was guiding towards the island and his name is actually Wallace
2. Desmond is on that sub and his name his family name is actually Wallace.
3. Locke-Ness has killed Jacob leaving the island unveiled and seen by Widmore
4. He went to the Lamp Post

Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner. A: Jacob invited Widmore back. What that has to do with the name Wallace, I have no idea. Perhaps it means nothing. Perhaps by moving the dial to Wallace it was the only way to go past Shepherd giving Jack his much needed glimpse of responsibility.

“The Package”

2. Zoe is


1. A pain in the ass
2. The key to everything
3. A red herring
4. A geophysicist with a knack for finding pockets of electromagnetic energy.

Guess A: will have to be good enough as she is now dead. Yeah. I really hated her. She had no purpose. What the hell was she looking for anyway in Ben’s house? She said she was there looking for something and we never found out what that was. Oh well. She was the Nikki/Paulo of this season and the island demanded her disposal.

“The Candidate”

3. The next Jacob will be?


1. Jack (Sayid said it and he keeps saying he is not leaving the island.)
2. Locke (No not the Locke from the OT, Locke from The Alterverse. Somehow the two timelines will converge and Locke in the ALT will do battle with his doppelganger.)
3. Desmond (Jack must shepherd him from the well to a spot of concentrated electromagnetic energy in order to accept Jacob into his being.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the everyone on the list is not actually a list of candidates but a list of people who will be used to get the candidate into position? Once they fulfill their role, they are killed and removed like fallen pieces on a chessboard.

Yep. A: is the answer and my footnote was basically proven by Jacob’s revelations.

NEW THEORY TIME
Not much I haven’t already stated. I will throw out these little theories and hope that they come true.

1. MiB will attempt to leave the island:


1. Via the donkey wheel.
2. Via Ajira 316 which will be disarmed.


2. The Alterverse Castaways are going to:


1. Meet up on a boat to go to the spot where the island should be.
2. Fly in another plane and somehow get back to the sunken island.


3. MiB will attempt to destroy the island by:


1. Throwing Desmond down the 100 watt cave.


4. MiB will be killed by:


1. Blown up by the remainder of the C4 making Ben a suicide bomber who decides to kamikaze Smokey.
2. Jack will go all Neo on him like he did Mr. Smith
3. He won’t. Everything will simply go back to the way it was.


5. The Survivors will leave the island by:


1. Ajira 316. Frank really isn’t dead and has been spending the last two episodes disarming the bomb. He’ll show up at the last minute like Bishop did in Aliens.
2. Penny will arrive on Penny’s Boat and rescue them but will lose Desmond.
3. Each one will take a turn on the Donkey Wheel.

LOST Theories for S6E14 The Candidate May 4th, 2010

Letting go. For me that was the theme of last night’s total “kitten drowning / puppy mangling” of an episode. Hey Cuse and Lindelof, why don’t you just have Santa Claus shoot the Easter Bunny, execution style, while snorting a line of coke off the Tooth Fairy’s cleavage? That would be fun wouldn’t it? Ok, childhood memory killing rant over. Letting go and continuing on…

JACK
Everything that we built up on either side of the island in Season 2 about science vs. faith is now finally coming down on the side of faith. Jack, who constantly raged against the machine in terms of being at the will of the island is letting go his anger and his doubts and is making that transition towards just being a part of things. Sayid said, just before he became an ironic joke about Middle Eastern suicide bombers, “Because it’s you, Jack.” You, who? The Candidate? For a moment I was thinking that the title was a misnomer because it was more about Locke’s candidacy for surgery than it was about any of the Losties being a candidate for Jacob’s replacement. Yet, in an almost inaudible and possibly thrown away delivery, Sayid gave us perhaps the answer to everything this season has been about. Case in point, let that timer go to zero, Sawyer. We’ll be fine. He didn’t get it at first but after “Lighthouse” he understood it. He understood it with Alpert in the Black Rock when he nearly soiled himself to test his theory about dying. Here, he gave full control over to fate and destiny versus the science of what C4 will do to the human body when detonated. If Sawyer would have not pulled the wires, would it have blown? Don’t know. But, I think that fate would have ended up causing the sub to sink, anyway, because that was the will of the island.

SAYID
Should we be shocked at Sayid’s death? We’ve seen characters die when they’ve fulfilled their purpose. Charlie finally let go and found peace in dying, fulfilling his part of the island’s plan, or will. Arzt and Illana… maybe not so much but their deaths were still shocking. Sayid, however, went full circle on his path. Perhaps he was fated to become what he was in order to save Desmond from MiB. With Sayid being Puff the Magic Bastard’s assassin, perhaps that was better because Desmond could get through to Sayid. And with the information he was given, he was able to pass that along and save the others, fulfilling his purpose. With Desmond’s consoling of Sayid’s soul, Sayid let go of his anger and became the “Redemption of Anakin Skywalker” on Lost.

JIN AND SUN
Were there ever two more tragic lovers, save for Romeo and Juliet? To be separated by time and space, land and sea, and life and death only to be reunited in death is pretty much a case of “Your karma ran over my dogma.” It was hard enough to watch, given the circumstances surrounding my family these past few weeks, but it would have been even harder had I invested more emotion into their reunion two weeks ago instead of wondering if one of them was going to be a small part of smoky. But it was also beautiful. Even though it was highly annoying being a parent and all. What of Ji Yeon? She’s now an orphan, like Walt. Never once did Sun say, “Go, be a father to your daughter.” Nope, she just wanted him to live because it was a dire situation. But they both let go and chose to be together in death or not at all. But why? What was their purpose on the island as candidates.. either one or both of them? How was the island finished with them. It rails against the established rules laid out by previous episodes.

THE AUDIENCE
We need to let go. There are only four more episodes left in the history of this incarnation of LOST. We got handed a nice big crap sandwich last night but that is what I’ve come to expect from the show. LOST is in a league of shows that I love because of their ability to screw the audience’s upbeat mood. Supernatual and anything from The Whedonverse are the others. Main characters. Beloved characters. Important characters. Dead characters. There is no safe haven in these shows. In fact there is a lot of cross pollination of creative people involved with all of these shows and it is apparent when watching. I can say, “Oh that was Buffyesque” when someone dies. Look at the proof.

Buffy kills off Joyce Summers and Anya in the series along with Xander becoming another ironic joke as a cyclops mimicking his pirate costume from an earlier Halloween episode.  Angel kills off Cordy, Fred and Wesley as well as putting Gunn near death by the end of the series.  Supernatural has killed the two leads more times than I can count but also blew up Ellen and Jo as well as let professional dying guy Jeffrey Dean Morgan go a few seasons back. As faithful followers of LOST we need to let go of our attachment to any of these characters and just let the story tell itself over the last four episodes.

THEORY DEBUNK TIME
Well, it looks like we can kill a number of theories with this last episode.

Sundown

Sayid is definitely bad and Claire is headed there. Kate will do what she can to save her.

½ credit on this one. Sayid redeemed himself but Kate did save Claire.

Recon

Locke Monster and Widmore hate each other.

Yeah that one works while Locke and Widmore being on the same side is null and void at this point.

Everybody Loves Hugo

1. MiB needs the others (no pun) because


1. He needs the conditions of the O6 leaving in order to be able to replicate it.
2. He plans to just kill them in order to keep them from becoming the next Jacob

Guess we know which one came true, there.

NEW THEORIES
The next Jacob will be:

1. Jack (Sayid said it and he keeps saying he is not leaving the island.)


1. Locke (No not the Locke from the OT, Locke from The Alterverse. Somehow the two timelines will converge and Locke in the ALT will do battle with his doppelganger.)
2. Desmond (Jack must shepherd him from the well to a spot of concentrated electromagnetic energy in order to accept Jacob into his being.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the everyone on the list is not actually a list of candidates but a list of people who will be used to get the candidate into position? Once they fulfill their role, they are killed and removed like fallen pieces on a chessboard.

2. The following are dead.


1. Frank, Sayid, Jin and Sun
2. Sayid, Jin and Sun (Frank is only mostly dead which means he’s slightly alive.)
3. Sayid, Frank, and Sun (Jin is still a possible candidate and could not be killed, therefore he was able to swim away)
4. THEY’RE ALL DEAD!?!?!?!?

The only person I think may really still be alive is Frank. We saw him have the stereotypical “Shit” moment when he knew the door was going to fly at him but we never saw him during the obligatory “LOST Death Theme” If he were truly dead then they should have showed his body floating around among the bits of Sayid and Sun and Jin. Frank will still need to fly Ajira 316.

3. Sideways James Ford will get his revenge by:


1. Taking out a vegetative Anthony Cooper at Helen and Locke's wedding
2. Taking out a vegetative Anthony Cooper at the nursing home
3. Taking out the Sideways Sawyer who will end up being a totally different character than Anthony Cooper.

Because the Alterverse established that James Ford is still hunting for the Sawyer that conned his parents it's safe to say that there should be some sort of resolution to that story.  Of course, who knows with only four episodes left.   We could say that Anthony Cooper was Sawyer but that seems rather anti-climatic to have a catatonic con be given the Inigo Montoya speech by Jim once he finds him.  My bet is going to be that a different Sawyer played the role of home wrecker for little Jimmy.   Once again, with only four episodes left it seems highly unlikely they will resolve this at all.

4. The show will end with:


1. Jack and Locke sitting on the beach having a conversation about killing each other.
2. Locke and Locke sitting on the beach having the same conversation.

I made this statement in a previous post. I reiterate it because of Jack’s new frontrunner status as the new Jacob and add the second theory that Locke from the Alterverse will be Jacob and Locke from the OT will MiB.

Four more left. LET IT GO ALREADY

LOST Theories for S6E13 The Last Recruit April 20th, 2010

Since last night's episode was a repeat I will post last week's analysis... if you can call it that... today.  For some reason this never published last Thursday though it was scheduled to do so.   Technology is great when it works.  Ask the Dharma Initiative about that one.

Reunions. Yes, I tend to boil each episode down into one word but that’s how I viewed this episode. The biggest of all was the reunion of Jin and Sun but more on that later.

The other reunions of note in this episode are as follows. We have a reunion, of sorts, between the original Losties. Jack and Claire reunite as brother and sister in the original timeline and the alterverse. Jack and Locke reunite as opposing sides of the same coin in the original timeline and in the alterverse Jack is reunited with the man he spoke of miracles with while waiting for lost luggage to come up with some knives and a dead father at LAX. Kate and Jack reunite as two points of the exhausted love triangle of them plus Sawyer, even though it’s pretty apparent that Sawyer has moved on from Kate as a love interest. We also have a reuniting of Sayid and his soul…again more on that later.

Jack and Locke. At first I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was between their exchanged, Telemundo like, glances. The James Bond Horn riffs were in full effect as Jack trotted out of the flora into the sightline of his old nemesis, John Locke. Because we as an audience member see everything on the table whereas individual characters only get some of the given circumstances and that tends to get buried after three or four episodes that encompass maybe a day or two. I totally forgot that Jack wasn’t at the temple when MiB smoked the joint. He was at the lighthouse with Hurley earning infinite years of bad luck. In fact, Jack hadn’t seen Locke since he was in the funeral home back in the states, not to mention he had only seen him once in passing since they left the island from “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham.” But he already knew that something was wrong with Locke. Maybe someone filled him in on what happened, “previously on LOST.” Still, the old gang being back together meant the reunion of tension between Jack and Sawyer and Jack and Locke, not to mention the reunion with Sawyer and his Sawyerisms, the best aimed at Frank Lapidus claiming he just walked off the set of a Burt Reynolds movie and by calling him Chesty later on.

SAYID’S SOUL
Anyone who really thinks that Sayid killed Desmond in the well needs to be… well… shot. It makes you wonder though if Desmond has the same power as the MiB did with potential assassins. “Don’t let him speak to you or it’s already too late,” seems to be the mantra with missions to kill the other guy. MiB told Alpert that and Dogen told Sayid that. In both cases they failed. Maybe Sayid did shoot Desmond, but since Desmond spoke to him before hand he negated the ability for Sayid to be able to kill him. Instead he reached out to Sayid as a human being needing redemption from sin for the sake of his loved Nadia. It seems as if both Claire and Sayid are now back on Team Jacob, for now.

JIN AND SUN
I try not to be influenced by other writers when it comes to my opinion on the nature of things like LOST but Doc Jensen over at EW really ruined this episode for me, after I had watched the last episode and then read his recap. He suggested that perhaps MiB is not in fact impersonating John Locke. It seemed odd that Desmond chose to call MiB as John Locke while everyone can sense that he’s not. He suggested that maybe MiB is hiding like John Carpenter’s The Thing in someone else and pointed towards Frank “Chesty” Lapidus. That unnerved me because I really didn’t enjoy the payoff of Sun being reunited with Jin… and her voice because I kept thinking, “Wait a minute. Doc Jensen said that he thinks MiB is inside Frank Lapidus and Frank asked everyone to come down to the galley on the Elizabeth for some Frank and beans (get it) while Jack and Sawyer played King of the Boat and Jack jumped off. What if Frank infected everyone else and now Sun is part MiB. And now she’s running towards that sonic fence and is liable to go poof. Now, that would be a great twist…. Aw their kissing and I really missed that moment.” That was long winded, I admit, but I tend to think at 45 rpms while the show is moving at 33 1/3.

It was great to see them back together after all that time but the moment was short lived as Widmore turned the tables on Sawyer and now he’s back to being prisoner of the Others… one of the originals, mind you.

THEORY DEBUNK TIME
I don’t really have a lot to debunk other than I’m pretty sure that Widmore is not exactly on the side of good. Maybe he’s Chaotic neutral. Perhaps he’s simply trying to get Desmond to interact with a source of electromagnetic energy in order to turn back the hands of time to save Daniel, who knows. Ben once said Charles only wanted to exploit the power of the island. He broke the rules by making several trips off the island and having Penny. I don’t know what that has to do with anything, really in the larger scheme of MiB and Jacob’s bargument. The only theory I will pat myself on the back about is why Desmond ram rodded Locke. (20 points if you knock him out of the chair, brutha) He did it to put him in direct contact with Jack to spark a memory. And did you notice that he looked at Locke in a mirror?

NEW THEORIES
I don’t even want to get into a lot of theories because it’s too hard to even fathom what could be going on with Jack and Locke, but I will pose this new theory about Jack.

1. Jack’s wife/ex-wife is Juliet.

The age of David puts Jack’s age at the time of conception around 21. He could have conceivably met Juliet at medical school and fathered a child. Now that she is divorced or weary of men because of Jack she meets Sawyer and decides to get coffee but go Dutch. Perhaps Juliet will meet Sawyer at the hospital when he goes to talk with Sun about the shooting. Juliet will be the OB/GYN that helped save Sun’s baby.

2. More than one Lostie is MiB

The biggest gamble of a theory I have is that at the end there will be a reveal that one or more of the remaining Losties aside from Locke will be MiB. Wouldn’t that be a trip if it all came down to Team MiB and Team Jacob standing on opposing sides only to have select members of Team Jacob turn and point their guns at Jack and Desmond. It’s a long shot theory because that would mean that Frank infected Hurley who was voted least likely to become a host for the smoke monster in his senior year.

That’s all I got. See you at the reunion here next week.

LOST Theories For S6E7 Dr. Linus March 9th, 2010

Wow. Wow. Can I say wow? Watching Dr. Linus was like eating Chinese food. It’s really good. You really enjoy every bite, but it only satisfies you for like a half an hour, then you want more. Watching Lost on any given day is like eating Chinese food, but this week was like being fulfilled on a lot of things. The revelations kind of sneak up on you and just stand there waiting to be noticed whereas I think we are usually expecting the old “Snake in the mail box” like in Season One when we saw down the long dark hole in the hatch.


First off, Michael Emerson is the best actor on television, right now. Say what you want about Bryan Cranston or Jon Hamm or Hugh Laurie or Steve Carrel or Alec Baldwin, but Emerson has the chops, delivery and whimsy of a first class thespian and he did win last year for Best Supporting Actor, so it is being noticed. Is it any wonder why he does the voiceover work on the recap and special episodes of LOST? The man has a voice that has all the timbre of Anthony Hopkins, the gravitas of Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones and what he does in between speaking those lines is downright scary as an acting observer. He says more with a blink of those walleyed peepers than most actors do in a Shakespearean soliloquy.

I could devote the next nine weeks to just analyzing his work but I won’t. This is all about the theories behind the final payoff at the end of the season. So, looking back at last week’s list of theories I give myself a half check for Jacob’s motivation on getting Jack to the lighthouse.

Jack’s purpose at the Lighthouse was to actually destroy the mirrors because:
    a. it allows the truth of the Flash Lefts to be revealed.
    b. It unmasks the island from Widmore who can put things right. That means that MiB has been manipulating Ben far longer than we thought.
    c. Desmond can return
    d. It was simply to give Jack a reason to become who he needs to be.

I think the main reason motivation was to get him and Hugo out of the temple away from Locke-Ness. The indirect result I believe is going to fall onto either b or d. I’ll get into b in a bit. For d. We head into the next theory.

Richard Alpert on the black rock as an Egyptian Slave. Something causes the ship to wreck into the middle of the island and the MiB frees him. He was given long life by the MiB as a wish fulfillment but somehow caused MiB’s non corporeal state when he realizes that he’s on the wrong side and takes the role of PR man for Jacob. “It’s nice to see you out of those chains.”

I give myself full credit on this first sentence in that it Richard makes reference to returning to the Black Rock for the first time since he came to the island and him being a slave is pretty apparent at his recognition of the chains. As to how he was freed is unknown yet, but I take a big old Red X on how he became forever young. Looks like Jacob gave him that gift but forgot to update his will to offer full disclosure and a take it back in the event that he died.

Now, Richard’s little trip to the Black Rock and his subsequent attempt to commit suicide coincides with Jack’s trip to the lighthouse. Being touched by Jacob has nothing to do with physical contact or maybe it does. I see “being touched” as being considered or being given a mark of protection. The actual physical touching could be part of it but he doesn’t touch Ilana and she is part of the plan.

We saw Michael exhibit the same inability to kill himself before he completed his mission on the Kahana. Furthermore, this might explain that Jacob is on an opposing side than Widmore seeing as how Jacob gave Michael the same gift/curse as Richard and by deduction Jack as that the dynamite did not go off. Jack is finally beginning to accept faith over science after he realized that Jacob has been watching Jack for a long time and there is something to all this hokus pokus with the island. He’s finding it easier to believe than before. Otherwise, we would have had an explosion and both Jack and Richard would have been reduced to Arzt size pieces.

Finally to all this…besides having a Real Genius reunion with the go to slimy weasel of choice, William Atherton, and an alive but ailing Jon Gries as Roger Widmore we learned a crucial piece of the puzzle that we were told not to spend too much time on, the fate of the island in Flash Left Universe.

The Dharma Initiative happened and Ben and Roger went there. For whatever reason they decided to leave. That little nugget of dialogue gives us the fortune cookie we were waiting for. The island must have sank either because of the incident caused by the Jughead OR something caused the Dharma Initiative to pull up stakes and leave.

Something to consider, though.

ETHAN GOODSPEED
Juliet detonates the Jughead and Oceanic 815 never crashes.
That means Sawyer, Locke, Jin, Miles, Charlotte, Faraday, and Juliet never time travel.
Sawyer and Juliet never intervene and save Amy. She goes off with The Others.
So, does she ever come back and get together with Horace? If so, who delivers Ethan? Did she get transported off the island sooner? Was that decision the same one that led Roger and Linus to leave as well?

CHARLES IN CHARGE?
Widmore is a lot like Principal Reynolds in that he makes Ben choose between power and a person. On the island, he chooses power and Alex is killed. Off the island he chooses Alex and loses his power. In either scenario he loses something but his choices off the island are more heroic than on the island. Yet, everyone needs redemption and he gets it except he looks like he needed a hug after everyone shows up. Instead we get Widmore’s submarine taking a peep at the reunion.

So, if 815 never crashes what happens to Widmore? Presumably, he was still the leader of the Others in 1977 since Ben is never around to exile him, nor is he there to kidnap Alex, or be shot by Sayid which integrates him into the Others collective. Which leads back to the expose of Widmore’s breaking of the rules, which mirror Reynolds’ infidelity and Ben’s use of that knowledge to try and oust the current “Administrator” of whatever playing field they are on. Is Widmore alive in 2004?

And one last great piece of fulfillment. Nikki and Paulo’s closure and the fate of the diamonds unknowingly buried with them. They were such a blight on the LOST landscape that they had to be killed or buried alive and left to suffocate. Either way they were a mistake that was corrected and provided the greatest Easter Egg of this episode. As Ben is left to dig his own grave he promises Miles that hefty payday of $3.2 million dollars he asked him for in Season 4. Miles jokes about it saying he can get more than twice that buy digging up the two ill fated walk ons and taking their loot. Then as the slow motion reunion kicks in and Lapidus builds a fire as Ben stands there all “Pick me. Choose me. Love me.” We see Miles examining a diamond. Thanks Nikki and Paulo, you served a purpose.

OK THEORY TIME

1. The island sank after the Dharma Initiative left due to:
   a. The Incident minus the Jughead. Most DI non essential personal were off the island prior (Amy, Horace, Roger, Ben)
   b. The building of The Swan by the DI which hit the pocket of energy and with no way to contain it (i.e. Jughead, button) the island sank but not before Dharma Initiative were able to escape.

2. Roger and Ben left the Dharma Initiative because:
   a. Roger did not want to be a Workman anymore and Horace couldn’t convince him to stay or was not there due to the birth of Ethan off island.
   b. He was fired.

3. Widmore is able to find the island because:
   a. He is the friend Jacob was guiding towards the island and his name is actually Wallace
   b. Desmond is on that sub and his name his family name is actually Wallace.
   c. Locke-Ness has killed Jacob leaving the island unveiled and seen by Widmore
   d. He went to the Lamp Post

4. Locke-Ness is going to the Hydra:
   a. To meet Widmore.
   b. To see the bears
   c. To fetch a pail of water.

I’m getting goofy on little sleep. That’s all for now.

LOST Theories For S6E6 Sundown March 3rd, 2010

Ok, I should have done this seasons ago but to sit and try to condense all that is in LOST’s mythology of misery would make my head explode. I’ve tried and tried to put one of these together since the season premiere this year but just got lazy. So, for the next 10 or 11 weeks, I will TRY to devote Wednesday’s post to a theory about LOST. That theory may or may not be crap and get debunked but I thought this would be fun. Once again, what I think and what you think are probably two different things. Please be aware that there could be spoilers in this post if you have not watched that week’s episode so you’ve been warned.

Anyway, here we have the LOST Theoryies Du Jour for Sundown. I have several thoughts on where this is going.

1. MiB, UnLocke, Flocke, Lockeness, Esau, Nemesis, Not Lock, whatever you call him is a fallen angel, perhaps the devil.
2. The “Alternate” Timeline or Flash Lefts, as I call them, are indeed part of the original timeline and are evidence that the MiB has gotten off the island and taken people with him. That being said, I think if he falls into theory number one then he has fulfilled the wishes of those he gathered as a flock and this “alternate” timeline are those wishes playing out. Unfortunately, there is a price to be paid.
       a. Sayid wanted Nadia alive and so she is but she’s married to his brother.
       b. Hurley is lucky instead of unlucky and can help his friends but something is missing.
       c. Jack has reconciled his Daddy issues by means of his son but something isn’t right about that.
       d. Claire gets to raise her baby off the island but someone will threaten them.
       e. Kate is free off the island but still on the run instead of being acquitted.
       f. Sawyer is no longer at odds over his parents death but something else is wrong.
       g. Charlie is still alive but still an addict and in prison.
3. The Flash Lefts are not reality and are just a metaphysical construct brought on by the MiB (Kind of like the Matrix) and Jack is becoming more aware of this in the Flash Lefts.
4. The end of the Flash Lefts’ alternate timeline will fold back on itself as a course correction which puts the whole, “Whatever Happened, Happened” mantra of Faraday and “It only ends once, everything before that is progress” quote from Jacob into perspective. MiB tries to rewrite history to get off the island but some event at the end of the alternate timeline causes the whole thing to unravel and go back to what we are seeing in the present with the Lighthouse and The Temple and The Cave.
5. Jack’s purpose at the Lighthouse was to actually destroy the mirrors because:
       a. it allows the truth of the Flash Lefts to be revealed.
       b. It unmasks the island from Widmore who can put things right. That means that MiB has been manipulating Ben far longer than we thought.
       c. Desmond can return
       d. It was simply to give Jack a reason to become who he needs to be.
6. Sayid is definitely bad and Claire is headed there. Kate will do what she can to save her.
7. Richard Alpert on the black rock as an Egyptian Slave. Something causes the ship to wreck into the middle of the island and the MiB frees him. He was given long life by the MiB as a wish fulfillment but somehow caused MiB’s non corporeal state when he realizes that he’s on the wrong side and takes the role of PR man for Jacob. “It’s nice to see you out of those chains.” 
8. The reason why Jacob and MiB cannot kill each other directly is because they are the same entity and only through indirect contact can the scale of power be tipped towards one consciousness and eventually it will be revealed ala Tyler Durden.
9. Hurley is the key to everything. The last episode is entitled Everybody Loves Hugo. (Highlight this with your mouse to see it.

More next Wednesday. Hopefully I can go back and cross out or bold theories based on their accuracy as time permits.