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 S6E9 The Package March 30th, 2010

Wednesday’s are always a bit sluggish for me. It’s not that it’s hump day. It’s Day After Lost Day and that means I’m up until usually after 1:00 watching my bloated DVR’s saved episode from earlier that night. However, this Wednesday wasn’t as bad as last Wednesday. Last Wednesday I got little sleep because my head was swirling with thoughts about Richard Alpert and the similarities of MiB and Jacob to certain Bugs Bunny characters named Sam and Ralph. This Wednesday we get a little bit of a lopsided scale of revelation and piece movement. Yes, you read that right. I didn’t mean peace, I meant piece as in chess pieces. Perhaps last night’s episode was an exercise in castling. Perhaps not.

With only enough episodes left that my old shop teacher could almost count without removing a shoe we have the Jerry Reed problem. "We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there." So, it seems silly to burn an episode placing pieces around the board but there was more going here which may or may not get resolved in the end. First and foremost we know who/what the package is. And is anyone surprised? Ok. That gets chalked up in the “duh” column. Second of all we get a glimpse of what MiB’s plan is but we don’t know why as of yet. (See Theories) Lastly, we get a heavy dose of that wacky couple who just can’t seem to get together Ross and Rachel… I mean Jin and Sun. That was the best part.

Summing up the action. Jin and Sun aren’t married in the Flash Left Verse. They are however going at it like Losties in a polar bear cage, though. How do we know? Well, the drawn out answer is that Sun is pregnant thanks to a heart wrenching admission after she is shot by Patchy who wasn’t Patchy in Sideways World until Jin made him Patchy and Deady. The short answer is that we saw ample amounts of Sun’s…. um, we saw, um…. There were boobs and that’s all I remember because they made it a point to give them their own close up, twice. We also saw that Jin wasn’t exactly tenderized as we thought he was from the previous episode with Sayid meeting with Omar and Keamy. That was simply Omar being Dum-mar and Keamy being a slimy Christopher Walken that he has been emulating since he first showed up on the series.

Back in the real world, Locke and Sayid decide to go visit the rival summer camp across the lake after lights out and attempt to find out what their secret weapon is for the camp summer games. It’s only fair since they kidnapped our best potato sack racer, Jin. And they are taking an outrigger. OOOh, could they actually end up firing a few shots at time skipping Sawyer and company from last season? Um, no. I truly think Lindelof and Cuse are seriously effing with the audience with the final explanation of that. Every time someone gets near a boat I get all excited.

It’s nice to know Sayid isn’t feeling quite himself because I think he’s going to go kill Desmond. We also get a sense that Locke needs the O6 alive to get off the island or at least he needs them to stay away from being Jacobified so that he can leave. He needs all the candidates not because it makes him stronger but that it keeps him from being stopped. Once they’re on the plane and off the island, Claire is free to be Crazies on a Plane. He also continually tries and somewhat succeeds in giving characters enough rope to hang themselves or someone that he doesn’t want around which was like channeling the alive Locke who helped Sawyer take care of their mutual problem. He’s the wish bringer. He gives people what they want versus Jacob who gives them what they need. The only exception could be that he does grant Richard his final request of immortality but he says he couldn’t bring his wife back, yet MiB offers something similar to another character. Of course, the problem with that idea is that Dogen said Jacob offered him the life of his son for his service on the island. Still working on that one.

Meanwhile at the hall of justice a.k.a. the beach, Ilana is doing more gun cleaning than a guy holed up in a shack in North Dakota fuming about the government. Ben is being, well Ben, and Sun is trying to keep her mind on things that don’t entail sitting around and waiting. So, she trots off to see her garden and lo and behold there’s Locke Ness Monster with his man boobs offering to take her to see Jin. She decides to pull a Friday the 13th Female Victim #2 and run away only to turn and look for the monster who isn’t there and bonk her head into a tree. And that is why I always recommend that if you ever, ever, get trapped in a horror movie sequel that you run away from the monster for a few feet then turn around and run in the opposite direction because they are never behind you anymore. They are always in front of you waiting behind a tree and throwing out bits of trees to trip you up.

Now Richard’s back and he says, “We’ve got to blow up the plane!” And Sun, in Korean, is like, “FukYu.” And Jack is like, “See this tomato” and Sun is like “Oh, Jack, they always give you the uplifting speeches that relate to a medical procedure or gardening…” Now give me more paper because this Post It pad got filled up with that last sentence. Hey, Sun, while you’re at it, can you move the Post It pad a little to your right. I can’t read your responses unless she wrote, “I don’t trust V’s” underneath it. I mean WTF? (Internet Slang Quota Per Post now reached) That was annoying to see that stupid plug in the corner of the screen for most of the episode. At least they didn’t use it earlier in the episode to cover her….um… yeah.

And now for the worst part of this episode and what I fear will be the worst part about this season. Zoe. She’s like the bearded archeologist in Lost World Jurassic Park. You know that character that’s brought in late in the game to either shake things up and make it watchable or they come with some unshared knowledge about what’s going on and then become too important. I’ve been scouring tvtropes.org for the actual name but another example is Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For four seasons we have a core group of characters that have been developed over time and during the fifth season a new character was introduced who ends up being the key to the entire season, literally. Think of in terms of "Chekhov’s newborn sibling." She’s Nikki and Paulo redux and apparently, she’s very important, at least she appears to be acting like she’s been on the show since the beginning giving interviews and what not.

OK, THEORY DEBUNK TIME

There’s not much to refute since we already knew Desmond was the package.

The Flash Left Verse didn’t give us anything new except for Sun’s recognition of something strange in the mirror and her…. Um…. Her, um….. *giggle.* Come on, they had their own closeup.

However we can start to whittle the reasons for why the Lighthouse side quest happened.

1. 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. 10%
    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. 20%
    c. Desmond can return 45%
    d. It was simply to give Jack a reason to become who he needs to be. 25%

First of all because Jack mentioned it and anytime an episode leads off with a “Previously on…” clip showing something that hasn’t been seen for awhile or makes mention of a place, person, or event that hasn’t been mentioned for awhile they usually become important. Since both Desmond and the Lighthouse are mentioned then I give letter c more weight because there are a lot of connections between Desmond and the name Wallace which was listed as 108 on the lighthouse dial. After all, Eloise said the island wasn’t done with him yet. What that has to do with a geophysicist and pockets of electromagnetic energy is anyone’s guess and I am anyone.

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

It seems that all are really probable except for d. because there hasn’t been any mention of the lamp post yet this season or Faraday for that matter in terms of lineage. But, if we see a “Previously on…” with Faraday being shot by his mother or Widmore being slapped by Eloise then it might be true.

1. Locke Ness Monster and Widmore hate each other.

Perhaps Widmore was rightfully protecting the island all along and by keeping Locke Ness Monster on the island a sort of white/dark force is still kept in check. Could you imagine him getting off the island?

Unless there is a Palpatine moment about to happen I think it’s safe to say that this is now true.

NEW THEORIES

1. 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.

I say all of the above, except I hope I’m wrong about b. Honestly, she is a bit annoying and such a trope of fantastical and mysterious plots. I said before she is the Cousin Oliver character that gets introduced way late into a show’s run who is suddenly all important and acts like she’s been around since the first episode. Her only funny line is the one about hiring a mercenary instead of a geophysicist. We see how that worked out for Widmore.

2. Desmond is there because…


1. He is the key to everything.
2. He is the ultimate candidate which is tragic considering his history with the island and Penny.
3. His affected neurological disorder that caused him to become unstuck in time could help them find the third pocket of electromagnetic engery.
4. The island isn’t done with him yet.

We all knew Desmond was important but as to why is not yet clear. Perhaps Widmore just wants him away from Penny, but why? Maybe he knows how important Desmond was all along but really wanted him away from Penny to spare her the eventual heat break when he becomes the new Jacob.

3. The Three People Kate Needs To Get Are…


1. Jack, Hurley, and Sun (All candidates but who flies the plane?)
2. Jack, Hurley, and Frank (What about Sun being a candidate?)
3. Sun, Hurley, and Frank (Do you really think Jack would buy anything Locke/MiB had to sell?)
4. Sun, Jack, and Frank (Hurley would never trust Locke/MiB as he is communicating with Jacob now on a regular basis)


4. Adam and Eve are…


1. Rose and Bernard  - 40% Most acceptable answer as we have not seen them yet in the OT
2. Jin and Sun  - 20% It would be the payoff of them finally being reunited.
3. Desmond and Penny - 10% Low score on this since if Desmond ends up being the new Jacob he wouldn’t have died and these skeletons died in the past.
4. Kate and Jack 10% Unlikely since they would have to time travel again.
5. Kate and Sawyer 10% Unlikely in that Sawyer was married to Juliet, he’s done with Kate romantically.
6. Never explained 9% I’d have a brain melt down.
7. Nikki and Paulo 1% That would send me over the edge.

That's all I got.   One thing that I find interesting is that everyone in the Flash Left Verse has checked themselves in a mirror and found something interesting.  Only Sawyer has punched one.  And, why doesn't MiB just go down and spin the FDW for a free trip to Tunisia?  Maybe it's in the rules somewhere.