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 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.