LOST Theories for S6E11 Happily Ever After April 6th, 2010

Relationships. Whether it’s the relationships between strangers on a plane, parents and their children, husbands and wives, and even those who are kept apart by time, space, and a weirdo island, relationships make up the core of LOST. We saw it in Season One in a father and son trying to repair a broken relationship. We saw it on the island and we saw it off the island as each of the survivors’ back stories intertwined with one another.

Now, when we are so near the endgame, we see that relationships still drive the story of LOST. We see a husband and wife trying to desperately get back to one another. We see a mother struggling with sanity after her son was taken from her three years before. And we see two forces, opposite sides of the same coin struggling in their relationship to good and evil. But the biggest relationships are those that were possibly not meant to be. And the producers have said to not read too much into the relationship between the Flash Lefts and the Original Timeline. I say, “Screw that.” If anything, last night made that relationship all the more clearer.

Critics of the Flash Lefts may be brought back into the fold after last night’s episode or will just give up their relationship to LOST altogether. There will be some that will hail that Happily Ever After was the BEE of LOST and they will do it in their best Simpson’s Comic Book Guy voice. I think it was good, but it doesn’t sit above "The Constant" on my ever evolving top ten list of best episodes ever. Because in that episode lies the destiny of Desmond Hume in the following phrase, "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."

The good of the episode is that we get to see Desmond, of course, but also Charlie, Eloise, Penny and Daniel. The bad is that we get more mysteries than answers. The highlights are Charlie getting to reprise his death scene with a different ending from "Through the Looking Glass" (although it would have been funny if Charlie would have put his hand up to the glass and been missing part of his pinky finger in a nod to FlashForward) and the low points include Sayid having the chance to put us out of our misery with killing Zoe, the most hated character since Nikki and Paulo, and not following through for once with his homicidal tendencies.

The biggest mystery solved is the connection between the Flash Left Verse and the Real World and that some people are self aware that their seemingly perfect lives are merely a lie. The newest mystery is how does Desmond plan on convincing Locke, Hurley, and Claire, among others who are better off in this fake life, that they are better off being dead, unlucky, and crazy sometime else. Not to mention, how do you reconcile the two timelines and bring everyone three years forward and to the right?

My general theories about what the island is and how everything functions keeps getting turned about like a giant Rubik’s Cube. I work for hours to solve one side thinking I’m making progress only to have five other sides still unsolved. In order to work on them I have to screw up the one thing I thought I had figured out. In the case of LOST it’s the nature of who is the key to everything.

But while fans overly analyze and try and pick apart every little thing about every episode, every sentence, every prop, and every pop culture connection between the show, science fiction literature and religion I tend to skew the connections by offering the oddball ones. Before I move onto individual aspects of the episode let me pepper my section on Desmond with this. Everyone is discussing and theorizing that Demsond’s experiment was used to cause the acknowledgement of the Flash Lefts. I don’t know that is the whole truth. We’ve seen over the course of almost six years that when someone has a flashback or in this case a flash left the connection… or relationship between the two is implied but the action that is taking place at the moment of the “whoosh.” I’m not so sure this wasn’t simply the same thing.

Maybe Desmond, being forced to withstand another Catastrophic Electromagnetic Event wasn’t designed to make him see the alternate reality but see something else that makes him compliant with Widmore’s plan. His Flash Left doppelganger may have the same inherent talent as his Original Timeline self and can see the connections as well, not just because he licked a giant 9 volt battery in the original timeline. What C.E.E. did Charlie and Daniel experience that caused them to realize the truth? Perhaps that C.E.E. is more commonly known as L.O.V.E. and when Sideways Sawyer meets Sideways Juliet and Sideways Hugo meets Sideways Libby, they’ll see the truth, too.

CHARLIE IN THE ALTERVERSE
Alterverse? I like that, I can’t keep typing Flash Left because it just doesn’t have that great flow to it. Alterverse feels more natural to say. Anyway, I liken Charlie to a type of dream I’ve often had in my life. You may or may not have had this dream. The setting or characters in this dream are inconsequential as they can be interchangeable with nearly any others. The focus is that at some point in your dream you suddenly become self aware that you are dreaming. For me it’s usually a scenario where I am supposed to take a very important test that I haven’t studied for. I don’t even remember going to any of the classes. As the test gets passed around and I find that I cannot read the questions. Suddenly, I realize that I am over 30 and no longer sitting in my 11th grade U.S. History class. (akin to a Batman The Animated Series episode plotline) So, then I proceed to just sit as an observer, put my head down, or run around the classroom yelling and screaming obscenities for the hell of it.

Now, I told you that story to tell you this one. Charlie has the same self realization that he doesn’t belong in this reality. It’s almost like Groundhog Day where Bill Murray starts goofing around because he realizes there are no consequences to his actions because he will wake up to the same day, every day. So, Charlie shows Desmond that something is wrong. Desmond then goes to the Widmore estate to inform Mrs. Widmore of Charlie not showing up to perform. After he begins to question reality, Eloise steps in and tells him to stop. Well, of course she does. She knows full well what’s going on and doesn’t want to see a reality where she kills her own son and then 30 years later sends him to his own death by her younger self. But what is important is that Desmond meets Daniel and Daniel also realizes that something is wrong. Perhaps the trick is that you have to have died in the original timeline to recognize that something is off in the alterverse. The exception would be John Locke, but there is no telling whether or not Locke is really Locke in the alterverse, just yet.

DESMOND IN THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE
“The island isn’t done with you yet!” Is the phrase we keep hearing from characters about Desmond’s destiny. But what does that mean? Is the island a stage five clinger? Or have the puppet masters of Jacob and MiB not finished their game of Dungeons & Dragons yet and still need Desmond to prove a point one way or the other. Desmond’s role may or may not be that important to the overall mythology. I tend to look at these last few seasons as a giant Rube Goldberg machine (The Game Mousetrap to all you unfamiliar with the concept.) Basically, the island and everything on it is one overly complex machine with many parts that when activated performs a simple task. Think of MiB’s loophole scheme to kill Jacob. All of that work just so he could leave the island. However, in keeping him on the island or stopping him for good, another equally complex and intricate device needs to be activated. In that device all the castaways and island visitors have a part to play. Perhaps Desmond is just one cog in a bigger wheel. Us old school text adventure gamers will recognize this as a sort of Chekhov’s Gun, where a seemingly unimportant item or character will suddenly become important later on and “Will Know What To Do When The Time Comes." For me, I’d rather see Desmond be Chekhov’s Gun that Zoe. At some point, because of Desmond’s ability to withstand Catastrophic Electromagnetic Events, he may be useful in performing some task relating to Jin’s knowledge of where these concentrated electromagnetic “Hot Pockets” are. We already know the Swan and the Orchid have one but where is the third one?

THE PACKAGE
A friend commented on my facebook import of last week’s post and said that perhaps Desmond is not the package. This could be a plot twist. I didn’t believe the probability seeing as how Desmond was introduced to Snoopy eyed Sayid in the water, but perhaps there could be something to this. What if Desmond is not the package but merely the mailman? Why would he need to be drugged if he was double padlocked on the sub? Maybe someone is still on the sub or being held somewhere else and they are the package. Maybe that person has a special talent that makes them somewhat akin to a hydrogen bomb that can interact with a “hot pocket.” Maybe that person is Walt?

SAYID’S ROLE
If ever there was a case for IS HE BAD OR ISN’T HE it’s Sayid. His pa-pa-pa-poker face, his pa poker face leaves me wondering if he isn’t in some way working both sides against the middle. Still, he killed Dogen and Lennon and red shirt number 23 for Team Widmore but he let Zoe live and took Desmond with him. If Desmond was had some kind of clarity or epiphany maybe he sees that he’s supposed to go with Sayid or it could be that he’s just a little bit high. Not sure. In any case, the truly evil Sayid would have killed Zoe instead of letting her run back to Charles to report the abduction.

THEORY DEBUNK TIME
I have no energy to scan old posts right now and pick theories I postulated however, the ones about Zoe and Desmond’s role in the story still stand because I think that the “sacrifice” Widmore says Desmond will have to make is to either to become the new Jacob, die to save everyone, or in a really wacked out scenario keep the alterverse the way it is because it’s the way things should be. However, I did check back to a previous post and decided to debunk my theory from Recon.

5. The Ajira survivors were killed by...


1. Widmore because he’s a sick bastard.
2. Locke Monster because they didn’t want to go with him OR he used them as leverage for Sawyer.
3. Something else happened to them entirely.

We know that the MiB/Locke Ness Monster cannot travel over water in smoke form but he was able to travel to the Hydra Island to chat with Charles about Jin’s abduction. In that case, he either killed the other Ajira survivors before he went to the temple OR Widmore did it for whatever reason. I think the fact that they were beginning to smell bad and attract flies might indicate it was still MiB’s handy work, although I am not a doctor or forensic scientist. Either way I’m debunking C. because it probably won’t ever get explained anyway and that means that C. is irrelevant.

NEW THEORIES

1. Desmond is going to...


1. Be the package
2. Deliver the package


2. And his sacrifice will be…


1. Die in the process
2. Become the new Jacob.
3. Keep the alterverse the way it is.

His sacrifice must involve his love for Penny somehow otherwise it wouldn’t have been so important to focus on their relationship in previous episodes.

3. Sayid is


1. Evil
2. Pulling a Sonny Crockett and playing evil
3. Just plain crackers

I still can’t come to grips with the whole idea of who is good and who is evil. If that is going to be a big twist then they are really going to lose the audience members who don’t slice and dice the series as much as those who do. I mean that in the case of people who look back on episodes and say, “Well that makes perfect sense now because so and so was really good/bad. But I find Sayid’s lack of character motivation disturbing in that I can’t read him….much like History tests in dreams.

4. The experiment was meant to…


1. Show Desmond the alterverse and allow his doppelganger to realize the truth.
2. Simply show that he can withstand a C.E.E. so that he can interact with the “Hot Pocket.”

I’m going with B. on this one as I previously stated. Charlie and Daniel are the exception to A. in that they merely caught a glimpse of love by seeing Claire and Charlotte which caused them to experience the notion that “this life is not our real life.” Now, you may say that unless Desmond is in love with Charlie, that theory doesn’t jive. I say, ”What was written on Charlie’s hand?” That’s right, it involved Penny and that is his relationship to the original timeline, he loved Penny and would cross time and space to be with her.

That’s all for now. Can’t wait for next week’s episode entitled “Everybody Loves Hugo.” Because why shouldn’t they.

Screams From An Italian Restaurant

I will start off by saying that ten years ago, I would be guilty of this. Although, I don’t know why. I question it because almost 15 years ago, at the age of 20, I would have been content to mosey into my favorite dark and smoky bar, Hemingway’s, nestled below the dorms of The University of Pittsburgh and just slink into a set of tables, near the back and just hang out. No loud whooping it up. No lined up shots along the bar ready to toss back. Simply a few us, just sitting there, enjoying our drinks and loving life as an unemployed actor, contemplating life after college.

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I was drinking underage in a bar. Well, it’s not like any famous NFL quarterback, with questionable morals was there buying me drinks… at least because I’m a guy. (I had a whole tangent written involving the joke about keeping a guy’s “you know what” in his wife’s purse. I’ll just skip it.) My point is that, yeah, I went a little nuts when I turned 21 and spent my hard earned pay partying after a long day of working for an Amusement Park in Ohio, still, after that year I retreated back to my cloak of tortured, misunderstood, old, before his time, soul. That was until I graduated college and had to get a real job.

Then it was, “Hey a bunch of friends are going to the local sports bar for wings. Let’s be loud and tell jokes and make lots of noise.” The 21 year old me would have glaringly side-eyed the 25 year old me for being annoying. Still, it was a simple phase that I grew out of before I hit 30. I very rarely drink except for a holiday which may be at most a glass of wine with dinner. However, I like to go and enjoy a good dinner with company. Usually, on Saturday, we join my in-laws for dinner at an Italian restaurant, near our home. It’s a hard place to get into on a Saturday night. They aren’t very big and with a little one it’s easier to get a large booth and let her sit on a booster between my wife and I?

The biggest problem I have with the place is that they always seem to have the loudest and rowdiest bunch of people seated at a long set of tables right up against us. It never fails. It’s hard enough to be able to carry a conversation with my daughter jabbering away but when you have the 50-60 crowd of cackling women and screaming men who all seem to laugh in a simultaneous uproar it becomes nearly impossible.

Whenever we sit down and begin to see the staff pushing the tables together we know what is coming. A group of glammed up cougar wannabes, doused in Old Lady Spice, toting their cocktails from the bar over to the table. Then comes the man and their vodka tonics or whatever and they look like they should be in contracting. Well dressed and slicked up hair, perfect mustaches that would make a 70s porn star cry. They all sit down and begin talking loudly, laughing even louder, constantly making it difficult for us to get out or our server to get in to serve our dinners.

The ears bleed, the eyes water, and the left hand firmly restrains the right one which is wielding a steak knife aimed directly at the temple. Honestly, It is so hard to sit and carry on a civil conversation just below a mild roar and not be annoying? I could understand if we were in a rowdy bar or someplace like a T.G.I.Fridays. But this is a little Italian restaurant with excellent house dressing and low lighting. I’m just trying to enjoy my steak sandwich and I have to put up with the cackling. Even the 25 year old me would be sitting there with the 20 year old wondering, “WTF?” (mandatory use internet slang quota reached for this post.)

Ultimately, we just put up with it, keep our comments under our breath. We finish our meal and we go, awaiting the next week’s offering of the men and ladies of the Aqua Velva and Net set, respectively. It really is a good house dressing. I love the turkey club and the Fra Diavola. I just don’t like all the yelling. I’m grumpy and old now. I’m no longer a tortured soul. I have a family and a mortgage. I’m not an unemployed actor, but I play one on….ok that was too easy of a joke. I’m still misunderstood but that’s because I am the only guy in a household of females. There’s my wife, my daughter, three female cats and one male, but he doesn’t count because he’s fixed. (Here’s where the reprise of the “junk-in-the-wife’s-purse” joke would have come back.) Makes me want to scream sometimes. Perhaps I will over a nice seafood marinara and a piece of bread dipped in the house dressing. You really do have to try it.

The Expendables Might Come With High Deductibles

OK, here’s an idea I would have loved to sit in on when it was pitched.

Sylvester Stallone walks into an almost gothic looking executive office. There are recently sacrificed virgins on pikes around a desk made of botox injected starlet flesh. The grim visage of a soulless Hollywood executive looks at Sly and says,

“Impress me, mortal.”

Sly curls his lip, sucks back some human growth hormone and clears his throat. “Uh, ok. What we’re going to do is take every blockbuster action hero from the 80s, mix in some from the 90s, and a few from the present and put them all in a film together.”

An executive looks up from his plate of fresh baby livers and says, “Oooh, I’m intrigued. Go on. Who do you have in mind?”

“Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, and Steve Austin.”

Wiping the sacrificial blood from his lips the executive says, “What about The Rock?”

“No.”

“Wait a minute, is this a sequel?”

“No.”

“Remake?”

“No.”

“Video game?”

“No.”

“Comic Book?” “No.” “Old television show?” “No.” “Japanese Horror film?” “No” “Commercial about talking babies trading stocks.” “No.”

Executive frantically looks for button that opens the floor that will drop this insolent human into a pit of starved and rabid KardashLohan monsters. “Damnit. Where is it? DORIS! WHERE’S MY BUTTON? Oh, well. You’ve got a deal. I’ll give you $70 million for a budget.”
Honestly, WTF? (Internet slang quota per post reached) It’s like Hollywood crept into every 30 something male’s home while they was sleeping, checked out the titles in their vintage VHS collection, drank some of the out of date milk, leafed through a Mix Tape Collection then went in and stuck that thing from Batman Forever on their heads in order to suck out all their thoughts about action movies. With the information they all went back to their evil volcanic underground lairs complete with sharks and piranhas and gold painted women and devised the ultimate action movie. The fact that this is neither a sequel to or remake of any other movie almost scares me into thinking that someone is really paying attention out there. Unfortunately, this movie will probably fail for whatever reason whether…

A: It plain Sucks
B: Isn’t a remake or sequel
C: It’s not directed by Judd Apatow or starring Sacha Cohen, Bradley Cooper, or Amy Adams.

“Well does it at least have any CGI characters?”

“No.”

“Alright, $80 million but you are going to have to get your own health care coverage for all those old actors.”