LOST season six

You might have noticed that two episodes have passed without commentary from this blog. Or maybe you haven’t noticed, and what should I expect when I’ve only written six entries? A rabid following?

The truth is: I’ve really enjoyed the last two episodes, but have been so busy that I haven’t been able to do much more than watch them. Besides, we’re getting a lot more answers than questions these days. How much speculation do you really need to read when you’re going to know everything within a few (short!) weeks?

Unless I feel particularly inclined to comment on an episode—or whip out an “I told you so!”—this blog is unofficially dead.

On the scale of Sayid to Libby, I’d put it at a Christian.

Spoiler Rating: 1

Best moment in all of LOST history?

Ben backs slowly away from CrazySayid (I stole this from Videogum comments)

I could watch it a hundred million times!

I feel like every LOST fan but me has decided that this episodes seals the deal on so many previously unanswered questions. They’re like, “Oh good, it’s all clear now: Smoky is pure evil, and he’s going to lure everyone to his side with vague promises, and the Flashsideways is the reality that Smoky is promising everyone if they join him, but it’s going to become clear pretty soon that the Flashsideways reality is just as bad if not worse than their current situation, because you can’t make a deal with the devil!”

And I’m like: I don’t know. That just seems too tidy to me. I just don’t buy that it’s that simple.

Also, am I the only one who heard Dogen’s story and was like: “Dude, Jacob killed your kid to get you to come to his island”?? I mean, RIGHT?!

All the main characters on this show have daddy issues. Every last one of them. There isn’t a single dad on the show who isn’t a fuck up, except for maybe Jin, and he hasn’t gotten to see his kid yet, so maybe he will be! I know this is news to exactly no one, but maybe that is why Jacob sought them all out. Emotionally vulnerable, needs a daddy figure…enter Jacob. Oh I’m sorry, man, did your dad just push you out of a window? Kill your mom and then himself? Embarrass in front of your medical staff? Force your husband into indentured servitude in exchange for your hand in marriage? How AWFUL for you. Let me pay for your lunchbox. Need a pen? How about a candy bar? Here, take this guitar case.

I’m most interested (yes, still) in who can kill whom. Sayid couldn’t kill the Lockeness monster, and some speculate that it’s because he got out “Hello, Sayid” before Sayid stabbed him. But having to kill someone before they talk to you is just the dumbest fucking rule I have ever fucking heard. Not being able to kill a candidate? I can get behind that. Smoky not being able to kill either Jacob or Locke and manipulating Ben to kill them? Right on, makes sense. Not being able to kill someone because they TALKED? Ugh. WORST. SO LAME.

FAVORITE LOSTPEDIA THEORY PAGE QUOTES

The debate is between free will and destiny, not good and evil. Jacob believes in free will, and therefore any consequences he would see are as a result of the individual’s own actions. Some of the actions we have seen him could be called good (like saving Locke after he falls out of the window) and some could be called evil (like possibly contributing to Nadia’s death by distracting Sayid). However, if Ben’s claims were true (not always a valid assumption…), then someone was deliberately attempting to kill both Sayid & Nadia; in which case, Jacob saved Sayid, and offered him another opportunity to ‘redeem’. In all probability, Sayid could not have saved Nadia, in which case, both would have been killed.

I actually really like this theory. Free will vs. destiny is a much more appealing battle to me than good vs. evil. The battle between good and evil is, you know, so Stephen King-y. Is Locke going to take his crew to Vegas? Has Hurley been dreaming of a mystical old black lady?

Flash-sideways Locke is not Locke at all. He is Nemesis.

I should tell you right now that this theory appeared under the heading: “Completely Outrageous Theory which might have a hint of the truth.” Well, they’re half-right.

Spoiler Rating: 1 about LOST, 2 about Fringe (You’ll see!)

To give you an idea of how I felt after watching “Lighthouse,” here is my guest entry this week on the awesome blog 815 Sentences About Lost:

The question I’ve been asking every LOST fan I know is: “Team Jacob or Team Smoky?” It’s the new “Invisibility or flight?”; it reveals more about the person answering than they realize. I had been leaning towards Team Smoky since Season 5’s finale, but with every episode of Season 6 that passes, I now feel like: Fuck both of those manipulative, lying bastards! I’ve become convinced that LOST is the ultimate argument against religion. You’re comfortable with the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing being guiding your destiny? You think that you have free will, when really no matter how you adjust the tiny details in your life, he ends up controlling the endgame? You’re at peace with that?

I don’t care about Jack smashing the mirrors because, frankly, I don’t think that Jacob cares. He said as much himself. After all, if MIB is right and there are only five candidates left, they’re all on the island now, so why would Jacob need a device that shows him what they’re doing off-island. He doesn’t. He just wanted to get Hurley and Jack away from the temple.

I do have two lingering questions about the lighthouse, though: Which came first, the names or the locations? Did Jacob (or whomever, possibly the lighthouse predates Jacob, who knows) find these people then create the lighthouse, or did these places always correspond to people and Jacob found out who they were based on the location? Secondly: Does “Shephard” really stand for Jack? I’m starting to feel like it might actually stand for Christian. The location was Jack’s childhood home, where, as Jack pointed out himself, he hasn’t lived for years. And Jack’s name wasn’t on Jacob’s original list way back in Season 3—Ben added it because Jack was a spinal surgeon and Ben wanted his cancerous tumor removed.

I have a theory about the Flashsideways world. Hear me out: In the (J.J. Abrams’) show Fringe, there exists an alternate reality which, despite some minor differences, is enough like our reality that someone could conceivably move from one to the other without noticing much of a difference. In the show, they suggest that deja vu is actually your experiencing something for the first time that an alternate version of yourself has already experienced, so it seems familiar even when it’s brand new. I think that the Flashsideways is the same thing, but in time instead of space.

Jack’s behavior in “Lighthouse” reminded me so much of Desmond’s behavior in the Season 3 episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” where Desmond revisits moments which have already happened in his life and is able to make minor changes to his own personal history, even though—as explained to him by Eloise Hawking—it’s not possible for him to course correct. When Jack calls his mom about his appendix scar, it reminded me of Desmond staring at Charlie busking on the street and trying to figure out how he knew him. If Jack is time traveling the way that Desmond was, then there must be a single event that will send him back to 2007, possibly with knowledge that he has gained in the Flashsideways timeline that he wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s worth mentioning here that Jack keeps noticing these things about himself in the mirror, and there are strong Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass themes going on.

I look forward to finding out who David’s mom is. It can’t be Sarah (Julie Bowen) because Jack would have had David when he was 20/21, and he wasn’t supposed to meet Sarah he was in his late 20s, but she’s got to be someone that we know, right? My money is on Penny, just for the WHAAAAAAAT factor.

This next episode is a Sun episode! I would like this to be the episode where she and Jin are reunited, because after “Lighthouse,” I’d like for Jin to have something nice happen to him, but realistically I think they’re going to make us wait longer.

Favorite LOSTpedia Theory Page Quotes

All of my favorite Lostpedia theories this week have to do with Jack’s son, David, and what role he plays in the overall story. I present them here without comment, since I think that they speak for themselves:

Jack potentially has two sons, one in each timeline. Aaron, in the original timeline, will someday become Jacob’s successor; David, in the Flash-sideways timeline, will someday become the Nemesis. Aaron/Jacob has light hair, David/Nemesis has dark hair. Jack’s importance is due to the fact that he is a father-figure to both the forces that control the island.

In any self-respecting course-correcting universe, Jack must have a son. Not Aaron but an actual son, David, who looks exactly like FS David, and was born to the same mother. He would have been born when Jack was in his early 20’s, possibly as the result of a brief ‘fling’. The mother decided (or was persuaded – possibly by Jack’s parents who would have perceived that his career would be affected) not to involve Jack in his upbringing and Jack was unaware of his parental responsibilities. (Interestingly, David would have been born around the time of Jacob’s visit to Jack, following the candy bar incident).
If this theory is true, it will be a startling revelation, not least of all to Jack. It would be a killer card for the producers to play in a show which has played so much emphasis on fathers to have the central character completely unaware of his fatherhood status, until the son shows up on the island, looking for him.
David is coming to the island, but it is a David neither Jack nor we have ever seen.

Links

Interview with Tracie from Jezebel on FUCKYEAHLOST: Tracie’s recaps on Jezebel are my favorite LOST recaps out there, and now I know why. She thinks Jacob is a dick, too. High five, Tracie.

Spoiler Rating: 1

First things first: I want to address something from my last blog post that threw me for a loop: the timestamp on Claire’s ultrasound meaning that the plane flight was nearly a month later than the original Flight 815. It has since been revealed that the date was either meant to be Claire’s estimated due date, or it was a production error. I should have known that something was amiss without having been told, because even in LOSTworld, Occam’s razor still applies: the simplest explanation isn’t that the writers were trying to convey something to us via a tiny split-second shot of a date. The simplest explanation is that the date was wrong.

I never thought about Occam’s razor on a weekly basis until I became a LOST fan. Or rather, until I encountered other LOST fans, since I watched the first four seasons over the course three months, and couldn’t discuss the episodes with anyone other than my partner, who is also a sane human being.

When there are ground-breaking episodes of LOST like “The Substitute,” I expect that all the other fans as as super-psyched as I am about having some of the biggest mysteries of the show finally cleared up. What I do not expect is to hop onto forums and see comments like: “What if MIB actually wrote all of those names on the cave?” Maybe by now I should be used to it! I just don’t get it: why can’t people be satisfied with answers?

Now that I’ve said my peace about that, onto some of my favorite moments of the episode and some questions!

I love a Locke episode! They are always awesome, even when the Locke we’re dealing with on the island isn’t good ol’ Season 1 “Smiles and Beatitude” Locke but instead The Lockeness Monster (thanks Bob Freeman for my new favorite name, way better than Flocke or Mock).

I Love Frank Lapidus, Reason #534243: “Weirdest damn funeral I’ve ever been to.”

I was really distracted when Locke was in the temp agency office and the poster behind him on the wall appeared to have Desmond in it? Does anyone have an HD screenshot of that? It was bugging me the whole time.

So, if Ben is alive in the Flashsideways, then it can’t have been the bomb going off in 1977 that sunk the island. Because Ben was still in the Temple getting healed, so he wouldn’t have evacuated when Pierre Chang had all the mamas and kids get on the sub. What sunk the island?

If John Locke is still friendly with his father, is his father a good guy? Or has he just not gotten around to manipulating Locke yet? If he’s a good guy, does that mean that he never killed Sawyer’s parents, and they might still be alive, and Sawyer might be a normal human being?

Who’s your pick for who will be the final candidate for NewJacob? My vote is for Hurley. TEAM HURLEY!

What about the little kid in the forest with the bloody hands? The general consensus seems to be young Jacob or older Aaron, but I’m not sure. I suspect it’s someone we haven’t met yet—someone in MIB’s pre-Smoky history, maybe. He said that he knew what it was like to lose someone… But down to his message: More about the rules! MIB can’t kill Jacob himself and had to have Ben do it instead. MIB can’t kill Sawyer (presumable Sawyer is “him”)—why not? Because he’s a candidate?

If you read the previous two posts of mine, you already know that I’m totally preoccupied about what it means when Jacob touches people. We already have part of that answer: it makes them a candidate, but what does that mean? Does it bring them to the island or were they already headed here, anyway? Dogen implied that everyone came to the island for a reason; surely he didn’t mean they were all there to be considered for Jacobdom.

Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m Team Smoky all the way. The more I know about Jacob, the more irritated I am by him. I’m not saying that I think he’s bad and MIB is good. I don’t think it will play out that simplistically, despite all the black-and-white imagery.

Tuesday’s episode will be a Jack episode, if they’re still following the pattern from Season 1. Boo to Jack! But I can’t wait to find out what three years in the jungle has done to Claire!

Links

Not you, Kate

The Numbers – Jacob’s List

There are no quotes from LOSTpedia this week because people did a fairly good job of containing their crazy on the discussion and theory pages. More next week!

(The above image is from Jennyology, find more LOST valentines there!)

SPOILER RATING: 2

It’s no secret that I’m not a Kate fan. I think of Kate as being the female version of Ben: even when she has convinced herself that her purpose is noble (saving her mother from the abuse of her stepfather, retrieving the last physical reminder of her true love from a secure deposit box in a bank, coming back to the island to find Claire), there is always a more selfish ulterior motive, and she seems okay with killing a lot of people to accomplish her goals. Her moral fiber is questionable at best. Come on: even her own mother thinks she sucks.

While I agree with Jeff Jensen that the answer to What does Kate do? is: Kate runs, I’d like to offer another option: Kate follows. What’s the best way to make sure that Kate will come after you? That’s right: tell her not to follow you. No one knows that better than Sawyer does—except for maybe Jack. It’s too soon to say whether Sawyer has any plans of what he wants to do after he mourns the loss of Juliet, but I don’t have any doubt that he had planned to do them with Kate.

So anyway, now that that’s out of the way, can we talk about the most important relevation from this episode?!

The date on Claire’s ultrasound was 10/22/04, which means that this Oceanic 815 flight occurs a month after the other Oceanic 815 flight. Dude! What is that all about? Are they trying to say that whatever happened when the bomb went off in 1977 changed the events in all of their lives in such tiny little ways that they all ended up on the same flight together, but a month later? That is just straight up weird—and I am talking about weird-for-LOST, which makes it far and away weirder than any plot point I would accept in any other drama. I mean, you guys, I stopped watching Damages after two episodes because it was implausible, and they hadn’t even introduced a polar bear.

So it’s a month later, which means that Claire is eight months pregnant instead of seven, so technically at full term and capable of delivery. And Locke might have actually gone on that walkabout! WHAT ELSE IS DIFFERENT? I CAN’T WAIT TO FIND OUT!

Anyway, onto the meat of the episode, which was all about the Temple. And Dogen. And Jack needs to convince Sayid to take a pill because in the temple, pills only work if you believe that they will. And we all trust Jack again, even though he’s perpetually wrong and just got some of us killed. I am so tired of Jack that I kind of want to take that stupid pill if it means not having to look at his stupid face anymore. Granted, I do like sad sack Jack better than I like cocky or indifferent Jack (maybe he’ll grow a beard again!) but I’m a little bummed out that he seems to be the only one—other than Sayid—that Dogen or Lennon have any interest in. Because he was responsible for Sayid’s being shot? The Others are all about responsibility.

Like most people, I don’t feel that the events in the temple moved that story along at all. I don’t feel like we’re any closer to knowing what is up with Sayid, especially because every time I feel like I have a grasp on what it means to be “claimed,” Jacob throws a wrench into the whole thing.

For instance, if Sayid has been claimed by Smoky, then why did Jacob go out of his way to have Ilana “arrest” Sayid and bring him back to the island? And then why would he write a letter instructing the Temple Others to do whatever they did to Sayid? (I think it’s irrelevant whether the letter said to kill him or to keep him alive: he knew the outcome of their actions would lead to Sayid’s resurrection.) So that leads me to believe that either: a) Sayid hasn’t been claimed by Smoky or b) Jacob wants Sayid to be claimed by Smoky.

And what does Miles know, if anything, about Claire and Sayid and whether or not they died? What is the difference between Smoky masquerading as someone who is dead (Flocke, Christian) versus Smoky claiming a body which has died (Sayid, Claire, and presumably Rousseau’s team)? Can Jacob claim people, too, because I thought that’s what his touching them did, but since Jacob touched both Locke and Sayid, either that is a link that can be broken by death, or it can be overridden. Maybe Jacob’s touching you means that you’re coming to the island.

At the end of last season, I requested that someone make me a TEAM SMOKE MONSTER t-shirt and since no one did (jerks), I will sweetly request that someone make me a shirt that says: I’ve been claimed by the Smoke Monster. Thanks, dudes!

FAVORITE LOSTPEDIA THEORY PAGE QUOTES

You guys, the theories on Lostpedia got so crazy and convoluted this week that the mods had to jump on to remind people of what constitutes a theory versus what is just crazy and baseless speculation. That’s right! It got so nuts in there that mom and dad had to intervene!

(In case you’re wondering: “A theory is an attempt to explain a certain mystery using logic backed up with logically consistent observations and facts. Without supporting evidence, statements are merely speculation. Speculation is similar to theories except there are no facts or logic to back the theory up.”)

But before they came and erased all of the best stuff, I managed to cut and paste the best bits. That’s right, I take the crazy, and I bring it to you on a platter:

They were both infected. When we’ve seen Claire with Christian in the cabin, she was alright with missing Aaron and whatsoever. She hasn’t looked alike Danielle at all. The only thing that can fight the infection are motherhood feelings (Harry Potter, anyone?). At first Claire was OK with joining Christian, but then she started to miss Aaron, freeing herself from “the darkness”. Danielle was carring about her child all the way through it.

It would be one thing if this were the only Harry Potter reference I read on LOST theory pages this week, but there is so much horcrux talk in LOSTland that I was actually kind of relieved to find someone talking about something else from Harry Potter.

Claimed people are recently deceased and unburied bodies which have been overtaken by the island’s dead. Claire’s corpse from the Keamey-led Dharma barracks attack was claimed by the soul of Rousseau. Many people have pointed out that Sayid has been “sounding British” since his reawakening. Sayid’s corpse was claimed by Charlie’s soul. These claimed bodies retain the thoughts, mannerisms and identity of the original inhabitant for a time. As the Darkness grows (as described by Dogen), the original identity fades. This explains why Claire seemed like Claire before abandoning Aaron in the Jungle… but is a walking-talking incarnation of Rousseau in 2007.

The Sayid-is-really-Charlie person persists! Hard to believe it, but it’s true.

The mechanics shades and the zoom in on his face emphasize his unusual eye color; he has Kates eyes, he’s her biological father.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the speculation about the mechanic. Apparently he wasn’t in the credits, although everyone else with a speaking role was, so a lot of LOST fans think it’s because he’s going to play a big real in upcoming episodes. Hell, maybe we will see him again, I just doubt that Kate’s daddy will be the role he’s playing—especially since there’s already been a reveal about Kate’s biological father earlier in the series.

Lindsey Baskum is an anagram for “Used by Malkins”. She was contacted by Malkins in order to make the adoption look legitimate, but since it was intended that Claire would crash on the island and raise Aaron herself, she was told that if Claire actually shows up, to make up the lie about her husband, that way Claire would still be forced to raise Aaron herself.

I didn’t even read this after “anagram.” ANAGRAMS!

LINKS

Visual Timeline of LOST

Spoiler Rating: 1

Like many LOST fans, after Season Five wrapped up last year and I knew that I was facing at least seven months of no new LOST episodes, I rewatched the entire series up to date. Actually, I rewatched it twice: once for enjoyment and once just to see what all the dead people were up to, forwarding through all the relationship hoopla.

Originally I was thinking that every time we saw someone who had died on the island appear to a Lostie (either in dreams or not), this was the Smoke Monster, and I had good reason to think so: we know that the Others are very particular about dead bodies, and folks who’d died on the island kept popping up to save the day. With the exception of the dead people who talked regularly to Hurley or once to Miles, we frequently saw Christian and Mr. Eko’s brother, among others.

Now I’m starting to think that, even back then, it’s possible that some of these helpful dead dudes were actually Jacob¹, especially if they mentioned Jacob by name, as Christian almost always did.

After watching episodes 1 & 2, here are the questions which hold the most immediate interest for me:

Does Jacob’s touch make you immortal? Or does it merely mark you as one of his?

Ilana and Bram discussed whether or not Lapidus would be a good candidate. Candidate for what? Candidate for a new body for Jacob?

Had Jacob chosen Sayid to be the new candidate—is that why he had Ilana seduce and arrest Sayid and bring him aboard Ajira 316?

If Sun and Jin are in the same time now, are they going to be reunited soon? Because Christian told Sun that she had to go on a journey, and all that she has done since he told her that was follow Flocke and the Others on a hike around the island, so I’m thinking there has to be more to it than that?

What is Ben going to do now that he’s pieced together the fact that he was manipulated by the Smoke Monster, and it wasn’t his daughter who appeared to him under the temple?

¹ Or representatives of Jacob: at this point, I don’t think it really matters.

Favorite Lostpedia Theory Page Quotes

Bernard uses the name “Ruth” instead of “Rose” when he returns from the bathroom.

Uh, no he doesn’t. He calls her “beautiful.” This was removed about 10 minutes after I cut-and-pasted it. For the best (read: most hilarious) theory quotes, you have to get there immediately!

Wouldn’t it be something if Desmond’s being on the plane turns out to be because, with Hurley as the “luckiest man alive,” Libby ends up giving her yacht to HIM and not Desmond?

Yeah, that would be something.

LA on the periodic table of elements stands for Lanthanum, the translation of the greekword lanthanein (whichis where we get the word Lanthanum) means “to lie unseen” or “to remain hidden”, X as previously pointed out is the Roman numeral 10, so I believe that the meaning of the title will remain unseen-until 10 or 2010.

CR on the periodic table of elements stands for Crazy, the translation of “You’re so crazy.”

Anyone else remember the punk rock group X? Their first album was “Los Angeles”.

Please let this be relevant. Please tell me that John Doe and Billy Zoom are going to show up at the airport, possibly to save Charlie from being arrested using the power of rock and roll.

Richard is a deity of some sort and has escaped imprisonment. He was imprisoned by Nemesis and bound as punishment for an act against him (Nemesis), similarly to the story of Prometheus (a Titan who was punished by Zeus for giving humans the gift of fire by being bound to a rock and having his liver eaten every day by a giant bird, only to have it grow back each night because of his immortality. Sidenote: Prometheus’ father was named Lapedus). This also explains his lack of aging.

The Lostpedia people who think everything on the show is about the Bible, Greece, or Egypt are my faves.

Charlie is somehow inhabiting Sayid now. The voice when he came-to sounded very much like Charlie’s.

That can’t be because Naveen Andrews himself is British, nope.

Far and away my favorite exchange that has happened on Lostpedia to date:

“It could be that the Japanese man’s blood is what healed him…”
“He was Korean (racist)”
“If he was Korean, then Jin would have been able to understand everything he was saying and would have translated to the Losties what he was saying or at least given them an indication that the other translator was speaking the truth to them.”
“The actor is Japanese. The character was speaking Japanese. Therefore, it’s highly likely that the character is Japanese.”

Links

The Season Premiere of LOST, Family Style

After I wrote an entry on my personal website about season six of LOST, I realized something: there is a really good chance that unless I made a place where I could write all of this down, I would spend the next four months losing my friends one by one as I barraged them with emails or tackled them in public, forcing them to discuss LOST with me.

Welcome to the blog that will save all of my relationships. My friends are so relieved.

Tune in here every Sunday night for a commentary on the previous week’s episode. I am going to do all the hard work for you: I’m going to listen to all of the podcasts; I’m going to read all the recaps, articles, and interviews; I’m going to laugh my way through the Lostpedia fan-powered theory pages for each episode. Then I will bring you my favorite links and some questions to think about.

Each entry will begin with a spoiler rating of 1-3.

A 1 rating, which I’m fondly thinking of as “Jess level,” will contain absolutely no information that isn’t explicitly spelled out by episodes which have already aired. Basically: if it hasn’t happened in an episode of LOST, it’s not discussed in the entry. No quotes from Damon and Carlton, no links to entertainment websites which confirm that so-and-so has agreed to appear in the final season.

A 2 rating might have a bit of spoiler-y info, but only that which is considered standard knowledge. For instance, the fact that Damon and Carlton prefer the events of Flight 815 to be considered “flashsideways” rather than “alternate reality.” If it was said on Jimmy Kimmel or on Damon’s Twitter, it’s fair game for a 2 rating! I will hazard a guess here that the vast majority of my entries will be 2 ratings.

A 3 rating—well, let’s just say that if you see a 3 rating and you keep on reading, you can’t blame me for what you read!

Thanks and welcome!