Pre-Endgame Musings: Lost as Fantasy Island meets The Dark Crystal.

What might happen tonight in Jack’s episode “The Last Recruit?” Who knows after all the twists and turns of last week’s episode? But, after last week, I had a few ideas about what is going on with these deja vu moments that are actually akin to the result of the brown acid that Pigpen warned everyone about at Woodstock. Have I lost you yet?

So, my friend Jordon and I were talking about why Des would run over Locke… I did consider that maybe Des remember that FLocke had tried to kill him by tossing him down a well, (How very Alice in Wonderland of you FLock!) but I was more inclined to believe that he thought Locke needed to have a near-death experience so he’d have that acid trip-like, Islandverse bleed-through moment. But why are the causes of the bleed-throughs so different? And what it is that will make Locke bleed-through?

Love seemed to be the common denominator for everyone else so far. It seemed to be what the Lostaways were missing in their comfy but empty Altiverse lives. That big, romantic love thing. But what of Locke? He has a good job and is getting hitched. What will bring his bleed through?

Then I remembered what I’ve been saying about Locke since The Substitute: how can he be happy giving up what he wanted most? And now with Locke heading to the hospital, probably where Jack works, it appears he may get his legs back if Jack (or someone) can fix him. This leads me to believe that it isn’t just LOVE that causes bleed-throughs but remembering whatever they got on the island that they were missing in their lives before they crashed. But what would that be for each of the Candidates?
Jack ~ stepping aside and giving up control.
Sawyer ~ (Not Juliet) but finding Anthony Cooper (Locke’s dad, who may just show up at the hospital!)
Kate ~ ??? Helping Claire? Aaron? Who knows.
Locke ~ His legs back.
Hurley ~ A woman to SEE him romantically.
The Kwans ~ Freedom from Sun’s Dad.
Sayid ~ To be the good man he knows he can be once and for all time.

It could also just be the biggest, most life changing moments for the Losties or perhaps something that caused them to experience a lot of adrenaline, like say, a fight of flight moment. I am sort of refusing to believe that it’s going to be love for all of them. I saw a clip from The Recruit where Sun remembers Locke. Perhaps she is remembering the fact that FLocke currently has the name she loves and is keeping them apart? Perhaps that is what will trigger to to remember life on the island as well and not just Locke the man?

Fantasy Island? Jacob = Mr. Roarke?

Wait a second! Jake didn't give the survivors of Oceanic 815 a welcome like this. What a tightwad!

I also wanted to put this out there… just in a general sense… that each of the Lostaways got what they wanted after coming to the island. And just like on Fantasy island, the things they wanted didn’t turn out like they wanted. For some these were old wishes, from childhood… but for some it seemed to be their last intention when they got on the plane that they were gifted.
Examples:
Jack: To not always be the one who was to blame (childhood)
Kate: To help her mother. (and validation that what she did was right.)
Hurley: To be seen by a Woman or anyone really (childhood)
Sawyer: Revenge against Anthony Cooper (childhood)
Locke: To Walk… to be vital again.
Sayid: To be a good man
Jin: Sun
Sun: To leave Jin (and be free of her father)
Claire: To give up her baby.
Charlie: To be profoundly important. Not just vapidly popular.
Michael: Wanted to be close to his son.

But look what happened for some of them… Sun ended up being separated from Jin for 3+ years and is now working her way back to him. Kate tried to help another mother on the island and again is being punished for it. Claire wanted to give her baby up for adoption when she got on the plane, when she disappeared Kate took it and now she is mad. Hurley was SEEN by Libby and is now stepping up to be seen by everyone. It is hard for him but good. Sawyer was able to kill Cooper on the island but he found out that it was a very unsettling, upsetting experience.

From looking at these examples I have concluded that the big tests for THE CANDIDATES is being given what they wanted and how they deal with the consequences of the experience. So far, Hurley and Jack are doing pretty good… settling into their new roles and are pretty well adjusted thus far. Claire, well… she’s a mess, Kate? Also a mess. Sawyer did pretty well… he processed the experience and went on to fall in love now that he was no longer blinded by the sole purpose of killing the man who ruined his life.

Lastly… I really enjoy the theory of my friend Jordon… who thinks that ultimately, the two timelines are going to collide by some sort of semi-cataclysmic event and that will result in the two timelines spawning a third. I like to look at it as the way the the Mythics and the Skeksis came together to form whole beings in the movie The Dark Crystal. The Dark island Lostaways melding into the Light Altiverse LAaways and forming beings, if not already, close to enlightened. Wouldn’t THAT be grand. That way we wouldn’t have to let go of all that was learned by the Lostaways on the island and we’d still get some of the better adjusted attributes from the Altiverse timeline.

When single shines the triple sun,
What was sundered and undone
Shall be whole, the two made one,
By Gelfling hand, or else by none.

So, I guess that would make Des the Gelfling? 

Looking SO forward to tonight I can’t STAND IT!!!

Lost… It’s a Jim Henson world (or a Beatles’ Song?)

This week, on Lost: “Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark.” Yeah, yeah… we know Locke.  But who’da thunk that these two would  end up not only on opposite sides but trekking through the jungle on a moonlit night under orders from opposing sides to do… what exactly?  But more about that later…  

In seasons previous, this was the dream team you'd have wanted to save you... now? I'm not so sure. (I couldn't find the screencap I wanted so I settled on this sweaty S4 Freighter shot.)

 

First thoughts about this episode (beyond above sweaty ones)?  Honestly I thought, “If this show ends in a big chorus of “All You Need is Love” I’m going to hurt someone.”  That said, last night’s episode “Happily Ever After” was true to it’s name in that after weeks of pretty dark story lines, the notion that at least some of our Lostaways might be sailing off into the sunset with the one that they love come series end was brought back to life. Or was it?

Might it just have been an allegory about how in our modern life, it is easy to forget what is truly important. For many Lostaways, the island has made them remember that what is important is love and human relationships and that somehow in the ‘real world’ they let that fall away as the trappings of modern life enveloped them and distracted them with petty worries about money, power and of course unresolved issues with their fathers. 

For weeks I’ve been reading a lot of an theories that the Alt World is a gentler place where the Lostaways are pretty happy and satisfied, where their stories get wrapped up nicely with a ribbon and a bow. Many have sighted John Locke’s seemingly good ending as proof of this but I begged to differ.  I thought Locke seemed resigned to let go of his big dreams.  He wanted to walk and be vital once again…  instead he ‘cried uncle’ because, well…  Rose had terminal cancer and her pep talk made giving up seem very appealing…  But last night it was made clear by these sort of bleed through experiences that our Sideways Lost boys were having, that they are mostly living Sideways lives devoid of greater meaning. They have freedom and riches but these are lives lived without ever really knowing the delivering grace of true love.  

Wow! Did I really just write that last love-centric paragraph?  Yes… yes I did.  Kinda gross, right? But again, last night the writers beat us over the head with the idea they wanted to get across… that love is where it’s at, dig? A very Age of Aquarius message but also confusing in light of last week’s Kwon-centric episode that found Island Jin in the psychedelic brainwashing room 23 and told the Alt World story that true love would be punished or at the very least, tested beyond reason.

These parallel story lines; Island time vs Alt World time, seem to be acting differently each episode, don’t they?   The Package saw a pretty direct connection between the timelines with mirrored situations: Jin held captive, Sun unable to speak English, the two getting separated and trying to reunite, etc.  While this week we saw the relationship between timelines being played out in a different way.  All of the action happening in Alt world didn’t mirror what was going on in Island World during the episode but reflected what happened on the island in previous seasons: Charlie falling in love with Claire, Daniel feeling the love for Charlotte and Desmond searching for Penny. Honestly though, I don’t really know that that means in a theoretical nature, I just find it interesting how the writers are playing with the Sideways Flashes in a less consistent manner than we’ve seen throughout the series.  

Theory wise, I found the scales interesting in this episode.  I found myself thinking of the scale as less who was winning in the race of good an evil but which timeline was heavier, more dense… which one had a better chance of survival. I really do believe that we are going to see the Alt World just shatter sometime in the near future.  With all the glowing holes of love that were punched through the “thinner, more porous region of space time” (that is a quote from last week’s Fringe, an episode where Walter named his Alt Universe self, “Walternate.)  The Sideways world just may be teetering on the brink of disaster. Perhaps like Island Daniel dropped an atomic bomb on the island, his Sideways self will drop a Love Bomb on Alt World and burn that mother down. 

On Fringe, Nina (an enigmatic Eloise type character) uses NYC snow globes to demonstrate what happens when two Universes collide: One is destroyed.

 

And Speaking of Daniel’s enigmatic mother…  what is Eloise Hawking/Widmore’s deal.  I always thought it was Des who was able to straddle the timelines, one Des, two dimensions…  but we saw last night that there are two Desmonds just like the rest of the Losties. But Eloise…  she is another matter.  Why does she know so freaking much?  Who is she? Part of me wonders if she is the one who straddles both timelines?  She tells Desmond, “Someone has affected the way you see things.  It is, in fact, a violation.” This to me is indicative of her awareness of the larger picture, the two timelines. Perhaps when the bomb went off… she didn’t make it to the temple and she was killed when the bomb exploded and now her consciousness is in Sideways land.  Might this be why she doesn’t want Sideways land compromised because then she will cease to be at all?

Maybe she is the reason the two worlds exist in the first place? Did she kill Daniel and then help Jack explode the jughead because she knew that it would create this other timeline where she would be able to have her son? Is she now willing to do anything to keep that timeline in tact?  She has always been manipulative, trying to keep Desmond away from Penny so he would follow his Island Destiny… but in Alt World she is keeping him away from Penny to keep him away from the island. After all, she did say, “What Happened, Happened.” Indicating she has let the past go and is satisfied, perhaps happy with where she is now; Matriarch surrounded by family.  For her, she saw what happened playing the high stakes game for love and family on the island and is just happy with peace and calm? 

The conversations between Eloise and Desmond reminded me of Labyrinth last night…  As if Eloise created this whole world for Desmond and rearranged time for him so he would be successful, happy and get what he (supposedly) wanted most in the world, the approval of Widmore. It felt just like Jareth the Goblin King who created a whole world for Sarah and rearrange time for her just so she would have what she wanted (supposedly) most in the world, to be free of her infant step brother.

"I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you!" "Turn back, Sarah. Turn back before it's too late."

 

And Eloise, just as Jareth with Sarah, was trying to talk Desmond out of looking for Penny.  Anyone else think that George the Chauffeur (Island Universe’s George Minkowski the Freighter Guy) looks a little like a young Hoggle? 

Fisher Stevens as George.

 

Hoggle

 

And both are used in their respective stories to distract and mislead the characters who are both looking for something very important. Both seem to want to befriend and protect their charge but both are also jealous and dissatisfied with their station in life. And… that’s all I’ve got on that topic. 

But hey Lost… way to punch the more holes in my flimsily theory about Jack’s Baby Mama. Beat into our heads last night was the blue blue eyes of penny (of course making us think of Jack’s son’s blue blue eyes) and then setting it up so Penny was the one Jogging in the Sideways stadium bringing to mind Des and Jack’s first meeting in the Stadium.  In my mind I could imagine who there might have been a Sideways time that Jack and Penny used to pound those Sideways Stadium Steps together? So, okay… I buy it alright… I’m letting go of yet another theory…  Cassidy won’t be revealed as David’s mother because of the whole Piano talent that seems to run through Widmore’s blood line and the whole blue blue pools of blue eyes. Sigh.  

Lastly… how bout that meeting in the jungle last night between Prozac Sayid and Zoloft Des?  The Pawns ~ or Perhaps Knaves of Dark and Light brought together for what purpose?  I supposed only Island Time will tell.

There are many more questions that this episode brought up but I picked my favorite bits and went with those…  I may blog more on the other interesting tidbits from this episode a bit later…  

Until next time…

Yay Chip!  
You made it through another episode without dying!  

Jacob/Smoke Monster connection

It has been talked about on the web that Jacob and the MIB could be the same person. This was even talked about after we’d seen the two together on the beach. I’m not sure if I buy that theory. If you’ve ever read this blog before, you know I’m more partial to my own theory that Jacob conned the MIB to take his place as the Smoke Monster. In this Freaky Friday Theory of mine I assert that Jacob and MIB must have actually switch bodies at one point.  I’m not so sure I go THAT far with all the detail I put into that theory analysis, but I do still believe that MIB used to be an ordinary dude until Jake tricked him into taking his place as the island watchdog, Smokey.  

As part of the Same Person theory that I’ve read about,  which from now on I will be referring to as: “The Man in Jacob Theory,” it was pointed out that there is a similarity between Jake and MIB. The sounds they make.

Please watch the first 22 seconds of this video:

Now watch this video (and please ignore the comment about the fart at the end!):

Doesn’t the tikitytackity sound of Jake’s weaving sound an awful lot like the tickitytackity of the Smoke Monster? But why? Why do they sound the same? I suppose at this point, with this footage, one could conclude that they are the same. One might also conclude that the Smoke Costume the MIB was forced to wear came with the sound effects. It might also be concluded that both Jake AND MIB can turn into black smoke… but I’m not so sure of that one…

But what does this MEAN?!

Also…  if the original premise brought up in this post is proven to be fact that could only mean one thing:  

GLORIFICUS!

Yes, I know… more Buffy.