Thoughts on The Constant...

Cue the Dr. Who theme music because The Constant should shatter any lingering doubts about whether Desmond actually time travels. As we discussed after Flashes Before Your Eyes, the obvious analogy is to Billy Pilgrim, the time-traveling protagonist of Slaughterhouse Five. Like Billy, Des has become unstuck in time -- his consciousness can jump through the fourth dimension to any point along his timeline. Also like Billy, Desmond can't change the future, which presumably course corrects to stop him if he tries. He can, however, influence the past to effectuate the present, creating what's called a predestination paradox.

That's where effects precede their causes in time, necessitating time travel or some other form of reverse causality to complete the chain of events. The Constant actually featured two of these predestination paradoxes. One was Eloise the rat knowing her way around the maze before being taught the correct route -- her apparent foreknowledge was actually the result of time travel. Another such paradox was Penny's decision to keep the same phone number for eight years before Desmond called her to be his Constant. If Des hadn't made contact with Penny in the past through time travel, she wouldn't have waited around for his call.

The examples of Eloise and Penny are important because they highlight two larger predestination paradoxes, both stemming from activation of the Fail-Safe, that are at the very heart of the show. The first is the characters' strange attraction to various Island elements (e.g., the Numbers) in their flashbacks. I argue in Cause and Effect that this attraction results from the Fail-Safe blasting their thoughts and memories back in time. Just as Eloise "remembers" the correct route through the maze because she will learn it in the near future, our Losties are drawn to the Island and its symbols by their subconscious "recollection" of future events.

The second big predestination paradox explains our Losties' rescue. I've suggested before (e.g., in The Cancer Man's Con) that Desmond's conversation with his physicist friend Donovan set in motion events culminating in the Freighter expedition. Charles Widmore somehow learned of Desmond's time travel rant, recognized his description of the Swan button, and waited for the discharge to find the Island. As with Penny's constant phone number, the effect paradoxically precedes its cause in time. If Des had never traveled into the past via the Fail-Safe, the Freighter would not have known to look for the electromagnetic anomaly.

Still with me? Good, because I'd like to raise one more related but distinct paradox clearly depicted in The Constant. An ontological paradox involves the spontaneous creation of objects and information through time travel. The classic illustration is actually pretty close to what we saw in the episode. A scientist is visited by his future self, who provides him with plans for a time machine he will later invent. The scientist builds the machine and travels back in time, closing the loop by providing the plans to himself in the past. The ontological paradox results because it's unclear where the plans for the time machine came from in the first place.

Ask yourself: how did Daniel know to set his machine to 2.342 and 11 Hz? Future Dan got those numbers from his notebook, then gave them to Desmond, who traveled back in time. While in the past, Des gave the figures back to Dan, who wrote them down in his notebook, apparently completing the loop. But that really doesn't explain anything -- we're still left with the ontological puzzle of how the information originally came into being. It's unclear what the significance of this twist will be, but at least one grim possibility occurs to me. What if the course correction for such ontological paradoxes is the total elimination of everyone affected?

Here are some other thoughts and questions I had about The Constant:

* As the foregoing analysis suggests, I absolutely adored this episode! I am, however, a little concerned that they've depicted time travel in a way that complicates things unnecessarily. Apparently, when your consciousness jumps through time, your physical body collapses in the time you've left like some kind of narcoleptic. But what happens to the consciousness you replace when jumping to a new time? Where do those displaced thoughts and memories go? A more logical solution would be for your past and present selves simply to switch places, avoiding these thorny questions...

* Well, now we know why Daniel has memory loss issues. At first, I figured the amnesia was just so Dan would have an excuse for not remembering Des despite meeting him in the past. The clear implication, however, is that Daniel exposed himself to his machine and is now unstuck in time. This presumably explains why Dan needs a caretaker and perhaps why he cried upon seeing the wreckage of Oceanic 815 -- he subconsciously remembered the future.

* Sayid mentioned that the helicopter took off at dusk and landed in the middle of the day, which is a much larger time differential than the 31 minutes reported by Dan's rocket. This actually points to the second of three scenarios that I proposed after Eggtown. The trip to and from the Island always covers the same distance from the perspective of the traveler, but may take varying lengths of time from the perspective of observers on the Island or Freighter.

* Who the heck is Tovard Hanso? Is he some relative of Alvar and Magnus that we haven't heard of previously? Or is this a sign that Desmond's trips to the past can change things more than Ms. Hawking and Prof. Faraday would have us believe?

* I'm guessing that Sayid and Desmond's friend on the Freighter, the one who unlocked the Sick Bay door for them, is Michael or Walt...

* Now we know why the Looking Glass console connected to Penny Widmore after Charlie deactivated the jamming signal. She probably had that number, like the Freighter's, on continuous auto-dial just waiting for someone to answer...

* Minkowski mentioned that he and Brandon became unstuck in time after they took the helicopter out for a flyby of the Island. What's curious about that is they're the only two we know of who became unstuck without exposure to large doses of radiation or electromagnetism. Mere continuity error or clue to something more?

Jacob's Moving Castle...

A recent discussion by SKID and others of Jacob's disappearing cabin reminds me of a speculation that I've been meaning to share for some time. As suggested in Chorus of the Dead, I believe that Ben keeps Jacob's ghost trapped in the circle of volcanic ash -- and that Jacob periodically escapes by possessing the Cerberus Smoke Monster. So what if Jacob's cabin is itself a manifestation of Cerberus? Maybe its disappearance is indication that Jacob has escaped...

I like this speculation because it fits with SKID's main insight that the Swan Mural depicts the same black and white house in multiple locations. Let's say that house is indeed Jacob's cabin, which moves around the Island when not confined by the binding circle. What else do we know moves around the Island? Cerberus! Maybe Jacob and his cabin manifest periodically near the various Cerberus Vents...

Anyway, the writers have signaled that they won't be revisiting the cabin in the near future. And I'm working on a longer post about Jacob that will touch upon these possibilities again, so there's plenty of time to ponder. Just wanted to get the ball rolling, the juices flowing, and whatever other lame creative metaphors apply...

Thoughts on Eggtown...

Why do Kate's episodes keep leaving me cold? It's not the character or the actress who plays her (i.e., Evangeline Lily) both of whom are hot. The main problem has been her flashbacks, which I've found increasingly dissatisfying as the series has progressed. Kate seemed like such an effortless ass-kicker to start. I suppose, on some level, I'm disappointed her backstory wasn't revealed to be more like Alias or La Femme Nikita.

I was afraid a similar complaint would taint my appreciation of Kate's flash forward as well. And for most of Eggtown, my fear appeared justified. But that jaw-dropper of an ending just about redeemed the episode. What creeped me out the most was how Aaron called Kate "mama" -- I can't wait to see how she adopts him as her child. I just hope whatever happened to Claire isn't the letdown that What Kate Did turned out to be...

This development particularly intrigues me because of my speculation (see The Star of Jacob ) that Aaron might become an evil Anti-Messiah if raised by someone besides Claire. The psychic, Richard Malkin, was very insistent that "great danger" surrounds Aaron, and that Claire's "goodness" must be an influence on his development. Many, myself included, figured he meant that Aaron must not be raised by an Other.

But remember Sam Austen's explanation of why he didn't tell Kate that Wayne was her real father? Sam said he knew Kate would kill Wayne and implied she had murder in her heart. Think about that -- Sam has waged war personally but Kate was the real killer between the two of them. Kate has apparently evaded legal liability for her crimes, but I have to wonder if this will still come back around in the form of Bad Aaron...

Here are some other thoughts and questions I had about Eggtown:

* My initial reaction to the card scene was that Charlotte seemed to be testing Daniel's psychic powers -- perhaps to remember the future. After rewatching several times, however, I agree with DJ and others, who believe the scene was really about Daniel's memory loss problems. Great catch!

* I like the memory loss explanation because it fits well with Mikhail's notation in the Flame that he's "forgotten so much," and Ben's rueful comment about Richard still remembering birthdays. Memory issues could also explain why the CC referred to Daniel's "caretaker" during the crying scene in Confirmed Dead (thanks to Wayne Allen Sallee for the find). It's too bad Stephen Tobolowsky has such an important role on Heroes -- a Sammy Jankis sighting is in order.

* What did Miles mean by his comment that he knew what Ben can do? Was this purely a reference to Ben's money and influence off Island? Or does Miles know about Ben's ability to commune directly with Jacob, and thereby exploit the Island's miraculous natural properties?

* Interesting that Frank and Sayid never made it back to the freighter. It's possible they're still bouncing around in hyper-space like the rocket. Or maybe the trip always covers the same distance from the perspective of the traveler, but may take varying lengths of time from the perspective of observers on the Island or Freighter. If it's the latter, Sayid and Frank will pop out near the Freighter after some random interval of time with no sense of how long they've been gone.

* Another possibility -- the second sat. phone number calls the immediate past. In fact, Frank and Sayid already *did* make it back to the Freighter. They're being interrogated by Minkowski, which is why he doesn't answer the phone. The second number reached Regina in the past, before the helicopter returned.

* If the preceding scenario turns out to be the case, the second phone line may be a kind of Fail-Safe. In emergencies, the brief time differential can be used to change the immediate future, thereby averting the crisis. Such an effect could also explain how someone (Jacob?) exploited the Island's existence out of phase with the world's timeline to change the fate of Oceanic 815.

* Interesting how Locke has become so authoritarian, like Ben before him. Is this a reflection of their personalities or Jacob's? Some believe the latter is really a good guy, but I personally have my doubts. I get a Grand Inquisitor vibe from the Island's ghostly patriarch...

* Who is paying for Kate's attorney and that nice house where she and Aaron live? Oceanic? Charles Widmore? Ben? All of the possibilities seem disturbing and point us back to the Anti-Messiah speculation.

* Finally, I wanted to thank you all for stepping in with your excellent comments while I was gone. There was a time the lights on this blog would have gone out if I weren't here to tend them. It's so gratifying to know that's no longer the case. Week after week, you readers thrill me with your thoughts and insights -- keep them coming!

Thoughts on The Economist...

Last night's Lost continued two very positive trends that began toward the end of Season 3 but have come to define the the first few episodes of Season 4. One is more action and adventure -- if this season were a Star Trek film, it would be the Wrath of Khan. Another is resolution to some of the older mysteries on the show -- this is fast becoming the Season of Answers. In the best Lost tradition, moreover, these answers are offered in such a way that they simultaneously raise fresh questions for fans like us to ponder.

A special twenty-three geek salute to the writers for Daniel Faraday. A physicist, Dan the Man is the perfect character to provide the answers that we seek, particularly where (pseudo) science is concerned. A great example was his comment that we discussed last week about the light not scattering right on the Island. Another was his experiment last night demonstrating that the Island is 31 minutes removed from the rest of the world. That latter clue, in particular, points to an interesting explanation of how the Island might be hidden from view.



The inspiration is Stephen King's novella the Langoliers. Passengers on a red-eye flight awaken to find that their fellow travelers and the crew have mysteriously vanished. One of the remaining passengers lands the plane at an airport that turns out to be deserted. They disembark and discover that food has no taste or texture, beer and soda are flat, matches won't light, etc. Eventually, the survivors surmise they have flown through a rip in the fabric of space-time into the immediate past. To get back to the present, they must precisely retrace their route through the rift -- just as Daniel told Frank he must do to return safely to the Freighter.

My prediction: like in the Langoliers, the Island exists in the immediate past, which is why no one can see them. The question isn't just "where" they are but "when." Locating the Island requires more than the usual three-dimensions of physical space -- you also have to account for the fourth dimension of time. As I describe in Cause and Effect, it is theoretically possible to follow a curved trajectory and travel back through 4-D space-time. Apparently, in the sky and underwater around the Island, there are natural wormholes with warped space-time geometries that provide access by depositing one 31 minutes in the past.



Dan's rocket experiment is consistent with this explanation. From his perspective and that of the freighter, the rocket seemingly paused when it reached the Island, then materialized out of thin air a short time later. But that's actually an illusion created by confusing the wormhole's entrance for the Island itself. In fact, the rocket continued traveling for a short distance through 4-D hyperspace *after* reaching the Island's apparent geographic coordinates in 3-D space. The distance isn't far enough to affect radio transmissions (e.g., the sat phones and the beacon). Someone entering the wormhole, however, would experience a brief but continuous journey through higher dimensional space ala Dave Bowman in 2001.



I'll expand on all of this in a separate post, but I want to briefly propose a variation of a scenario I've explored before, e.g., in Lost Time. Let's say the Island naturally exists 31 minutes in our past. Perhaps Oceanic 815 was supposed to crash killing everyone on board. Instead, the intense magnetic field caused by System Failure pulled the plane through one of the Island's natural wormholes, threatening to disrupt the timeline. The second crash was faked to prevent a course correction that would profoundly alter the future -- a future Charles Widmore believes he owns.

Here are some other reactions and questions that I had to and about the Economist:

* The flash forward reminded me a great deal of Stephen Spielberg's Munich, which is loosely based on the true story of how Mossad agents hunted down the Black September members behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Like Lost, Munich is very much a story of personal transformation -- i.e., of Avner, who begins the film as a devoted Israeli but is reborn by the end as a conflicted American Jew.

* The Munich comparison leads me to a speculation about why Ben and Sayid are targeting certain people for execution. Did you catch how Sayid recognized the bracelet sported by Elsa in the flash forward as being identical to one worn by Naomi? I think he and Ben are systematically exacting revenge against Naomi's employers, who apparently include Elsa's boss.

* Along related lines, a poster named Crimson Rabbit has a provocative speculation that the body in the casket at the end of Through the Looking Glass was, in fact, Matthew Abbadon's. We now know that Abbadon was one of the people who hired Naomi. What if Sayid is the one who killed him?

* I have this weird suspicion that Regina on the boat is Naomi's sister...

* My whackadoo speculation for the week: Jack will be told that only a limited number of people can leave the Island and that the rest of them must die. He will be forced to choose who among them lives to become the Oceanic Six. That's partly why he's so despondent in the flash forwards -- he has the blood of dozens of Losties on his hands. That's also why Abbadon asked if anyone was still alive -- Hurley and Jack managed to save the lives of at least a few...

Thoughts on Confirmed Dead...

Can Lost get any crazier? There may be television shows with better dialogue (e.g., the Wire) but none of them so consistently pushes the perceived creative limits of the medium like Lost. Non-linear story-telling using flashbacks? No way -- a tv audience will be confused. Flash forwards in addition to flashbacks? Negative -- the audience will abandon the show. How about time travel, ghosts, and seeing the future on top of this complex flashback/forward narrative structure? Danger! Plausibility overload! Suspension of disbelief failing! Yet the writers of Lost somehow pull it off with aplomb -- you almost always have the sense we're in hands that are secure.

I actually thought Confirmed Dead was even cooler than the season premier. I love episodes like this one and The Other 48 Days where we meet new characters. I'm also obviously a sucker for new mysteries, which provide fodder for speculation, the lifeblood of this blog. Confirmed Dead combined plenty of these two great tastes that taste great together by introducing us to Abbadon's motley crew -- the head case, the ghostbuster, the anthropologist, and the drunk. Given what we know, was Naomi really right that these are the wrong people for the job? I have a feeling Abbadon knows more than she -- or we -- do about the Island.

It's no coincidence that Miles is a ghostbuster -- he's probably there to bust Jacob's ghost. Daniel is a physicist who can presumably help them understand and exploit the Island's strange electromagnetic properties. Charlotte is an anthropologist who has studied the Dharma Initiative extensively -- perhaps she's there to be their guide. Frank may be a drunk, but he's every bit the talented pilot that Abbadon promised. Let's hope, however, that these other members of the A-Team are more competent than Naomi, who wasn't much of a commando for all her haughty talk. Here are some other thoughts and questions that I had regarding Confirmed Dead:

* The physicist Daniel noted that the light is "strange" and "doesn't scatter" on the Island, which could refer to H.G. Wells's sci-fi classic The Invisible Man. The titular character renders himself invisible by changing his refractive index so it is exactly the same as air, meaning he neither absorbs nor reflects light. Maybe Daniel is cluing us in that the Island's electromagnetism alters its refractive index in much the same way, creating a natural cloak of invisibility.

* Daniel shares his last name with fellow physicist and pioneer of electromagnetism Michael Faraday. Is this yet another clue that electromagnetism is the (pseudo) scientific explanation for most strange phenomena on the show? For example, Michael Faraday experimented extensively with the effects of magnetism on rays of light, which could explain the refractive invisibility cloak mentioned previously.

* Why do you suppose it's significant that Frank was supposed to be the pilot of Oceanic 815? Would the plane have landed safely if he were at the controls? Did he have a flash of the future that was negated by some change to the picture on the box?

* Is that why Daniel started crying when he saw footage of the wreckage on television? Was he supposed to be on the plane like Frank? If so, what changed the picture on the box?

* At least now we know why Naomi was so quick to accept the explanation for Locke stabbing her. In fact, she didn't accept it all, which makes a lot more sense to me.

* Interesting how the second Alternative Reality Game (i.e., Find815) was referenced on the show, avoiding the silly debates over canon that obsessed some during the Lost Experience. Sure looks to me like Sam was being played for a sucker in Find815. There's no way that's the real wreckage of the plane off Bali in the Sunda Trench.

* It looks like I fired my Ghostbusters reference a week too soon. To paraphrase the Rasmus, if there's something weird, in your Island wood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

* Speaking of Ghostbusters, what was that Dirt Devil device that Miles turned on in the poltergeist's bedroom? My guess is it was just for show -- and to cover the noise of his dialogue with the ghost...

* Were all of those off-Island scenes flashbacks? Or did we see any hidden flash forwards in the mix? For example, do we know for sure that Charlotte's experience with the polar bear skeleton in Tunisia took place *before* she came to the Island? I have no specific reason for suspecting the latter but am curious if anyone noticed anything I didn't.

* I will say that the look of elation on Charlotte's face would suggest she's been trying to find the Island for some time.

* My whackadoo prediction for this week: some of these Freighter folks were born on the Island...

Thoughts on the Beginning of the End...

A big(mouth) welcome back to Lost generally, and Charlie specifically! I was never a Pace junkie like some, but as Judah Ben-Hur would say, it's good to see you again, old friend...



One of my first theories ever about the show was that the Island might be haunted by the electromagnetic "ghosts" of people who die there. I'm pleased to see that, with the Beginning of the End, things seem to be coming back around to this supernatural scenario. Nor should this surprise anyone given that ghost stories like Turn of the Screw have been featured on the show. Darlton have, in fact, told us that the answers to the Island's mysteries lie at the boundary of the paranormal. One wonders, therefore, if the Bill Murray movie most relevant to Lost isn't Groundhog Day but rather Ghostbusters.



There's something about the Island that records and enhances the souls of dead folks. Jacob was presumably a psychic who died there and imprinted his mind on the Island like a kind of natural EEG. His powerful consciousness dominates the place, but there may be others similarly suspended in the Island's energy matrix. As a poster named DJ reminds me, Ben warned Jack that the crew of Not Penny's Boat would kill every "living" person on the Island -- a curious choice of qualifier. And people who died there (e.g., Ana Lucia, Yemi, Boone, and now Charlie) have reappeared in dreams and visions.



Here's the thing -- we've also seen the ghosts of people who *didn't* die on the Island. Ben saw his deceased mother, prompting Richard wonder where she died. But we know that Emily Linus passed away just outside of Portland. Christian Shepard presumably died in Australia, but Vincent, Jack, and now Hurley have all seen him on the Island. Even Yemi, may have died on the Island, probably wasn't himself post resurrection. During their final encounter by the Pearl, Eko admonished Yemi for speaking "to me as if you are my brother," implying that Smokey was merely faking Yemi's form.

I believe that Christian, Yemi, and Emily are all examples of Jacob at work. In the case of Christian and Yemi, I'm pretty sure Jacob used Smokey to snatch their respective bodies, which is why each has turned up missing on the Island. I'm guessing as well that Emily's appearance to Ben, Jack hearing Christian on the Hydra speaker, and Sawyer hearing the voice of Frank Duckett, were all actually Jacob tickling the subconscious of receptive minds. So are the surrealistic yet prophetic dreams experienced by Locke, Eko, and Hurley, among others. No surprise that all three seem strangely drawn to Jacob. These are his attempts to communicate...

And that raises still more vexing questions. Are *any* of the ghosts we see who they're really supposed to be? Are they *all* simply manifestations of Jacob? Some Solarian combination of Jacob, Smokey, and the memories of the individual? Is *that* how Richard was originally created? Perhaps most importantly, was that really Charlie who appeared to Hurley in the convenience store and at the mental institute? Hurley didn't seem to think so -- I'm pretty sure he was referring to Charlie's visit when he said "it" (i.e., the Island) wants them to go back. Which reminds me, the Schizophrenic Theory of Lost is long overdue for a rewrite...

Here are some other thoughts and questions that I had about the Beginning of the End:

* I alluded above to Stanislaw Lem's sci-fi classic Solaris, in which scientists studying a sentient planet are visited by physical manifestations of their memories. Interestingly, Jeremy Davis (i.e., the bearded dude) played Snow in Stephen Soderbergh's 2002 remake. I know Gregg Nations prefers Andrei Tarkovsky's original, but I actually think the remake is more faithful to the themes and philosophical outlook of Lem's book. Regardless, the influence of Solaris hangs heavily over this show. My whackadoo prediction: there will be a scene where Jack encounters Christian in the cabin and kneels before his father...

* I find it creepy that Christian Shepard still appears to be wearing the same immaculate white tennis shoes as he did in White Rabbit...

* Some note that one of Hurley's fellow mental patients saw the ghost of Charlie, concluding that the latter's appearance was different from Dave's. Personally, however, I'm not so sure. I have a feeling that Dave was the ghost of Libby's husband, and that he and Charlie are both examples of Jacob speaking through visions of the dead. Note how Charlie wasn't captured by the surveillance video just like Dave didn't show up in the polaroid. Mental illness often goes hand in hand with accounts of hauntings, as stories like Turn of the Screw suggest. Maybe Hurley's fellow patient sees dead people, too...

* Where the hell was Lenny when Hurley was playing Connect Four?

* Looks like if my theory about Ben working with Widmore is correct, the former has betrayed the latter, as well. Ben was sure quick to vacate the rescue area, so there appears to be no agreement with Widmore for amnesty.

* On that point, did anyone else find it odd the way Jack just let Ben go with Locke? Earlier, when Danielle suggested they leave Ben behind, Jack made a big speech about not trusting Ben...

* I found it interesting that Naomi was so quick to accept Kate's explanation for what Locke did. It doesn't add up...

* Why did Hurley lie about knowing Ana Lucia on the Island? Is this linked to the cover-story concerning the Oceanic Six? Did they lie to protect people who wanted to stay on the Island? Is that why the Oceanic rep asked Hurley if they were still alive?