Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's a Wonderful LOST...

I've long since abandoned hope that Juliet will wake up naked in the jungle.  But I find myself wondering nonetheless about Jacob's absence from her flashback.  I just can't believe it was simply to foreshadow her demise.  As I suggested after the finale, I still think they will meet through the miracle of mind travel.  And when they do, Jacob will offer Juliet a choice between effectuating the timeline we've seen -- including her own death -- or erasing reality from 1977 onwards.



Let me begin by clarifying a point that's crucial to my claim.  I believe that detonation of the Jughead's core creates an "alternate" reality.  The catch is that this alternate reality is the timeline of events depicted in Seasons 1-5.  Everything we've seen assumes that our Losties crash, travel back in time, and detonate the bomb, which causes the Swan protocol, which causes the crash.  Miles was 100% correct that our Losties were always the cause of the Incident -- in the alternate reality.



The "primary" reality is one in which Oceanic 815 lands safely at LAX, so our Losties never travel back in time, and the bomb is never a factor.  Jacob is a fourth-dimensional being capable of transcending time and space.  Dr. Michio Kaku notes that such a 4D being would be omniscient and omnipotent in three dimensions, just as a 3D being is god-like in 2D Flatland.  Jacob uses this power to manipulate the primary timeline, creating the alternate reality in which our Losties cause the Incident.



That brings me back to Juliet's choice.  At the end of Season 5, she's frantically hammering on the bomb in hopes of detonating it before the Swan anomaly reaches critical.  We see a white flash like we did when Desmond activated the Fail-Safe, a similarity that's no coincidence.  I believe Juliet's consciousness will be blasted across spacetime like Desmond's.  Juliet, however, will be hurtled into the primary reality, where she will meet Jacob.  Here's how I imagine their encounter:

Juliet: Everything's been reset...Daniel's plan worked!

Jacob: No, Juliet, this is what reality looks like if the bomb doesn't detonate.

Juliet:  I...don't understand.  I remember setting off the bomb.

Jacob: I'm afraid it's not that simple.  Right now, there are two possible futures superimposed like Schroedinger's cat.  There's the one you remember, which actually depends on the bomb exploding.  And there's this one, in which the bomb fails to explode, so Oceanic 815 never crashes.  You have to decide which future happens.

Juliet: Why would I choose a future in which I'm dead and the plane still crashes?

Jacob: We all make sacrifices, Juliet.  Before you decide, I have something to show you...

He will take her on a tour of our Losties' lives in the primary reality.  Judging by the Comic-Con videos, aspects of this reality are familiar.  Kate is wanted for murder, and Hurley still the owner of Mr. Clucks.  Certain things remain the same because they're not the product of Jacob's intervention, but rather what fate intended.  I'm guessing Juliet's sister Rachel dies from cancer in the primary reality -- assuming Ben didn't lie about Jacob healing her.  Juliet may still be married to that awful Edmund Burke.



This tour will culminate in Juliet's encounter with her beloved Sawyer.  She will be dismayed to find he's the pathetic con man of his flashbacks in the primary reality, a pale shadow of the LaFleur she loved so fiercely.  Juliet will realize that, for all the grief the Island has caused them, it also has been a positive force in all of their lives, including her own.  Like Charlie, she will choose to sacrifice herself, detonating the bomb and preserving the temporal loop in which our Losties cause the Incident.



If this seems familiar, it probably is.  In Frank Capra's classic, It's a Wonderful Life, beleaguered George Bailey wishes he'd never been born.  His wish is granted by guardian angel Clarence, who shows George how his hometown would look if he'd never existed.  George is shocked and saddened by the changes, particularly in his wife, who is now a lonely spinster.  Realizing that, despite his troubles, the world is a better place because of him, George begs Clarence to restore the reality he remembers.



In the end, George returns to his family, and Clarence gets his wings.  No similar such happy endings await Juliet or Jacob.  But I'm confident that when Juliet sees the grim primary reality, particularly Sawyer, she will reach the same basic realization as George.  Ultimately, it's a wonderful LOST after all...

225 comments:

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3D said...

Blogger Capcom said...

One thing that I would have liked to see about Libby, is whether her husband had some link to Widmore, Des, etc., as that would have been pretty cool. And, why she was in Santa Rosa. But I suppose that we could just say, she cracked up after her husband died, the end.

That, actually, is exactly what the producers said in one of the podcasts. Libby was in the mental hospital because she cracked up after her husband died, and there was no more significance to it, period.

If you think about it, it's really no more substantial than any of the other character crossings that we saw, like Locke and Nadia, or Sawyer and Boone at the police station. But, they used it to make a dramatic close to an episode, so we attached undue significance to it.

Capcom said...

Pbshpsshpbshpbshshshshshshhhhhhhhh.

That was the sound of my curiosity-balloon deflating.

:o)

Bigmouth said...

I always figured the payoff for Libby's story was going to be the revelation that her husband David was Hurley's Dave, who died in the deck collapse.

Of course, Libby simply being in the mental institution makes more and more sense to me. I think we will learn that our Losties' lives were always intertwined by fate in the primary timeline. Jacob took a web of pre-existing relationships and simply transferred them to the Island.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I still think that the In Memorium video gave throwaway names to Libby and Karl, if only because of their blandness. Smith. Really? I think its even on one of the DVDs about why Libby was in Santa Rosa, but she seemed recovered when Desmond met her (her husband was dead by then, and most of the flashbacks took place between 2000 and 2001). I agree with Big in the bigger picture, my favorite example being Locke being the guy who handled Nadia's alarm system on her house.

The way the podcast is worded, its like what we are thinking on the blog here, coming up with probable answers. Libby looked pretty zoned out at SR and then all giddy within less than a year. Makes a bit of sense, change of hair color, etc., forgetting her past life. But I don't think drugs would give her that drastic turnaround so fast.

I like the idea that Libby's husband was Dave, or at least a victim from the porch collapse. And Jacob could have helped her healing along. Certainly, he would have seen the connection between Libby & Hurley. Maybe he did try to "cure" them both at the same time, but Hurley didn't take because of his ghost/curse thing.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I just thought of this. Aside from a few (early DriveShaft, Locke's various jobs), the majority of the flashbacks in S1 and S2 took place between 2000 or 2001 on up to the day of the crash. And then the story jumps from Jan 05 to Jan 08. If anything it just goes with the overall symmetry of the show. Doesn't mean much, just sayin.

Lot of things we can't get answered w/o being inside Jacob's head, but it makes me think that by 2001, Jacob was paying close attention to the exact pathways he needed for even the secondary characters. I'd hazard a guess that before 2001, nobody was doing a 2 degrees of separation. All of a sudden then, Charlie saves Nadia from a mugging, Desmond meets Charlie, Nadia meets Locke, Cassidy meets Kate after Sawyer's long con. He needed those secondary characters to be, say, horizontal threads to pull the vertical threads (those on 815) closer together.

Capcom said...

Ditto Wayne, a deeper link between Libby, Mr.Libby, and Hurley would have been a lot of fun as well. And a criss-crossing web of linkage between Wid, Libby and hubby, Dave, Des, and Hurley. Maybe even Penny. But I guess TPTB would have to add another season to get into something like that.

:-)

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Not really another entire season, just a few episodes that were lost due to the writers strike. I know a few of you agree that one or two extra episodes employing the Nikki/Paolo type of scenes, covering past days on (or off) Island, would be a huge boon.

I don't know that there was any undue significance, all due respect to 3D. Sawyer and Boone in the cop station, Hurley on TV in South Korea (Expose as well), that was all playing on the six degrees of separation. Libby at Santa Rosa as a final scene pretty much means there was something going on there. For the effect #D described, it might be more that Hurley waved across the room at Libby from his POV, the camera panning. Libby fiddling with her cup, looking at him, that's a story still not told. But it falls into place with anything we might have seen after the actor who played Eko left the show.

I like Big's idea that it was Dave who died, and the deck that collapsed could very well have been at a marina, where the Elizabeth might have been docked.

I'm not too keen on the producers covering for themselves instead of just saying, we goofed, we shouldn't have killed Libby off. A similar thing happened when they had Charlotte's age wrong and then fabricated a story that Rebecca Mader insisted her character be younger.

Yesterday I mentioned how well they've been able to handle the dead-ends, but this is different. Being proactive is one thing, being dismissive another.

Capcom said...

Agreed, all that was very strange.

OT: I've seen previews for The Prisoner, and it looks very promising. It's coming up this month.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

All cool. I like this show because of the mysteries, not the romance, so it will be a neat brain exercise to answer the unanswerable. And, honestly, I never once thought of Dave as a deck victim. Hurley could easily have made him a ghost friend of a victim he might have actually know from visits to Mr. Cluck's, and I can easily see that, again w/o it being mentioned, that Santa Rosa was a huge, huge mental hospital.
I can live with that, the Charlotte Malkin/Yemi episode is a bit different, it could have gone in a few different directions.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Another, less-pressing matter, is exactly how Karl popped onto the scene. Wouldn't his parent(s)be annoyed at his captivity in the caves or Room 23? (Connecting Libby & Karl here thought the In Memoriam video.) Was it encouraged? Crazy Others.

neoloki said...

Wayne

there is a very interesting article about EM, Juliet, on EW. I believe this would fall under the not very spoilery but definitely raise some distinct possibilities for the character and give Big's theory a little more weight.

neoloki said...

probably no parent's at all Wayne. Taken at some point in time.

dj said...

*OFFTOPIC*

Didn't Ben take Horace's house in the Barracks? And wasn't Jughead buried basically under that house? Anyone think Ben's spinal cancer could have come from the leaked radiation, since the Others seem to have ignored Daniel's advice about encasing Jughead in concrete?

Been reading through Lostpedia a bit and I just made that connection.

Thunderstorm said...

Take a Hurley centric in Season Six, Evan Handler returns and it's revealed that his name is actually David Smith and he has a boat, which he named after his wife Elizabeth. And maybe even refers to her in conversation as "Libby"...wouldn't even need Watros.

That would be enough to solidify the connection on screen.

Truthfully, I don't expect, nor do I care if they address it. I think addressing Walt's 'power' is the bigger issue.

They could address Walt's power in much the same way, using Zach from the Tailies (if it only pertains to the children) or literally anyone else, if it doesn't.

They could have Ben say to one of our people, after this issue has been raised on screen "Now you know why we wanted Walt."

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I think there's a bit more to Walt, seeing as how Bea Klugh told Michael that Walt was more than they bargained for. But, as with the Libby thing, one or two lines are enough of a nudge, same with Karl. Any scene involving Zack & Emma would help, I can almost see someone questioning why Cindy and not Libby had been taken, then toss in some Libby-Info.

Thx, neoloki, re: the EW article. I'm guessing its not Doc Jensen because I am on his mailing list. Maybe Big would say that it is not a huge spoiler and it can be condensed here, if it does bolster his theory.

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

Oh, and Thunderstorm, agreed re: Walt. Was he a threat to Jacob and/or MIB? Also, in the Jeremy Benthem episode, after Locke visits Walt at his school in NYC, Abaddon mentions him being "O for 2." I never caught that the first time around, that there was the possibility that Walt was more important than Aaron for getting everyone back to the Island. Locke didn't know about Eloise's wanting things to be as close as possible when 316 took off, so it can't be that he wanted Walt because he was on 815. So there is a Walt connection to that time frame. I doubt that Abaddon was mistaken and assumed that Walt was the 2 in O for 2.

neoloki said...

it seems relevant to the topic at hand.

Capcom said...

I think that the guys at Popular Science wrote a piece on Jughead, and said that it would not be leaking radiation as was hinted at at on the show (via the foaming substance out of the crack, etc.). Altho, TPTB can say Jughead can do anything that they want it too, and Ben getting affecting by it would be a neat spin. :-)

Greg Tramel said...

Ryan kicked off a week long discussion on one our favorite subjects

The Others

Capcom said...

Interesting link Greg. I think that I've come to assume that when Ben calls themselves the Good Guys, he means DI = Bad Guys, Islanders = Good Guys. Of course, I thouroughly expect to be proven wrong in S6. :-)

Capcom said...

My dear Lost friends, feast your eyes on the Lost bobbleheads. And yes, there is a Faraday. Sweeeet.

http://www.entertainmentearth.com/hitlist.asp?theme=Lost

neoloki said...

and a richard alpert bobblehead that has the latin inscription on the base:

He who will protect us all

That can't be random. No way damon would let these be released without his ok.

Greg Tramel said...

so RICHARD IS HE????

neoloki said...

Yeah, I don't know, I have always assumed it was Jacob the HE referred to. Maybe they put the quote there because Richard answered Iliana's question and it is just relevant through proxy.

So we have "who will be the guide" on the official season 6 Lost poster and we have "He who will protect us all" from season 5.

Are they the same person?

Capcom said...

I think that's just what they put on the bobblehead to ID Richard as well.

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