Thoughts on the Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham...

Best. Episode. Since. Walkabout.



The sight of Ben yanking that electrical cord around Locke's neck was stunning, a dramatic punch to the solar plexus. I was prepared for Locke's suicide, but not his murder. The impact rivaled the moment at the end of Walkabout when we finally realize why Locke is wiggling his gold-tipped toes in wonder after the crash of Oceanic 815. For me, those two scenes will forever define the show -- the emotional yin and yang of Lost.



Ben nearly had me fooled. I missed lots of warning signs in retrospect. One was Zombie Christian's news that Locke was supposed to turn the Wheel. Another was Ms. Hawking's comment that Ben probably lied when he denied knowing about the Lamp Post station. Then there was Ben's callous attitude about what would happen to other passengers on Ajira 316, which mirrored his total disregard for those killed on Widmore's freighter.

What did set my Lost sense tingling was the recent reference to Expose. In posts like the Cancer Man's Con, I've compared Ben to Mr. LaShade, a supposed good guy who turns out the be the Cobra, the main villain on Expose. When David Reyes plopped down with his salami and caviar sandwich to watch an episode of the fictional show-within-a-show, it dawned on me that Ben's good behavior might just be a scam to regain control of the Island.



Something I utterly failed to anticipate was Charles Widmore's strong connection to the Island. I always pegged him as a mere investor in Dharma who coveted the Island for its advanced technology and natural resources. I dismissed suggestions by some of you that Charles might once have led the Others himself. But Widmore's accusation that Ben usurped his leadership has sent my Whackadoo Wheel spinning of its axis with crazy ideas like these:

Whackadoo Idea 4: Becoming Jacob. My speculations typically assume that Jacob was someone who died in the Island's past and now haunts the place. But Charles Widmore's comments about being heavily invested in the Island's future got me thinking. What if Jacob is actually a pivotal future figure whose identity has yet to be determined? Perhaps the "chosen one" is the person most likely to become -- or even be reincarnated as -- the Island's patriarch.

Such a scenario would explain why there are so many plausible speculations that Jacob is someone we've met -- e.g., Jack, Locke, Widmore, etc. It would also explain why Horace Goodspeed was building Jacob's cabin during Locke's dream encounter in the woods. Widmore may have funded Dharma in hopes of reclaiming his future status as Jacob from Ben. Come to think of it, maybe Ben's cancer was a sign that Jacob's identity had shifted to someone else.

Whackadoo Idea 8: Snakes vs. Spiders. Widmore said that war was coming and warned that the "wrong" side might win. This seems to imply Lost is a simple Manichaean conflict between good and evil. Like many of you, however, I remain skeptical of the battle lines as they appear. For all its references to classical and modern literature, Lost is thoroughly postmodern. I expect its conflict to transcend simple oppositions like good vs. evil.

I still believe that Charlie Widmore's war resembles the temporal "Change War" in The Big Time. As we discussed in my Jughead recap, Fritz Leiber's sci-fi classic revolves around a conflict between two time-traveling factions -- the Snakes and the Spiders -- to control the future. I suspect there are similarly two factions on Lost, each fighting to effectuate its preferred version of events, albeit constrained by the law of course correction.

The closest I see Lost getting to good vs. evil is a conflict between order and chaos. As in the Dark Tower series, the battle may pit those walking the "beam" of fate against others seeking to "break" that beam. Perhaps the Spiders are working to break the Valenzetti Equation (e.g., via the "Spider" Protocol) while the Snakes seek to prevent changes to the "picture on the box" by effectuating the Valenzetti (hence Ms. Hawking's Ouroboros brooch).

Whackadoo Idea 15: Reverse Reincarnation. Ben has been rolling around in a van with an anagram for "reincarnation" on the side. Many, myself included, assumed this referred to Locke's impending reincarnation on the Island. Technically, however, Locke was resurrected, not reincarnated. Nor can we just attribute it to the writers' misunderstanding -- they used the term correctly when Locke talked about his foster sister being reincarnated as a dog back in S1.

That has me wondering if the reincarnation reference was actually to the van's driver (i.e., Ben) not its cargo. Of course, reincarnation typically entails people dying then being reborn at some future date. But what if Ben has somehow managed to reverse reincarnate himself backwards in time? Indeed, given his extensive foreknowledge of events, I sometimes wonder if he's an agent in the Change War who was sent into the past to disrupt the course of fate.

If you really want to follow me down the whackadoo well, consider the possibility that Ben is actually a turncoat who started out working for the Spiders but now ostensibly serves the Snakes. I say "ostensibly" because I'm with those who say Ben's secret agenda has always been to create a timeline in which Emily Linus and Annie still live. All of this would explain why Zombie Christian and Ms. Hawking don't seem to trust Ben fully despite his service of their ends.

Whackadoo Idea 16: Hydra International Airport. Speaking of Ben's foreknowledge, I suspect he's been planning for his return to the Island since before he left. We know that Ajira 316 landed on Hydra Island, where the Others were building a runway. The purpose of this runway was never specified(Juliet joked it was for the aliens) but I'm guessing Ben had it built knowing he might one day need to return via a plane crash -- without the Island's protection.

I'll bet Ben has been hearing from Richard for quite a while how Locke would eventually become leader of the Others. This didn't sit well with Ben, who has been scheming just as long to prevent Locke from taking control. When Ethan reported shooting someone claiming to be his leader, Ben knew that time was short. His contingency plan included securing a number of fake identities and starting construction of the runway on Hydra Island.

Whackadoo Idea 23: Loop, Dude, Loop. I was curious if we would see what happened to the rest of the passengers from Ajira 316. One popular speculation is that time is looping on Lost. I believe that history is indeed recurring on the Island, but not in the sense of a temporal causality loop. Rather, as the crash of Ajira 316 suggests, the same basic cycle of events is repeating itself with different participants. The players change, but the game remains the same.

Seeing the survivors of Ajira 316, it was hard not to think back to the crash of Oceanic 815. The sense of deja vu was reinforced by several shots of Locke gazing into the ocean, pondering the miracle of the Island, just like he did after the first crash. Some of this was obviously for dramatic effect, but I'll be watching closely to see what other parallels emerge. There's just too much evidence that loops are important to Lost. Like Hurley says, "loop, dude, loop."

Whackadoo Idea 42: A Promise Is a Promise. That was Ben's reply when he learned about Locke's promise to Jin. And really, no quote sums up the Benjamin Linus credo better than that. The man is all about living up to the letter, but not necessarily the spirit of promises, rules, etc.. Not suprisingly, therefore, Ben unapologetically circumvented the terms of Locke's pact by telling Sun himself that Jin was still alive.

Ben's murder of Locke reflects this credo, too, but with an interesting twist. Our own neaux speculates below that Ben knew the Island would be in serious trouble if Locke committed suicide. I'm not prepared to ascribe noble motives to Ben, who may simply have acted out of a self interested desire to return to the Island. Still, I can't help thinking of how Richard "saved" Locke by giving him the means to manipulate Sawyer into killing Anthony Cooper.

Whackadoo Idea 108: The End of Abaddon? Matthew Abaddon may (or may not) be dead but I'm confident we haven't seen the last of him. I'm still waiting for a Charles Widmore flashback in which Abaddon, looking the same age he does now, visits the freshly banished Widmore following his turn of the Donkey Wheel...

As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

Thoughts on 316...

There's a running joke among my friends that I have the world's worst DVR. The machine tends to pull a Widmore and chop off the very end of recordings, so I've taken to adding ten minutes to important programs like Lost. Unfortunately, in the heat of watching, I sometimes lose track of time and don't realize the show is ending. The other night, when that last LOST thudded onscreen, I howled at the television, crying out for more.

I was especially hungry because the episode raised so many questions. Why was Ben all bloody? How did Sayid end up in custody? (I'm guessing those mysteries are related...) And most importantly, how did Kate and Sun decide to leave Aaron and Ji-Yeon behind? Having the Oceanic 6 make it back to the Island before filling in these blanks felt rushed. I can't wait for more flashbacks that depict those missing forty-something hours.



Still, there was plenty in the episode for viewers of science and faith alike to dissect, starting with the new Dharma symbol for the Lamp Post station. Last December, when we first saw this graphic flash onscreen at the end of an installment of the Lost Book Club, my thoughts turned immediately to Narnia and C.S. Lewis:

The graphic evokes the lamp post in the woods marking the entrance to Narnia in the classic series by C.S. Lewis. Nor would this be the first such reference on Lost. As we've discussed before, the name Charlotte Staples Lewis seems a clear shout out to the author (i.e., Clive Staples Lewis).

This symbolism is fitting since, as we expected, the Lamp Post Station marked the way back to the Island. Here's how I'm guessing it worked. When Ms. Hawking mentioned that the Island is always moving, I think she meant that it orbits relative to the Earth. The big clues are the six Lost Numbers and the pendulum in the Lamp Post. As I've explained before, it takes six numbers to describe the orbit of any object, including a pendulum, in three dimensions:

Most interpretations of [the Lost Numbers] focus on the symbolism of specific numerals or the mathematical relationships between them. Few, however, consider the significance of six, which is the total number of Numbers. It turns out that six is the minimum number of values required to specify the state of an object at any given moment in three-dimensional space -- three components of position plus three more of momentum or velocity. Sometimes, for statistical purposes, it's useful to imagine the object moving through a six-dimensional "phase space" wherein each point along its trajectory can be expressed as a list of six numbers describing a different state of the object in question. Here's a phase portrait of a simple pendulum:

The Island may be moving in higher dimensions, cycling through different energy states (as the blackboard equations suggest) or some combination thereof. Whatever the precise nature of this orbit, it periodically brings the Island into phase with the Earth like two strings vibrating in tune. During these "event windows," the Island is accessible. The pendulum models the Island's orbit, creating a phase portrait that enables probabilistic predictions about where and when the next event window will open.



I'll bet the Frozen Donkey Wheel keeps this orbit stable, synchronizing Island time with our own. When Ben turned the Wheel off its axis, he made the orbit unstable. That may be why he landed five months in the future -- the Island was now out of sync with the Earth. I suspect Ben knew this would happen, which is why he asked the hotel clerk for the date. It's all part of his plan to go back. The Island's orbit probably remained unpredictable until Locke put the Wheel back on its axis.



So why did the Oceanic 6 need to recreate the original conditions of their crash? This was partly another Narnia shout out. As Doc Jensen noted in his teaser for this week's episode, the final book in the Narnia series (WARNING: LAST BATTLE SPOILERS) has the children being pulled back into Narnia right before a fatal train wreck. I'm guessing that, by placing themselves in imminent peril, the O6 spurred the Island to save them, much as it did Jack on that bridge in Through the Looking Glass.

Even more fundamentally, as the reference to doubting Thomas suggests, restaging the crash was also about taking a leap of faith. And here again, Lost touches upon to some of the existential themes that are at its core. I'll elaborate upon this in a subequent post, but leaps of faith exemplify what existentialists call acts of "radical" freedom. You free yourself from determinstic history by embracing a totally new new system of beliefs and assumptions, contrary to prior reason and experience. That's what Jack did by becoming a man of faith for purposes of returning the Island.

Hmmm...the part about freeing yourself from deterministic history also sounds a bit like the Desmond Exception to the rules of time travel, doesn't it? Like I said, that's another post. Due to family obligations, I won't be able to post three-dot thoughts this week. But please keep those excellent comments coming -- you all everybody routinely melt my mind! As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

Gregg Nations Responds...

Poor Eloise the rat...

Some time back, I posted a question about her on thefuselage.com for script coordinator Gregg Nations:

A lot of viewers, myself included, are confused about what happened to Eloise the [rat]. Did Daniel ever actually teach her the maze -- e.g., during the period that Desmond was unconscious? Or did Eloise die before Dan had the chance to do so?

I'm pleased to report that Gregg has answered my question:

Faraday did tell Eloise the rat the maze, we just didn't see it. Then of course she died. Very sad...

Very sad indeed! But also telling because it confirms that Daniel avoided logical paradox by completing the causal loop. I had begun to wonder if the deaths by hemorrhage were the universe nipping nascent paradoxes in the bud. The test of this hypothesis was whether Daniel ever actually taught Eloise the maze. If he had not, it might indicate that her death was indeed the universe course correcting.

Gregg's gracious reply confirms that Daniel did so, apparently falsifying this hypothesis. It thus seems likely that Eloise, like Minkowski and Charlotte, died from hemorrhages that resulted from them being unstuck in time. Ago gratias tibi,* Gregg!

*Otherspeak for "I thank you."

Thoughts on This Place Is Death...

Well, now we know how Montand lost his arm!



I personally loved last night's episode -- maybe even more than Jughead . I've always been intensely curious about the story of Danielle's science expedition. As expected, it revealed important information about the Cerberus security system. Smokey is as old as the Island -- or at least the Temple. But does that mean Smokey is from the past? Not necessarily...



Any satisfying explanation of the Island needs to explain technological relics like Smokey and the Frozen Donkey Wheel. Let's say you're not a fan of the alien scenario I outlined in my recap of The Little Prince. Now that we know the Island can move through time, one alternative is that it was sent back into the distant past by some arbitrarily advanced beings from the future.



The analogy I have in mind is to Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos. Like Lost, Simmons's science fiction is filled with references to classical mythology and literature. I've cited previously his description of the Greek hero Achilles as a "freak of quantum probability." The structure of the first book in the Hyperion series parallels Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Warning: Spoilers for the Hyperion Cantos

The premise of Hyperion is that two god-like Ultimate Intelligences from the far future are locked in combat. To break their stalemate, one of the UIs launches a mysterious pyramid complex backwards through time on the planet Hyperion. These "Time Tombs" are surrounded by anti-entropic fields that propel them into the past and keep the Tombs closed (i.e., seemingly empty) until they come into phase with the time flow of the rest of the universe.

The Tombs are accompanied by a metallic beast called the Shrike, a terrible killing machine capable of manipulating time itself. The Shrike is worshiped by a human cult called the Church of the Final Atonement. The plot of Hyperion revolves around six pilgrims (hmmm...) chosen by this Church as an offering for the Shrike.

The Shrike reminds me of Smokey -- both deal in pain, death, and atonement. The Temple may be like the Time Tombs, sent back in time to alter the balance of power in some future conflict between higher powers. The Island is like the planet Hyperion -- exempt from the laws of physics, history, human psychology, and probabilistic prediction. I wonder...do the Oceanic 6 need to return to the Island for some final confrontation with Smokey?

End of Hyperion Cantos Spoilers

There are many more Lost parallels -- I'm leaving out a lot to avoid spoiling too much. I highly recommend this series, particularly for fans of the Canterbury Tales and the poetry of John Keats. After getting to know the Shrike and its tree of thorns, I think I understand why Charlotte insists "this place is death." Here are some three-dot thoughts on the episode:

WE SAILED FROM TAHITI. This episode largely vindicated Danielle's recollection of her shipwreck. With the glaring exception of Jin, all other discrepancies are now better explained by her general mental deterioration... Danielle stated that her team sailed from Tahiti in 1988, confirming Sayid's calculation that her distress call had been running for sixteen years when Oceanic 815 crashed... Looks like the Island doesn't just heal people quickly. It also teaches English to Jin at a remarkable rate! ...Smokey grabbing Montand parallels the way it dragged Locke into the hole in Exodus, Pt. 2. I wonder if it would have ripped off Locke's arm if they hadn't used the dynamite... Danielle didn't seem to experience the flash when Jin jumped through time -- he just disappeared. This is in contrast to the first purple flash following Ben's turn of the Frozen Donkey Wheel, which was observable by everyone on or around the Island... I get why they showed us Montand's rotting arm, but it seemed a little implausible that it would still be there after even a short time. Wouldn't some animal take it?...Another temporal "landmark" was the column of black smoke. Danielle described seeing it the night the Others came for Alex...

A SECURITY SYSTEM FOR THE TEMPLE. Robert's correction to Danielle that the monster is actually a security system mirrors her own to Sayid sixteen years later... Every member of the French science team except Danielle went into the Smokey hole and became infected. This seems to differ from the story she tells Sayid -- i.e., that the Others were the "carriers" of the sickness. Or does it? Richard was tasked with taking the Others to the Temple, where Smokey would presumably protect them. Is this what makes them carriers -- are they somehow infected with the same black smoke? ...Given that Danielle believed Jin was infected, it defies common sense that she wouldn't remember and confront him when they met again years later. The million dollar question is whether, if Danielle were alive in the future, she would have a new memory of their unforgettable encounter. If so, that would be a sign the timeline is changing in small but potentially significant ways, as described in the Rousseau Redux ...

WE CAN BE THERE IN 30 MINUTES. I try to drive as little as possible, even living in LA. But when Ben made this promise to Sun, my first thought was: "How can he be so sure with the traffic?" ...Ben pulling over had the feel of an exasperated parent who pulls over to stop the bickering of two children... I'm curious to learn what exactly Ben has done to protect the Oceanic 6? I get the reference to their "friends" -- Ben is helping the Lefties by bringing the O6 back. But I've been assuming that fate would protect the O6 until they returned to the Island... I wonder if Ben knows that Mrs. Hawking is Faraday's mother. Something in his expression said "no"... Another million-dollar question: Does Mrs. Hawking recognize Desmond from their encounter in Flashes Before Your Eyes?

LOOK FOR THE WELL. Charlotte's comments as she lay dying were incredibly creepy. How the heck did she know about that well? I got the sense she was mentally unstuck in time, flipping back and forth from her childhood. I bet we'll soon be hearing some of those same lines (e.g., not being allowed to have chocolate before dinner and loving Geronimo Jackson) again but uttered by a younger version of Charlotte... The flashes are coming in shorter and shorter intervals. I envision a pendulum taking progressively shorter swings as it comes to rest. Is that why Ms. Hawking was using pendulums to calculate the event window for finding the Island? ...When Charlotte warned Jin not to bring "her" back, was she referring to Sun or Ji Yeon? I'm reminded of Claire's admonishement to Kate not to bring "him" back. I'm beginning to think someone (zombie Christian?) doesn't want these children back on the Island...I wonder if the well is actually a reference to the Well of Souls , which is purported to be the hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant. Some also believe the Well will be ground zero for the Last Judgment... The image of the rope disappearing into the ground was a shocker. Who do you suppose plugged up the well?

I THINK THAT MAN WAS YOU. The crazy man who told Charlotte to leave the Island and never return was definitely Daniel. We know this is possible because we've already seen him as part of the Dharma Initiative. My guess is that, after an upcoming jump, the Island will come to rest for an extended period in the time of Dharma. Daniel will make contact with the younger Charlotte and deliver his warning. A similar predestination paradox lies at the core of The Time Traveler's Wife... I like the twist of Jin making Locke promise not to bring Sun or Ji Yeon back to the Island, which adds another plausible hurdle to getting the Oceanic 6 to return. But I think I already know how Locke will circumvent a literal interpretation of his pact. Instead of going directly to Sun, he will tell the truth to Ben, indirectly accomplishing the same end.

I'M HERE TO HELP YOU THE REST OF THE WAY. Zombie Christian appearing to Locke in the Wheel Well (groan...) reminded me of the (mis)adventures of Lemmiwinks on South Park... Christian's refusal (inability?) to help Locke physically was curious. I wonder if the former is somehow restricted from providing direct assistance the way the latter is barred by his promise from bringing Sun back himself... Christian is quite insistent that Locke, not Ben, was supposed to move the Island. That raises an important question -- did Ben disrupt this plan intentionally or by mistake? He seemed sincerely to believe he was doing Jacob's bidding by turning the Wheel. Of course, it was Christian, not Jacob, who issued the directive in the Cabin, which Ben may not have realized. Are the two ghosts really on the same team? I have to wonder, especially after learning that he knows all about Ms. Hawking, who I believe is working in opposition to Jacob... But Christian was quite derisive of Ben, even though the latter appears to be on her team... Assuming Locke lands in the desert like Ben and the polar bear, I wonder how he'll get back to civilization on a fractured leg...

As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

Rousseau Redux...

In my recap of The Little Prince, I posed a question that merits its own post. Why didn't the Rousseau who encountered the survivors of Oceanic 815 remember finding Jin after the wreck of her boat? Jin was in camp on at least two occasions when the older Rousseau visited (i.e., espisodes 1:23 and 4:1 ) so I'm pretty sure they met. I see three possible answers.



1. SHE'S JUST THAT CRAZY: To my mind, this is the most likely but least satisfying explanation. Sixteen years on the Island clearly took its toll on Danielle's psyche. When Sayid found her in Solitary, she was clearly a "nut job," as Charlie put it. Maybe she was just too far gone by then to remember meeting Jin so many years before.

But was Danielle really that crazy? She remembered everything else about her shipwreck and the events that followed. With the exception of her lie to kidnap Aaron, her information has proven pretty accurate thus far. I bet we'll get further confirmation of the reliability of her recollection in coming episodes that show what happened to her expedition.



So, while this scenario seems probable, I'll be rather displeased if it turns out that Danielle's madness made her forget something as memorable as finding another shipwreck survivor. Not to mention one who's probably going to vanish in a blinding flash of purple light.

2. PURPLE FLASH=MEMORY LOSS: Some of you suggested in reply to my Little Prince recap that the purple flashes cause amnesia in bystanders. This fits with indications that Faraday's time travel experiments at Oxford left him with memory loss of his own. Perhaps that's why Dan needed a caretaker, and why Charlotte tested his memory with cards.



But there are problems with this scenario. Amnesia is a little too convenient for my taste. Even more importantly, Richard remembered the date and place of Locke's birth, and Charles Widmore apparently recognized Charlotte, Dan, and Miles from the Island. Storylines like these only make sense if observers retain their memories after the flashes.

3. DESMOND CHANGED THE PAST: The general rule of time travel on Lost is that you can't alter history -- whatever happened, happened. The most you can do is influence the past, thereby effectuating the future you already know. I cited two such predestination paradoxes involving Locke and Widmore in the preceding section.

Indications are, however, that Desmond Hume is an important exception to this rule. He can indeed alter the timeline, changing the "picture on the box." I suggested in An Anti-Christmas Carol that Des did just that by delaying Charlie's death until the latter could shut off the Looking Glass jammer, leading to the rescue of the Oceanic 6.



If you think about it, Jin showing up on that freighter debris is the result of Desmond's intervention, as well. Basically, if Des hadn't enabled Charlie to deactivate the jammer, Jack would never have called the freighter, which never would have exploded with Jin onboard. I'm oversimplifying the causal chain a bit, but you get the idea.

And that raises one final whackadoo speculation. What if Jin appearing in Danielle's history is the first sign that the timeline we know is changing in small but significant ways? In fact, if you really want to follow me through the looking glass, consider the possibility that this will all pay off in Season 6 with a Rousseau resurrection...

Thoughts on the Little Prince...

I believe it was co-creator Damon Lindelof who originally said there are no aliens or time travel on Lost. Now that we've seen several instances of the latter, Damon has revealed that time travel was always in the DNA of the show. Given the title of last night's episode, I have to wonder if his next big revelation will be that Lost also contains extra-terrestrials in its genes.



The Little Prince refers to the classic French novel of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about an alien child who falls to Earth. The title character hails from a small planet that humans have dubbed Asteroid B-612. One day, the Little Prince finds himself in the neighborhood of six other asteroids (including one called 325...hmmm). He meets their respective residents, one of whom suggests that the Little Prince visit Earth. There, he encounters the narrator, whose airplane has crashed (hmmm...) in the same desert as the Little Prince.

There are many thematic parallels to Lost, particularly the problem of narrow-mindedness inevitably breeding mistake, a point the book makes many times. We learn, for example, that the Little Prince's home planet was first sighted from Earth by a Turkish astronomer. Unfortunately, when the astronomer presented his finding to the International Astronomical Congress in Europe, he was ignored because of prejudice against his Turkish garb.



Asteroid B-612 remained unrecognized until the astronomer resubmitted his discovery wearing European clothes.



Another great illustration of this problem of limited perspective is the desert flower whom the Little Prince questions shortly after falling to Earth. Because the flower knows only the vast wasteland of the desert and has seen only a single caravan of people in her entire life, she erroneously reports that the planet is sparsely populated.



I expect Ben will face a similar dilemma coaxing the Oceanic 6 back to the Island. All of them understandably mistrust him because of how he behaved there before. A few have personal reasons for mistrusting him even more. Kate knows that Ben exposed her lie about Aaron; Sayid may have discovered that Ben tricked him into killing people who weren't responsible for Nadia's death; and Sun probably learned that Ben was responsible for blowing up the freighter, which she believes killed Jin. They will have a hard time looking beyond their experiences to see the necessity of what Ben now preaches.

Even more fundamentally, I believe such a mistake born of bias drives the mythology of the show. As I've suggested in posts like Extinction or Evolution and An Anti-Christmas Carol, the Dharma scientists may have misunderstood the Valenzetti Equation's prediction of our extinction. They erroneously assumed it could only come from some disaster -- e.g. nuclear fire, chemical and biological warfare, conventional warfare, pandemic, over-population, etc. They ignored the possibility that the Valenzetti might actually predict humanity's extinction by evolution into a whole new species.

We've seen many such mistakes of perspective depicted or referenced on the show. Why do you suppose the Others wore fake beards and pretended to be so primitive? A main reason was presumably so the crash survivors would underestimate them. Another great example is Locke's misjudgment concerning the importance -- or lack thereof -- of pushing the Swan button. Then there's the Flash and Green Lantern comic Walt was reading back in Season 1. In addition to polar bears, the story involves two superheroes who misinterpret an extra-terrestrial's actions as hostile.



And that brings me back to the speculation that started this post. Aliens. I've always suspected they were part of the backstory, notwithstanding Damon's denial. I figured that seemingly magical aspects of the Island like the Cerberus monster and the Frozen Donkey Wheel must be relics of their arbitrarily advanced technology. But I always assumed the aliens themselves were long dead, extinguished in some ancient calamity perhaps involving the volcano. Now I find myself mulling the possibility that Jacob is an extra-terrestrial using Aaron as his host.

After all, what was Claire's preferred lullaby for Little Prince Aaron? Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket...never let it fade away. In the spirit of Herb Caen, here are some three-dot thoughts on The Little Prince:

I THINK WE SHOULD SAY HE'S MINE. I've been looking forward to an explanation of why Kate decided to claim Aaron was her son. But something about the explanation seemed superficial and unsatisfying to me. I would have preferred that they spin Kate's initial interest as selfish -- i.e., Aaron was her ticket to staying out of prison -- then depicted her growing to love him...Are Kate and Jack supposed to be together? It's unclear but the show does seem to be setting up parallel pairings of opposites -- i.e., Dr. Jack with Kate, and Dr. Juliet with Sawyer...Kate should have known something was up the minute Sun promised to give Aaron candy from the mini-bar -- no Korean mom would waste money on the mini-bar...No surprise Sun has been keeping tabs on Ben and Jack, the two men she probably holds most responsible for Jin's death.

IT'S LIKE REALLY BAD JET LAG. As Juliet notes, jet lag isn't known to cause hemorrhaging. Still, the inability to sleep can quite literally be torture -- sleep deprivation is used worldwide as an interrogation method. Just how long has it been since the "Lefties" (thanks to Fierro for that one) slept?...I love the way Juliet seems uniquely able to handle Sawyer and keep him in check. Her calm but blunt demeanor and Mona Lisa smile brings to mind this Slate article I read recently about how to handle children when they deliberately push your buttons...Faraday's hypothesis that the bleeding is a function of how long one has been on the Island tends to support the speculation that Charlotte and Miles were both born there -- or at least lived there as children. That, in turn, raises the likelihood that baby we saw with Dr. Chang was one of those two, probably Miles...

BEN IS ON OUR SIDE. Like I said above, trusting Ben again will be a bitter pill for the Oceanic 6 to swallow, doubly so for some of them...One curious thing is how quickly Jack has been to convert to the cult of Linus. It may have something to do with Ben helping him get off prescription painkillers. In that regard, the dynamic parallels Locke helping Charlie kick heroin back in Season 1...Hurley says he's safe in L.A. County lock-up. But if you believe the ghost of Ana Lucia -- as I do -- the last place Hurley should be right now is in police custody...Who keeps trying to tranquilize Sayid? My guess would be Charles Widmore. But why not just kill him? Maybe Widmore needs Sayid alive, but I wonder if the former recognizes that killing the latter would violate the rules of the game. Then again, if Widmore were behind the attacks, Sayid wouldn't bother asking who was. Maybe it's the Economist?

IT WAS JUST A LIGHT. The light, as Locke explains, is from the night when he banged on the Swan hatch, despondent over Boone's death. It's telling that Locke isn't even tempted to revisit himself on that night. When Sawyer asks him why he didn't go back and save himself a world of pain, Locke answers that this pain made him who he is. Interestingly, Sawyer himself makes exactly the same decision when observing Kate help Claire give birth to Aaron. Sawyer's rationale that "what's done is done" complements Locke's well -- both are expressions of the show's underlying fatalism...To clarify, since there seems to be some confusion, there's no rule of time travel that prohibits you from meeting yourself. The catch is that, if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. If you don't remember meeting some future version of yourself, then you won't. The big exception is Desmond, who can make "new" memories by changing the past...

THAT'S MY LAWYER. Just how many people of interest on the show does Dan Norton represent? I wonder what miracle Ben performed for Norton to merit such obvious gratitude...It struck me as contrived that Nortion just happens also to represent Claire's mom, who just happens to be in town collecting a judgment against Oceanic. I think that scene would have worked just as well if the person Norton visited in the hotel were some mysterious figure we'd never met...The name on the side of Ben's van reads CANTON-RAINIER, which is obviously an anagram for reincarnation. It doesn't take a genius to realize this is probably a hint about what they're supposed to do with Locke's corpse...Funny how Ben doesn't even bother denying that he was the one trying to take Aaron. Is this something Ben did to drive Kate back to the Island, or is it a sign Aaron isn't supposed to return with them?

DOES ANYBODY SPEAK FRENCH? My first thought when the outrigger canoe jumped (very convenient, btw, that it went with our Lefties through time) into the storm was that it might be the one that caused Danielle's shipwreck. I was ecstatic when we got confirmation in the form of wreckage with French words. Finally, we get to see the story of Rousseau's ill-fated science expedition! I've been dying since Season 1 to know how Montand lost his arm. I was worried when Danielle died that the tale might never get told, though I suppose they could have done so through flashbacks of someone observed the expedition...The moment I saw that body floating on the debris, I knew it was Jin and that he was alive. But that raises a potential wrinkle. Why didn't Rousseau remember Jin when they met again following the crash of Oceanic 815? Was she just that far gone? Or is this a sign that Desmond has changed things somehow?

Thoughts on Jughead...

Sorry for the delay in posting. Apparently, the Island doesn't want me blogging about this critical episode in its mythology, because I lost my notes on Jughead twice -- the first time about a quarter of the way through rewatching, and then again just as I was finishing. D'oh! Needless to say, I sympathized with Locke's frustration at not being able to complete his conversations with Ricardus Alpert. But not even the Island can stop me from dropping this little bombshell (groan...) on you all.



In my post Lost Time, I suggested that a book called The Big Time might be a major influence on Lost. The premise of Fritz Leiber's sci-fi classic is that two time-traveling factions (the "Snakes" vs. the "Spiders" -- the rest of us are "Zombies") are battling in a temporal conflict called the Change War. As that name suggests, the combatants fight to alter key events in history. Their efforts, however, are constrained by the "Law of the Conservation of Reality," which says that changing the past never alters the future more than the barest minimum possible.

The Big Time is set in a small Spider base outside of spacetime known simply as the Place. By virtue of its location, the Place is immune to the temporal disruptions of the Change War. The book's chilling description of the effects of this Change War was what originally set my Lost sense tingling:

Have you ever worried about your memory, because because it doesn't seem to be bringing you exactly the same picture of the past from one day to the next? Have you ever been afraid that your personality was changing because of forces beyond your knowledge or control? Have you ever felt sure that sudden death was about to jump you from nowhere? Have you ever been afraid of Ghosts -- not the storybook kind, but the billions of beings who were once so real and strong it's hard to believe they'll just sleep harmlessly forever? Have you ever wondered about those things you may call devils or Demons -- spirits able to rage through all time and space, through the hot hearts of stars and the cold skeleton of space between the galaxies? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, you've had hints of the Change War.

The part about the "Ghosts" of people from timelines that no longer exist made me think of Jacob and the Whispers, both of which have a ghostly quality. I was also struck by the reference to "spirits able to rage through all time and space," which reminds me of Desmond's consciousness time travel, and which evokes the message of the Others' brainwashing video that "only fools are enslaved by time and space." To me, moreover, the Law of the Conservation of Reality sounds a lot like course correction. No surprise, therefore, that Ms. Hawking wears a snake pin (i.e., the Ouroboros).



What I didn't mention before, but seems highly relevant in view of Jughead, is the nuclear weapon that drives the plot of Big Time. The characters are trapped in the Place with a "tiny tactical atomic bomb" counting down to detonation. I remember thinking the bomb would be a great metaphor for the Swan -- I never expected we would actually see such a nuke on the show. If you think about it, though, the jughead serves that symbolic purpose perfectly. Like the Island itself, the bomb suffered a breach that must be plugged with lead and buried in cement.

In the spirit of Herb Caen, here are some three-dot thoughts on Jughead:

ARE YOU THE DOCTOR? Penny's difficult childbirth, especially all the hemhoragging, brought to mind the pregnancy problems on the Island. Maybe this was merely for suspense, but I doubt it given Sun's difficult childbirth, as well. A pattern seems to be emerging the whereby children of people connected to the Island are somehow abnormal. Penny never visited the Island herself (at least so far as we know) but Desmond became basically a living extension of it after bathing in its exotic energy during the Swan imposion...When Des told little Charlie (awww...) about the special island he left long ago, I thought for a split second he was talking about the Island. That scene is pregnant with irony (groan...) particularly Penny's warning about her big bad daddy, whose reaction to Desmond's return is surprisingly meek.

YOU JUST COULDN'T STAY AWAY, COULD YOU? At first, I figured that Ellie's line about Daniel not being able to stay away was a reference to some future jump that would take Faraday even further into the past. But it seems clear she was alluding to her belief he was U.S. military...Let me preface my next comment by stipulating that Rebecca Mader is beautiful. Unfortunately, no thanks to my friend MB, I can only see Eric Stoltz's character in Mask whenever she's onscreen...Did Miles simply see the trip wire for the landmines, or did one of those dead soldiers warn him?

SEMPER UBI SUB UBI. Who says Latin is dead? As a former student myself, I was pleased the Others chose it as their secret language. Gives them a kind of secret order feel, like the Freemasons or Knights Templar...Now we know why only some of the Others wore U.S. military uniforms and carried guns -- they scavenged these items from the dead soldiers...The Others took down 18 armed and presumably well-trained soldiers with only bows and arrows. This earlier group of Others seems quite a bit more badass than their modern counterparts...Curious how Daniel makes a point of never revealing his name to Richard.

NO RECORD OF ANY FARADAY. When Desmond was told there were no records of any Faraday at Oxford, I briefly feared they might be going the cliched route of erasing Dan from history. So, I shared Desmond's relief at seeing familiar sights like Faraday's radiation machine and Eloise's maze...I really appreciated how the writers slowly and carefully established the plausibility of Dan's profession of love for Charlotte. Those two have a nice chemistry...It's interesting how Widmore snapping Cunningham's neck parallels Goodwin doing the same to Nathan. Those Others do what needs to be done...Did fate intervene to make Locke hesitate, thereby ensuring a future with Charles Widmore?

AFTER WHAT HE DID TO THAT POOR GIRL. It seems that Theresa is either an intentional or unintentional victim of Faraday's time travel experiments. It's hard for me to believe he would actually test the device on her -- I'm guessing it was an accident of some kind. However it happened, she's obviously unstuck in time, not merely demented...Mr. Widmore has taken a keen interest in Daniel's career, even cleaning up the latter's messes like Theresa. He also obviously knows Daniel's mother, but if they were ever friends, I think they're now estranged. I wonder what she thinks of Widmore's generosity toward her son...

THAT SODDING OLD MAN. I loved the transition from Widmore's dismissal of Locke's tracking skills to the latter surveying the camp from the hillside...Richard is very old and has apparently been on the Island for some time. That suggests his agelessness isn't the result of time travel, as some have speculated. My own pet theory, of course, is that Richard died on the Island long ago but was reincarnated by the Smoke Monster, which is why he never ages...What is it about Ellie that so disturbs Faraday? Is it just her appearance, or does he actually know her in the future? One thing seems clear: whatever brought the Others to the Island, it clearly wasn't time travel, because they seem utterly baffled by the possibility.

JACOB SENT ME. It was fascinating how the name Jacob held such power over Richard as far back as the 1950s. I do wonder how Alpert managed to speak with the Island's ghostly patriarch. I've always thought that was Ben's special talent, which is why he was chosen to be the Others' leader. Richard seemed to be in charge of this crew, but I got the sense his title was interim, which got my whackadoo wheels turning. Is it possible Richard actually knew Jacob? Perhaps Alpert was the latter's second in command. Maybe Jacob was a casualty of the Others' conflict with the U.S. military team...

MR. HUME IS A COLLEAGUE OF MINE. Interesting choice of words by Charles Widmore. He referred to Desmond as a "colleague" instead of an "acquaintance." That implies a level of equality Widmore has never previously afforded Des...I wonder if Widmore has similar precognitive abilities, which is why Richard orignally recruited him to join the Others. That could be what Widmore meant (in the Shape of Things to Come) by the nightmares that drive him to drink in the middle of the night...The revelation that Daniel's mother is in Los Angeles seems to confirm what many of you speculated last week -- i.e., Ms. Hawking is his mother.*

ONE LAST THING. The implication is that Widmore selected Charlotte, Daniel, and Miles for his science team because he remembered encountering them on the Island in the past. That presumably is why he's been funding Faraday's work for all these years. What confuses me is why Widmore didn't track down John Locke sooner. I would have expected him to be present at the Chosen One's birth in Tustin just like Richard Alpert...

*Correction: The original sentence erroneously suggested that Ellie's accent was Kiwi. Her casting call, however, specifies that the character's accent is supposed to be British. So I'm apparently wrong about her being from New Zealand. D'oh!

Thoughts on Because You Left and The Lie...

Welcome back, you all everybody! You've got to hand it to the writers of Lost. Like the cook who boils a frog alive by slowly increasing the heat, they ratchet up the craziness notch by notch, cooking your brain before you know it.

Some complain the creators played unfairly by first denying the science fiction and time travel elements of the show. These skeptics feel understandably misled now that Lost has clearly and unequivocally been revealed as such. But I'll bet most of the skeptics are still watching despite their reservations.

This is mainly due to the slow and deliberate way the show has acclimated us to the possibility of something so outlandish time travel. First Desmond's consciousness became unstuck in time. Then we were introduced to physical time travel via Bunny 15 and the corpse of Doc Ray. Now the Island itself has apparently become unstuck in time, blurring the line between mental and physical time travel. The absurd seems plausible thanks to this incremental progression.

But I think even skeptics can appreciate Lost as a kind of "anti-time-travel" story. Unlike more traditional takes on the subject, time travel is the problem, not the solution on the show. Dharma's efforts to manipulate time have disrupted the course of destiny. It's up to Ms. Hawking and Co. to nudge things back on track. In the spirit of Herb Caen, here are some three-dot thoughts on the Season 5 premier:

POWER TRIANGLE. I loved the opening shots of Dr. Chang, particularly the way he makes a power triangle with his hands that subtly evokes the symbol for the Arrow Station...The "limitless source of energy" is presumably the pocket of negatively charged exotic matter that Chang mentions in the Orchid Orientation. The drill technician who collapsed with a bloody nose is probably unstuck in time as a result of drilling too close to the exotic matter...Very cool seeing Faraday during that opening sequence. Now we know for sure that he was the "reliable source" cited by Dr. Chang in the 2008 Comic-Con video...

IT HAPPENED BECAUSE YOU LEFT. Ben's line is the latest of many reinforcing the notion that the Oceanic 6 were not supposed to be rescued. You'll also recall that Locke said something similar when trying to persuade Jack not to leave the Island. As I describe in the Anti-Christmas Carol, Desmond changed the "picture on the box" by postponing Charlie's death. This ability to change the course of fate is what makes Des the "wild card," a point I'll return to shortly...When Ben asks if Jack knows what happened to the people left behind on the Island, I sense the former already has this information and is actually testing the latter, though I'm unclear why...

PURPLE SKY. The purple sky is one of my absolute favorite recurring images on Lost. I could easily see the show ending with a purple sky event that moves the Island forward into the far future, perhaps via one last turn of the Frozen Donkey Wheel..."We must have been inside the radius" is presumably a reference to the event horizon of the wormhole that was opened when Ben turned the Frozen Donkey Wheel...The camp disappeared because the Island is now unstuck in time as a result of passage through the wormhole. As I describe in the Island Needs a Constant, its "consciousness" will oscillate between key periods in the Island's history. People and things from different times will appear, interact, then disappear like ghosts.

BORN TO RUN. You don't simply get a court order for a blood test as a matter of course. I suspect Sun was the one who's responsible, whether directly or indirectly, for those attorneys from Agostini & Norton wanting to test Kate and Aaron. Or maybe it was simply fate driving Kate back to the Island. Either way, it's fascinating how Kate's first instinct is to run just like it was in her life before the Island. It's another sign the Oceanic 6 have regressed to their former selves since they defied destiny by leaving the Island...

WELCOME TO THE CHINA CLUB. Sawyer's hilarious slap of Faraday was on behalf of every fan who's been frustrated by bigmouths like me for delving waaaaay too deep into the science and pseudo-science of Lost...I love the way Daniel's metaphor of the record skipping mirrors Dr. Chang's difficulty playing his Willie Nelson record. Many of my other favorite shows -- e.g., the Wire, Dexter, and Battlestar Galactica -- similarly use twinning and parallelism to underscore core themes. In this case, the skipping record reinforces my belief that Dharma somehow "scratched" the timeline, necessitating intervention by the likes of Ms. Hawking and her Chronology Protection Agents.

IT POINTS NORTH. Locke's encounter with Richard seems to suggest not everyone on the Island is unstuck in time. That's more difficult to conceptualize, but Daniel expressly alludes to the possibility earlier in the episode...Richard's gift of the compass harkens back to the scene in Cabin Fever where he gives young Locke the Dalai Lama test with the compass as one of the objects. I've always suspected that test wasn't so much about reincarnation as time travel. I believe Locke will soon travel back in time and meet a version of Richard who does not yet know him. Locke will gain Richard's trust by giving him the compass. Richard will then seek out Locke as a newborn, young child, and teen, in an effort to understand why. This is also why Richard and the Others seem to know Locke in earlier scenes -- they've been expecting him for some time.

WILD CARD. In posts like the Course Correction Conundrum, I've explored the tension between Ms. Hawking's rule against changing the future and the special case of Desmond. He's a "wild card" in part because he sees the path of destiny in advance and can manipulate course correction to change the "picture on the box." But Daniel's comments imply something even more profound -- Des is the only one who can undo the temporal disruption caused by DHARMA and the Others. His freedom from fate is actually what makes him the key to getting it back on track...So who is Daniel's mother? Like many of you, my first thought was Ms. Hawking. After sleeping on it, however, that feels incorrect to me. I think it's very possibly Ms. Hawking is connected to one of our Losties, but my gut tells me it isn't Faraday.

RED SHIRT ALERT. I let out a yelp of recognition (holy *&$% -- that's Frogurt!) when I saw Neil "Frogurt" in the Zodiac raft. Hard core fans will recall Frogurt from the Missing pieces mobisode the Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt. Sadly, the moment I recognized Frogurt, I knew he was going to die and soon. The writers confirmed my worst fears when they subsequently emphasized that Frogurt was wearing a red shirt -- a nod to the show's practice (in the tradition of Star Trek) of killing off minor characters so clad. Still, the flaming arrow was quite a spectacular way to go -- it brought to mind the shocking sight of Doc Arzt being blown to bits.

CHRONOLOGY PROTECTION AGENCY. Ah, Ms. Hawking, you are truly one of my favorite characters on the show! As stated previously, I think she's a Chronology Protection Agent whose mission is to nudge destiny back on course by convincing the Oceanic 6 to return to the Island. She seems to have recruited Ben, though it's unclear whether he has always worked for her or only since leaving the Island. I'll bet Ben wallowed in anger and depression over Alex's murder and his banishment for some time thereafter. I could plausibly see Ms. Hawking recruiting him with the promise he might one day return to the Island with her help.

ONE MORE THING: I was going to edit to add one further speculation but I see from the comments that someone has beaten me to the punch. I'm with Wayne Allen Sallee that the British fellow who wanted to chop off Juliet's hand was none other than a younger version of Charles Widmore himself.

An Anti-Christmas Carol...

It's the holidays, and that has me contemplating a classic:



The moral of A Christmas Carol is that it's never too late to change your fate. I used to think the same was true of Lost -- that its resolution would involve changing the fate of humanity to avert our prophesied extinction. But I've come to believe that Lost is more Tao than Dickens. The message of the show is to embrace your destiny. Fighting the future inevitably fails and backfires, causing needless suffering for those affected.

My posts typically focus on the mythical and sci-fi elements of Lost, but the show is ultimately character driven. Not surprisingly, therefore, the stories of principals like Locke clearly reflect this theme of accepting fate. A great example is Locke's refusal as a teen to embrace his destiny as a man of science. One of my all-time favorite scenes on the show is where Locke's teacher urges him to accept Alpert's offer of science camp -- to no avail.



Really, though, no storyline exemplifies the moral of Lost better than Desmond's futile efforts to save Charlie. I've previously praised Desmond's interventions for changing "the picture on the box" by making Charlie's death heroic. But the consequences of this heroism, particularly the rescue of the Oceanic 6, have proven less than positive. Indeed, the grim flash forwards seem to bear out Locke's insistence that the O6 were "not supposed to leave."

The mythology of the show, particularly the Valenzetti Equation, similarly embodies this fatalism. We know Dharma tried to save the world through the power of physical science but ended up creating in Swan Station the very same threat of human extinction they sought to avert. I suspect the Others also seek to save the world albeit using "para" science (i.e., psychic power). That's why they covet children with special abilities like Walt.



The problem is not just that these attempts are doomed to failure. They also suffer from an inaccurate -- or at least incomplete -- understanding of the Valenzetti Equation. I've argued previously that its prediction of extinction may also refer to our evolution into a new post-human species capable of transcending time, space, and even physical form. Altering the Valenzetti's core factors risks delaying this evolution or even derailing it completely (i.e., by destroying the world).

I believe Ms. Hawking, Brother Campbell, and maybe Matthew Abbadon are working to fulfill the Valenzetti's evolutionary mandate. These Chronology Protection Agents, as I've dubbed them, manipulate people and events along the timeline to nudge destiny back on course. The show depicts the culmination of their intricate plan, executed over many decades, to mitigate the distruption and delay caused by Dharma and the Others.



Like the eponymous device in the game Mouse Trap, however, Hawking and Co.'s machinations have a Rube Goldberg quality. There are several critical stages where their plan can fail, breaking the desired causal chain of events. One key point (pun intended) is Desmond's activation of the Fail-Safe. If Des delays going to the Island by marrying Penny, he risks missing this linchpin event, in which case "every single one of us is dead."



Ms. Hawking managed to avoid that outcome by persuading Desmond not to propose. But her speech on course correction was less successful in achieving its other intended effect. The lesson of the man in the red shoes was meant to dissuade Desmond from trying to save Charlie. Ms. Hawking knows the Oceanic 6 are not supposed to leave the Island. In fact, their presence is a prerequisite for fulfillment of the Valenzetti -- they are its six core factors.

The Oceanic 6 are thus pawns of prophecy. Their miserable existence is the universe course correcting them back to the Island. The problem is that these pawns have a measure of free will. They can postpone fate indefinitely -- or at least as long as they can stand the misery -- but their friends and loved ones will also suffer. The Chronology Protection Agents must nudge the Oceanic 6 back to the Island and bring the suffering to an end.

Spoiler: New Dharma Symbol

Thanks to fellow Lost blogger Dark UFO for pointing us to the latest installment of the official Lost Book Club. In a new video, Team Darlton plug James Joyce 's Ulysses (an even more referential work than Lost) and reveal that episode 5:7 will be titled "316." At the very end of their video, a new Dharma symbol flashes on-screen for a split second.



I believe this new symbol is a lantern, which may also be the name of the station it represents. The graphic evokes the lamp post in the woods marking the entrance to Narnia in the classic series by C.S. Lewis. Nor would this be the first such reference on Lost. As we've discussed before, the name Charlotte Staples Lewis seems a clear shout out to the author (i.e., Clive Staples Lewis).



The Narnian symbolism fits well with the episode title (i.e., 316) also revealed by Darlton. Regular readers of this blog may recall my post Purple Sky wherein we discussed the possibility that moving the Island would reorient it in spacetime "such that a bearing of 305 no longer provides safe access." I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that 316 is the new bearing for reaching the Island safely.

That, in turn, raises another possibility we've kicked around recently. In the Island Needs a Constant, I suggested there might be another Dharma station, either on the Island or somewhere else across the planet, that the Oceanic 6 must find to get back. How fitting would it be if this hypothetical station turned out to be none other than the Lantern?

UPDATE (December 14, 2008): A poster on the Fuselage named Founder raises another plausible explanation for the title 316. It could refer to the number of people who purportedly died in the crash of Oceanic 815 -- i.e., 324 passengers minus the eight who initially survived impact. The episode might therefore deal with the unraveling of the lie told by the Oceanic 6.

The Island Needs a Constant...

One of the more provocative speculations this off-season has been Doc Jensen's that turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel moved the Island into the past. This possibility got a boost from recent promos apparently depicting Daniel Faraday encountering an intact Swan Station. I'm all in favor of such a scenario, which would be a great way of exploring the Dharma Initiative. But because this is Lost, I'll bet there's a twist. What if the Island itself is now unstuck in time?

All indications are that the Island is accessible via one or more wormholes. People passing through the wormhole(s) risk becoming unstuck in time like Desmond and Minowski. This presumably is what Ethan meant when he warned Juliet that the trip to the Island can be "intense." Turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel apparently moved the Island through a wormhole to whenever they are now. If people can become unstuck by wormhole travel, maybe the Island can as well.

But what could it mean for the Island to be unstuck in time? In the Constant, Desmond's consciousness jumped between various points in his past. I'm guessing that an unstuck Island will do much the same. Its "consciousness" will oscillate between key periods in the Island's history. People and things from different times will appear, interact, then disappear like ghosts. I have in mind somethng like Jacob's cabin, which may already be similarly unstuck.

Here's where things get really whackadoo. According to the Constant, people unstuck in time must find someone or something to reorient themselves. Desmond's constant was Penny; Dan's is apparently Desmond. In the case of Jacob's cabin, I'll bet that ash-like circle serves as a kind of temporal anchor. I believe the Island's constant was the Swan Station until it imploded. That may even be why Swan was originally built -- the Incident unstuck the Island previously.

If so, the Island needs a new constant to resolve its temporal confusion. Maybe that's the Oceanic 6, as a group, which is why they all need to return together. I'm guessing, however, that there's another Dharma station, either on the Island or somewhere else across the planet, capable of exerting the same stabilizing force the Swan once did. Finding it will be the key to the Oceanic 6 getting back to the Island...

Casting Spoiler: Patrick Fischler

I don't usually report on spoilers. Recently, however, a deep throat within the Lost production empire clued me into a casting spoiler with some potentially interesting implications for the direction of the show. I have it on good authority that Patrick Fischler of AMC's critically acclaimed Mad Men will be playing a character in episode 5x08, which is currently filming in Hawaii.



Fischler is an extremely talented actor whose work on Mad Men was recently praised in a New York Times Magazine story about the show. My source was uncertain what role Fischler would play on Lost, but I do have my own speculation. Something about Fischler's nervous energy reminds me of Daniel Faraday, who's so ably portrayed by Jeremy Davies.



That brings me to the above-mentioned implications for the direction of the show. The casting call for episode 5x08 mentions a "[s]mart, hippy-ish, well-trained doctor who finds himself thrown into a situation outside of his medical experience and has to adjust." Many, myself included, have been hoping the hippy reference means we'll be seeing more Dharma flashbacks this season.

The Fischler spoiler supports this speculation, albeit indirectly and with some inferential leaps. Remember the recent Comic-Con video wherein we met Dr. Pierre Chang? The voice off-camera who converses with Chang sounds an awful lot like Daniel Faraday. At the time, I suggested that Dan the Man might eventually travel back in time, becoming Chang's "reliable source."

Now, however, I have to wonder. What if Fischler, who reminds me of Daniel Faraday, will instead be playing his father, a Dharma Initiative doctor?

UPDATE: I've learned that Fischler will not, in fact, be playing the hippy-ish (hopefully Dharma) doctor in episode 5x08. Instead, he will be one of the two characters in "corporate security," though I'm unsure which. Either way, it looks unlikely he'll be Daniel Faraday's daddy. Oh well, it was a great speculation for the 24 hours it lasted...

The Key to the Whole Game...

Many of the most important lines on Lost are delivered to, or through, the character of Hurley. One example I've discussed previously is "you make your own luck," which we first heard from Martha Toomey and subsequently from Chee-, er, David Reyes. Another is Hurley's own admonishment that "Australia's the key to the whole game" of Risk. In this post, I explain why his warning may actually be an ironic reference to the Island.



For those unfamiliar, Risk is a game of global strategy and conquest. Players begin by placing armies in various countries, then compete to take over the world. The player who starts in "Australasia" has a natural advantage because that region is the most defensible. Here's an hilarious riff by comedian Eddie Izzard on how Hitler obviously never played Risk. About a minute in, Izzard summarizes why Australasia is so advantageous:



So the literal meaning of Hurley's statement seems clear. But what about the ironic significance I alluded to earlier? Later in the same episode (i.e., 4:9) Ben accuses Charles Widmore of changing the rules of the "game." That could mean many things, but the objective of the game of Risk suggests one highly plausible candidate: world domination. Perhaps the two are vying for control of the planet with "Australia" as the key.

I put "Australia" in quotes because I don't believe the writers were referring to the Land Down Under. It's tempting to think otherwise given the prevalence of Australia in flashbacks. But that's because most of the flashbacks over the first few seasons involved survivors of a flight from Sydney. As the cast has expanded, we've met many characters with no apparent connection at all to Australia, including Desmond, the Others, and Widmore's freighter crew.

In my opinion, the reference was to the Island itself, which is obviously a point of strategic importance to Ben and Widmore both. And what makes the Island the "key" to their "game"? Part of the answer may be its isolation in spacetime, which makes it more defensible like Australasia in Risk. But its real significance was summarized best by Locke, who explained: "It's not an island. It's a place where miracles happen."



Stated another way, the Island is a place where the infinitely improbable is entirely possible, even routine. It's a place where 72 passengers survive a catastrophic plane crash with mostly minor injuries, where terminal cancer and paralysis are cured, where time travel actually happens -- all against preposterously long odds. It's the kind of place one might very well analogize to a "magic box," where dreams become reality.

Ask yourself, why did Dharma pick the Island as the location for their experiments? The secure design of the stations and the the sonic fence around the barracks suggest they knew it was hostile. Bringing people by submarine had to be difficult. Why go to the trouble? Dharma realized the Island is ruled by the physics of the improbable. It's one of the few places they might actually succeed in altering the Valenzetti Equation's grim probability forecast.



If that sounds familiar, you may be a fan of Douglas Adams's works. One technological premise of his Hitchhiker's series is the infinite improbability drive, which exploits quantum mechanics to enable instantaneous travel across the universe. Its activation has all kinds of random and unpredictable side effects -- e.g., turning nuclear missiles into sperm whales and petunias. Now that we know the Island moves, maybe it's really one big infinite improbability drive!

The physics of improbability also resonates with the works of Stanislaw Lem. His novel Solaris, in which cosmonaut Kelvin investigates the fate of scientists studying a sentient planet that manifests their dreams, is a major inspiration for Lost. Another of Lem's short stories features the "improbability automatic," a gun that slays dragons of probability by making them less likely -- again with strange side effects. What was it the Blast Door Map said? "Here be dragons..."



Improbability physics is nonsense, but there's an interesting scientific parallel. General relativity and our everyday experience suggest that the universe is an orderly, predictable place. At the atomic level, however, quite the opposite is true. Quantum mechanics tells us that uncertainty rules the universe at very small scales. Here's a great explanation by physicist Brian Greene of this basic contradiction between general relativity and quantum mechanics:



Like Greene's Quantum Cafe, the Island seems to be a place where the laws of quantum mechanics are experienced even at macroscopic scales. As a result, "there's a chance that things we'd ordinarily think of as impossible can actually happen." The main example Greene discusses is walking through walls. Do you suppose it's just a coincidence that Hurley specifically mentioned (in episode 3:17) that the Flash can "vibrate through walls and stuff"?



That's what makes the Island a "place where miracles happen" and "the key to the whole game" of world domination. Let's just hope our Quantum Cafe doesn't also turn out to be the Restaurant at the End of the Universe!

America the Beautiful...

There are no red states, or blue states, only the Island:


Graphic courtesy of the talented Mike Garrett of Triple Point Studios

In all seriousness, I try not to be political on this blog, but something happened yesterday that transcends politics. Much like Barack, I'm a minority, the product of a mixed-race couple, one of whom was an immigrant. I owe everything that I am to the American Dream. Yet I used to secretly scoff when I overheard minorities tell their children that anyone can grow up to be President in America. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd live to see a black man elected Commander-in-Chief. Never have I been so ecstatic to be so wrong...

A few years ago, I went to see the film Legally Blond. As the closing credits rolled, I saw a little Latina girl applauding furiously as her immigrant father smiled and looked on, no doubt dreaming of his daughter's Crimson future. It's important that our children believe they can grow up to be anything they want to be, but that's not enough by itself. To become reality, adults have to believe the dream, too, or it inevitably gets deferred. That's why Barack Obama's election is so key. For the first time since I was a kid, I really believe, in my heart of hearts, that anything is possible in America.

Beautiful...

Dr. Chang, I Presume...

Another year, another Comic-Con. And with it, comes an intriguing new Dharma video starring Francois Chau. This time, he identifies himself as theoretical astrophysicist Pierre Chang and reveals that his other names (i.e., Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund, and Edgar Halliwax) are lies. Dr. Chang claims to be broadcasting through a "pinhole" 30 years into the future. He displays knowledge of current events and claims to know from a "reliable" source that he'll be dead from the Purge by the time we receive the broadcast.



Obviously, this is meant mainly as a teaser for the new alternative reality game, the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project. But I believe there are also some important clues contained in Dr. Chang's video transmission. Here's what I've noticed so far:

Pierre Chang: My guess is his new name is a sly reference to the actor who plays him. Pierre=Francois, and Chang=Chau.

Theoretical Astrophysics: Dr. Chang identifies himself as a professor of theoretical astrophysics from the University of Michigan -- the same institution as the DeGroots. Chang's area of study reminds me of another famous astrophysicist, J. Richard Gott of Princeton. I've written before about Dr. Gott's potential relevance to the show, particularly his interest in doomsday equations and time travel. Could Gott be the inspiration for Chang?

Kerr Metric: Dr. Chang came to the Island to study the Kerr Metric, which is also mentioned on Daniel Faraday's chalkboard and in his journal. The Kerr Metric is a solution to General Relativity that describes the geometry of spacetime around a massive rotating body. In the case of a rotating black hole, the Kerr Metric predicts a region of spacetime where time travel into the past is theoretically possible.

At a minimum, the writers are using "Kerr Metric" to signal time travel, much like they used "Casimir effect" as shorthand for "wormhole." But consider the whackadoo possibility that the Island's bubble in spacetime is located within the "safe" region of a massive rotating black hole and accessible by a wormhole. As with the best Lost explanations, this one toes the line between science fact and fiction. Physicist Igor Novikov hypothesizes that information and energy might be extracted from the interior of a Kerr black hole via wormholes.

30 Years: Dr. Chang mentions that he's transmitting through a "pinhole" (presumably, in spacetime) 30 years into the future. I believe this time interval is a reference to the film Frequency, which I've mentioned before in various posts. In the movie, solar activity opens a wormhole that swallows a communications satellite, allowing a son to make radio contact with his deceased father 30 years in the past. Aside from the shared time interval, there are other Lost parallels, including a character named Jack Sheppard. Elizabeth Mitchell, who portrays Juliet on Lost, also stars in the film.

The question is whether Chang's link is similarly two way -- can he receive messages in addition to sending them? His foreknowledge of the presidency of George W. Bush, the existence of the internet, and the death of the Dharma scientists in the Purge all seems to indicate the answer is yes. But there's also the question of Chang's "reliable" source...

Reliable Source: My instinct is Chang's source isn't just a voice at the other end of a radio link. I believe it's someone physically in his presence. Initially, I thought it might be Ben, who gained foreknowledge of events through some combination of the Island/Jacob. But a number of posters have raised an even more intriguing possibility. Listen again to the voice off-camera who converses with Chang. Doesn't it sound like Daniel Faraday's? Maybe he eventually travels back in time from 2008 to 1978...

Mysterious Object: The inference of physical time travel is bolstered by a mysterious object on the shelf behind Dr. Chang. The camera lingers on this item quite conspicuously, leading me to believe it's significant. At first, I thought it might be a notebook -- either Daniel's or maybe even the Black Rock Ledger. Here again, however, other posters have persuaded me to think again. What if Dr. Chang has firsthand knowledge of the internet? Maybe the mysterious object over his left shoulder is, in fact, a laptop computer...