Thoughts on He's Our You...

One of my few complaints with Lost is that the show doesn't always successfully combine character development with mythological revelation in the same episode. We've reached that part of every season where wrinkles in spacetime take a backseat to Claire's pigeons and the love tesseract of Jack, Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate. I realize not every episode can be the Constant, but just a spoonful of sugar (e.g., another shot of the four-toed foot) helps the medicine go down.

He's Our You definitely fell into the character-driven category. And as such, the episode frustrated me initially. We learned that Sayid was a stone-cold killer even as a child, but fresh insights into his motivations as an adult were lacking. I kept waiting for some revelation (e.g., that Ben had tricked him into killing innocents) that would explain his bloodlust for little Ben. But the flashbacks simply reiterated what we already knew about Sayid working for Ben as an assassin.

Then it hit me. While ostensibly Sayid-centric, the episode didn't aim to explain our ersatz Iraqi's behavior at all. This was really the continuation of Ben's tale. Over the next few episodes, we'll learn all about why he acted the way he did as an adult. And even if it's looking less likely that Ben is the good guy he claims to be, such horrible childhood traumas -- his mother's death, the abuse by his father, getting shot by Sayid -- also make it hard to peg him merely as a villain.

I believe Ben's story is building to the revelation that he's been trying to break the causal loop that deposited our Losties in the past. The catch is that the law of course correction prevents him from making drastic changes like killing Sayid before he travels back in time. So Ben has been following the general pattern of events, making whatever minor alterations he can in hopes their cumulative effect will destabilize history just enough to reboot his so-called life.

Remember what Ms. Hawking told Jack? She warned that he must recreate the circumstances of the original crash or the results would be unpredictable. Desmond said something similar about following his visions as closely as possible or risk changing the picture on the box. I think that's why Ben turned the Donkey Wheel despite knowing that Locke was supposed to be the one who did so. The substitution was Ben's last gambit to change the picture on the box.

Unfortunately, last night's shooting seems to suggest that Ben's efforts to change history have failed. As Daniel Faraday would say, whatever happened, happened. In that regard, fans of Sayid can take heart. At first, I was worried that the lack of new information in his flashbacks meant that his story was nearly done. Now, however, I have to wonder if it's Ben whose end is near. With the effort to change his history a failure, all that may remain is for Ben to accept his fate and be judged by Smokey.

Here, in the spirit of Herb Caen, are some three-dot thoughts on the episode:

I BROUGHT YOU A BOOK. The book little Ben brings Sayid is A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda. It's actually the second in a series of three purportedly describing Castaneda's studies with a Yaqui Indian tickle-, uh, sorcerer named don Juan Matus. There are lots of Lost connections, including the notion of drawing energy from the universe, which could refer to vacuum or zero-point energy from the fabric of spacetime itself. Over the course of his studies with don Juan, Castaneda learns to perceive reality in ways most people don't, another very Lost-like concept. Part of this process involves psychedelic drugs like those given by Locke to Boone and by Oldham to Sayid. I also wonder if little Ben's reading suggestion refers to the controversy surrounding the veracity of Castaneda's works, which many believe are sheer fiction. That fits well with the recurring theme of the long con on Lost.

RADZINKSY, I GOT THIS. My friend MB once told me an hilarious cautionary tale he heard from a Hollywood executive about the evils of expository dialogue. The exec described one particularly bad example that ended with one character asking another: "And what do you think we should do, Mr. Water Commissioner?" I thought of that story as the names of new characters like Radzinsky and Oldham kept getting emphasized in dialogue in totally unnatural ways. I understand why Lost does it -- they're worried we'll get confused otherwise. But I sometimes wish the writers would take a page from the Wire and pander a little less to viewers, who already understand that watching Lost will require some attention and reviewing. I think this would also help ease the introduction of new characters, which the show sometimes has trouble doing -- e.g., Locke's awkward introduction of Nikki and Paulo in a scene that seemed solely designed to give an excuse to say their names...

I CAN'T JUST LET YOU GO. Like Sayid, I initially found it odd that Sawyer seemed to prioritize his loyalty to Dharma over his fellow crash survivors. Then Sayid reminded us that they were only together on the Island for 100 days, as compared to the last three years Sawyer spent connecting with the Dharma folks. It's only natural that Sawyer at least feel torn. I have a feeling this difference in perspective will create some interesting conflicts over the rest of the season. None of the Oceanic 6 feels any loyalty to Dharma. Even more importantly, they haven't had time to internalize Faraday's rule of time travel that whatever happened, happened. We saw how quickly Sayid fell prey to the temptation to try to change the future by killing Ben. In previous recaps, I've speculated that someone will try to alter the timeline by sabotaging the Swan station. I wonder if it will be Jack, as foreshadowed by his clash with Sawyer in Namaste...

HE'S OUR YOU. The casting of William Sanderson, probably best known for playing Larry (brother of the two Darryls) on Newhart, was a nice touch. Along with the music blaring from the old-time record player and the teepee, it helped create a super creepy vibe that fit with warnings by Sawyer et al. that Oldham was a maniac. Unfortunately, the payoff where Oldham doses Sayid with LSD, was totally anticlimactic -- far less disturbing than when Sayid tortured Sawyer in Season 1. I was reminded of the letdown when we learned that the aliens in Signs could be defeated by water... I was surprised to learn that LSD is actually used worldwide as an interrogation drug. I liked that aspect of the scene, I just wish they had sold Oldham differently, maybe as a mad scientist who also invented the brainwashing film in Room 23... How long before Radzinsky connects Sayid's plane references to Jin's frantic questions in Namaste? ...So Karen and Gerald DeGroot are still in Michigan?

ANOTHER MACCUTCHEON, PLEASE. Does Sayid drinking MacCutcheon make him a great man like Widmore? ...Ilana's outraaaaaaageous accent sounds fake to me... Who do you supposed hired her, and what was the real motive? I'm increasingly convinced the answers to these questions are the keys to unlocking a much larger mystery. In my recap above, I suggested that big Ben was trying to reboot his life by preventing Sayid from killing him. After rewatching, however, I find myself wondering the reverse. Was big Ben trying to train Sayid to be the kind of cold-blooded killer who wouldn't hesitate to shoot a child? Perhaps that's why the writers made such a point of emphasizing Ben's abuse -- they wanted us to feel the difficulty of Sayid's task. Maybe Ben's not disrupting events, but rather effectuating them, with his manipulations. Ilana claims not to know Ben, but he still strikes me as the one most likely to have hired her. The only other candidate I can see is Widmore -- or perhaps Ms. Hawking.

WHO WILL SAVE LITTLE BEN? A number of you speculated quite plausibly that Jack will be the one who does the deed. Such a scenario would parallel well Jack saving Ben as an adult, sort of like how Sayid killed for Ben as an adult before attempting to kill him as a child. But if I were a betting man, my money would be on Juliet to save little Ben. I think that's why Ben worshiped her as an adult, and why he was so insistent that Juliet stay on the Island. He remembered her saving him and wanted to make sure she would be there to do the job...

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

Thoughts on Namaste...

I like to describe Lost as the sci-fi equivalent of Memento because both are stories told in reverse. They establish mysteries at the outset that are then answered by moving viewers backwards in time. Memento is actually a linear narrative structured in non-linear fashion to create the mystery. Time travel serves the same basic purpose on Lost. For the past few seasons we've puzzled over strange coincidences involving our Losties and the Island. And now, as that talking boar who peed in Sawyer's tent might say, it's all finally coming back around.



I believe Namaste is the beginning of some major revelations that will totally recontextualize our understanding of certain characters' relationships to each other and the Island. I have a number of whackadoo speculations in this regard, but I want to highlight a few given the introduction of Radzinsky, the return of young Ben, and the naming of Horace and Amelia's baby as Ethan. Let's start with Radz, who I suspect is really Leonard Simms, the mental patient who obsessively repeated the Numbers and admonished Hurley for "opening the box."



Both are obviously bald, but that hardly narrows it down. The glasses aren't the same, but they're awfully similar. Maybe Radzinsky developed a preference for the same general type of frame the way some people pick a style of dress upon adulthood and refuse to deviate from it. Bottom line: I could see Lenny plausibly being an older version of Radz.



For this to work, however, a lot of what we think we know -- Radzinsky's suicide, how Lenny and Sam Toomey overheard the Numbers, etc. -- would be lies. Here's my alternate version of events: Radz got wind of the Purge from his vantage point in the Flame. He made radio contact with military liason Sam, who promised to send help. Radz then went to secure the Swan button, which he pushed until relief arrived in the form of Kelvin. Radz escaped by conning Kelvin into assuming the button duty much as the Kelvin would later try doing to Desmond.

Speaking of the Purge, the return of its perpetrator as a boy has inspired a whackadoo speculation about Ben and Juliet. I believe she's the subject of the painting that will hang in Ben's house as an adult.



The woman in the painting is blonde like Juliet, and she could be holding a field mouse, which was the subject of Juliet's fertility research. As Capcom perceptively notes, the two women share the same Mona Lisa smile. I suspect young Ben will develop a huge crush on hippy Juliet. (I know I have!) She will convince the boy to spring Sayid and take him to Ricardus Alpert. This act will prove Ben's loyalty to the Others and start him down the road to becoming their leader. In this way, Juliet will play a pivotal role in effectuating the future we know.



The last example I'd like to highlight is Amy, who I believe is actually Amelia, the elder Other we met A Tale of Two Cities . Admittedly, Amy and Amelia don't look very much alike, and it's hard to imagine Amy joining the people who murdered both of her husbands. Then again, I've seen shots of Reiko Aylesworth, the actress who plays Amy, with straight hair like Amelia's. And if Ethan can forgive the Others for killing his father, maybe Amy can, too. I know it's not much, but my gut still tells me the older and younger woman will turn out to be one and the same.



Okay, enough with the over-analysis of photographs. Here, in the spirit of Herb Caen, are some three-dot thoughts on Namaste:

YOU'D BETTER FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT. Notice the change from night to day after Ajira 316 gets hit by the flash. They apparently jumped in time like Ben and Locke did after turning the Wheel... Was it my imagination, or did the plane's radio pick up the Numbers transmission as they were landing? Perhaps that transmission came from 1977 through whatever window Jack and Co. traveled through to land in the time of Dharma. It's almost like they hit a fork in time when they entered the wormhole -- Jack and Co. went one way while the rest of the plane went another... Interesting to see the effect of passing through the Island's wormhole on an airplane minus the effect of the Swan station. The instruments failed like Oceanic 815 but the plane remained otherwise intact unlike its predecessor... In a recent podcast, team Darlton suggested that Jacob told Ben to build the runway. I can buy that, though I find myself wondering if Jacob, like Dave, is a mental manifestation of the character of the Island, which goes by many names.

YOU'VE BEEN ASSIGNED TO THE SHED. Like many of you, I found it hilarious how Jack seemed miffed by his assignment as janitor. But what really struck me was Dr. Chang's explanation that Jack scored low on the aptitude test. I think this was primarily meant to evoke the tests participants took in the most recent ARG, the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project. Yet the assignment of jobs based on aptitude also struck me as almost Platonic, albeit minus the noble lie. Despite all the flowers and peasant blouses (a great look for Kate, BTW) this was no hippy commune. Dharma seems to have dispensed with any egalitarian or democratic pretense -- it was clear who gave orders and who took them. That realization has me wondering once again just what the Initiative's purpose really was. In posts like Catastrophe, I've suggested that the Dharma was devoted to studying life in the aftermath of planetary catastrophe. We know there's a nuclear bomb (i.e., the Jughead) on the Island. What if the plan included eventually exposing this prototype community to actual nuclear explosion? ...By the way, how perfectly cast is Patrick Fischler as security agent Phil? He positively radiates suspicion and brilliantly toes the line between ridiculous and menacing...

HE SAW THE MODEL OF THE SWAN. I'll be curious to see how accurate Radzinsky's warning proves to be about the need to keep the Swan secret from the Others. Team Darlton have led us to believe in podcasts that Radz survived the Purge because the Others didn't know about the Swan until after Oceanic 815 crashed. But the elaborate precautions he took to hide the Blast Door Map suggest he was worried somone might be watching him over the cameras. Then again, if that were the case, why not just disable the cameras? ...Were the Others really the cause of the Incident? Even if they were, I continue to believe our Losties will play a role, as well. As I described in my recap of La Fleur, I suspect that one of them -- possibly Daniel -- will try to sabotage construction of the Swan. In my most whackadoo moments, I worry the Incident will be caused by detonation of the Jughead, and that Dan will die trying to protect our Losties (and young Charlotte) from its effects... Speaking of the Swan, was it just me, or did its blueprints show a much larger structure than the station we saw back in Season 2?

IT'S PROBABLY JUST AN ANIMAL. In this episode, we go the monster, the whispers, and Zombie Christian, suggesting to me these are all manifestations of the same force (i.e., the Cerberus security system)... I find it interesting how Christian continues to refer to himself as such. Clearly, the dead resurrected by Smokey retain some sense of memory and identity. I wonder if they have a choice whether or not to serve the Island's interests... Othersville looked pretty devastated, presumably due to the attack by Keamy's crew and subsequent appearance of Smokey. Has the latter been hanging out there since repelling Keamy and Co.? ...Zombie Christian first mentions the year 1972. Can we assume that this was the start of the Dharma Initiative as we've seen it? And how does Christian know our Losties are in 1977? ...Speaking of '77, I wonder if Sun wasn't taken back in time because she failed to bring her daughter. I'm guessing both Ji Yeon and Aaron will end up on the Island, and that Desmond will be the one who brings them...

ONE LAST THING. A number of you with more eagle eyes than mine noticed a woman crouching in the shadows behind Sun. I watched the scene again in HD with some tweaks to enhance the brightness. It could be Claire, but I'm skeptical for a couple of reasons. First, you can see the woman put on what appears to be a pair of headphones, suggesting to me she was a member of the sound crew. Second, an even more importantly, I can't imagine them including Claire without mentioning or at least showing her clearly. For that reason, I think any future appearances by Ms. Littleton will be played by Emilie de Ravin herself.

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

What I Meant to Say...

One minor frustration of blogging about Lost is that there's no easy way for commenters to "bump" old posts like you can on an internet bulletin board. Sure, I could just repost a speculation or recap, but I would lose all your comments, which defeats the purpose. I particularly think this discourages folks from discussing episodes that have already aired.

So, at the excellent suggestion of Wayne Allen Sallee, I'm opening the discussion up this week to your comments about anything and everything that's happened on the show thus far. Forget to mention something really cool after your favorite past episode? Let us know! Have a question about some prior speculation advanced on this blog? Fire away!

It doesn't even need to be completely serious. For example, here's something that I meant to say following the Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. I frankly found it amusing the way Locke rolled over and vomited after landing in the Tunisian desert. Disturbing...but also kind of funny the way spontaneous barfing can be. See, e.g., Monty Python.



I couldn't help wondering if this was a college football reference. Last season, Kevin Barnes of Maryland hit California Golden Bears receiver Jahvid Best so hard that the latter barfed a bizarre neon-green substance. Within hours, clips of the hit were all over the internet with titles like "What Did Jahvid Best Eat for Breakfast?" Answer: "we called it Gatorade."



The puking parallel strikes me as deeply significant and a potential game changer. There have been other sports shoutouts -- e.g., the writers have joked that the name Kevin Johnson was a reference to the former Cal and Phoenix Suns point guard of the same name. I wonder if anyone on the staff is a college sports fan generally, or alum of U.C. Berkeley specifically...

Thoughts on LaFleur...

One perk of living in Los Angeles is hearing the legendary Vin Scully call games for the Dodgers, a local baseball franchise. I hate the Dodgers, but Vin is perhaps my favorite announcer of any sport, ever. It's not just his objectivity and lyrical delivery. What also sets Vin apart is his knowledge of a wide variety of subjects besides sports. When, for example, pitcher Osiris Matos takes the mound, Vin loves to launch into a discourse on Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld.



I thought of Vin and his ancient Egyptian obsession last night as we saw not one, but two, offspring of the mythical Osiris referenced on Lost. The first was the four-toed statue, which I'm guessing was Anubis, the jackal-headed guardian of the afterlife. The Egyptians believed that Anubis was responsible for weighing the hearts of all souls seeking entrance to the underworld. The Greeks (e.g., Plato) called Anubis the "dog god" and associated him with Cerberus.



I'm reminded of one of my all-time favorite speculations, first articulated by Lost blogger lacenaire. The Island is based upon myths and legends concerning Amenti, the Egyptian land of the dead. Much of what we know about Amenti comes from the Book of the Dead. This acient Egyptian funerary text contains many striking parallels to Lost -- e.g., references to recovery of the use of lost limbs and trial before the 42 divine judges of Osiris, to name just two.



At some point in the distant past, Egyptians found the Island and began worshiping its security system as Anubis. Their reports of the Island's miraculous powers became the basis for the accounts of Amenti in sacred texts. Interestingly, the Book of the Dead also describes an eternal battle between the two opposing forces of nature, light and darkness. This battle will supposedly rage until the birth of a new baby Horus, who promises to restore the divine order of the Cosmos.

And that brings me to the second nod in last night's episode to an offspring of mythical Osiris. The name Horace Goodspeed is a reference to his son Horus, the Egyptian sky god and leader of the aforementioned forces of light. I've touched before upon the messianic pun of the name Horus/Horace. At first, I figured it was a clue to some secret objective of the Dharma Initiative to scientifically engineer a new messiah. After last night's episode, however, I have to wonder...



Obviously, the identity of Horace and Amy's baby is big question mark. We know it's a boy, and I'll bet he's a character we've already met as an adult. I also suspect that, since he was born on the Island, he's someone with a strong connection to it. I know that doesn't narrow it down much, so this is probably premature. But if you're willing to follow me down the whackadoo well, consider the possibility that we just witnessed the birth of an Island messiah named Jacob.



Sorry for the delay in updating. Here at long last, in the spirit of Herb Caen, are some three-dot thoughts on La Fleur:

YOU WERE AMAZING TODAY. Judging by your comments, this episode really touched a nerve. It seems that at least part of what determined whether you loved or hated it was whether you bought Sawyer and Juliet settling down together in Dharmaville. As M the Alien kindly reminds me, I've been a proponent of those two kissing in a tree since as far back as There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 and 3. I feel their chemistry has only improved throughout this season, so it's no surprise that, like a lot of you, I loved this episode.

But Skaters take heart! Sawyer's choice of alias -- i.e., La Fleur, which is French for "the flower" -- may be a clue that his relationship with Juliet is merely a dalliance. I suspect it refers to the alias (i.e., Flower) chosen by Leopold Bloom to correspond with his mistress in Ulysses, the novel Ben was reading on Ajira 316. That episode of Ulysses parallels the Land of the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey, where Odysseus and Co. meet a people who feed them soporific lotus flowers that cause the Greeks to lose their desire to return home.

The implication may be that Sawyer and Juliet's relationship and the last three years generally have been a kind of fantasy for the Lefties. Like the phone jarring Sawyer and Juliet from their sleep, the Lefties' dream existence as members of Dharma is about to end with the return of Kate and the rest of the Oceanic 6...

YOUR BUDDY OUT THERE WITH THE EYELINER. Sawyer's reference to Richard wearing guyliner was a joke -- Nestor Carbonell's eyelashes are naturally dark. Still, it's hard to ignore the timing in an episode filled with Egyptian references. I'm with those who think it's a hint that Alpert, like the foot of Anubis, is a living relic of the Island's ancient Egyptian past. Someone eventually would have played this role -- the faith equivalent of Faraday. The failure of Carbonell's other project Cain (the Lords of Kobol heard my prayer) made him the natural choice in so many ways...

An immortal Richard also fits with the aforementioned Ulysses reference. Many Joyce scholars have noted the way main character Leopold Bloom combines elements of Odysseus with the Wandering Jew, who taunted Jesus on the road to cucifixion and was cursed to wander the Earth until the Second Coming. I've suggested before that Richard's agelessness might refer to this medieval myth. This could also explain his role as a kind of Panchen Lama. Did Richard somehow deny the Island its messiah by refusing to take Locke as a young child?

DID YOU BURY THE BOMB? I loved how Sawyer turned the tables on Richard with inside references like the Jughead. What compelled me was the way Sawyer, usually the consummate bluffer, put all his cards on the table. For some reason, that act of authenticity helped me to believe his transformation from reviled con man into respectable figure of authority ala Han Solo in Star Wars. I think another big factor in whether people liked La Fleur was whether they bought that character arc. And, for the foregoing reasons, I really believed it...

Speaking of the Jughead, I've got a whackadoo speculation of how that part of the story will play out. The Swan Orientation film mentions an Incident, and Kelvin suggested that it involved a leak of the Island's exotic engergy. What if detonation of the Jughead is what causes the Incident? The explosion may be a mistake -- the result of Dharma drilling unwittingly where the Others buried the bomb. In my more whackadoo moments, however, I think someone (Daniel?) will detonate the Jughead in an effort to sabotage the Dharma Initiative...

THAT FENCE MAY KEEP OTHER THINGS OUT.... I was struck by Richard's comment, which presumably refers to the Cerberus security system since we've actually seen the fence repel Smokey. What continues to mystify me is why Dharma needed protection from Smokey when there was a control room located right underneath a house in Dharmaville. Was the access tunnel some later modification by Ben? Or does its presence imply that Dharma once operated with blessing of, or even controlled, the Cerberus security system?

I think part of the answer may relate to the nature of that truce Richard mentioned between Dharma and the Others. Were the latter always hostile to the former? If not, what sparked the hostilities? And most importantly, what drove the parties to their truce? Considering the ease with which Richard entered Dharmaville, as well as his comment about the fence not keeping "us" out, I get the sense the Others could have purged Dharma almost any time they wanted. What authority restrained them from doing so much sooner? Was it...Jacob?

I'M NOT GOING TO DO IT. When the rest of the Lefties found Daniel, he was muttering this line. Many of you, myself included, interpreted him to be talking about little Charlotte. Despite Dan's conviction that whatever happened, happened, he seems determined not to tell Charlotte to leave this time around. By virtue of her new memory before dying, Faraday now faces the same basic dilemma as Desmond did with Charlie. Dan has received the equivalent of a flash of future events that may be linked to Charlotte's death. Can he resist the urge to change things?

I say he'll try, but that fate will intervene. As 80sPro notes, Dan has already become the babbling madman who will scare little Charlotte. He may simply be unable to resist the urge to save her. Indeed, if you watch the scene in slow motion where he sees her skipping across Dharmaville, you can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half. I'm guessing, however, that some threat to the Island will force Faraday's hand. Hence my aforementioned Jughead speculation. Even if Dan doesn't detonate the thing himself, he'll have to save Charlotte from the threat...

That's all for this episode -- let me know what you think! As always, you're welcome to post anonymously, but please identify yourself somehow, so I can distinguish between anonymous posters. Thanks!

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.