After nine painfully long months, wracked with fears and uncertainty, yesterday evening the big day finally arrived, and the sixth season of Lost entered the world, full of hope and promise. Though its gestation hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, the real hard part is just beginning, as we have to figure out what we're supposed to do in this new, unfamiliar, and intimidating situation in which we find ourselves, namely, the wrapping up of one of the greatest television series of all time. (OK, I'm done with the pregnancy metaphor. Though you have to admit, it is apropos.)
— I DON'T LIKE THE WAY SPOILERS TASTE ON MY TONGUE. —
The other line from last night's episode that I was thinking of using for the post title was Locke's alleged last thought before death: "I don't understand." Although tragically poignant, and certainly fitting given what a sad, pathetic, gullible failure Locke turned out to be (maybe), I think it would have been much more applicable to my thoughts about the show at the end of the fifth season, as a new, previously unseen (or so we thought) being entered the scene, Ben murdered the apparently not-so-all-powerful Jacob, and "Locke" was revealed to be a vengeful, if very patient, imposter. "LA X," on the other hand, clarified and focused a lot of things for me amid all the continuing mystery: The lines seem pretty clearly drawn between Jacob's followers—the Others and the "shadow of the statue" people (that is, Ilana and whoever didn't go into the foot with Bram)—and (though they may not understand it yet) the 815 survivors on the one hand, and Loophole on the other.
Speaking of which, unfortunately we're stuck having to call Jacob's nemesis "Loophole" for at least a little longer. (I was so sure Richard was going to say his name last night!) One thing's for certain, we don't want to call him "the Monster." (If we did, I keep thinking of Michael Bluth suddenly showing up and saying, "Don't call him that." Now that's a crossover I'd pay good, hard cash to see.)
Both Jacob and Loophole seem to think of themselves—or at least describe themselves—as the "good guy." Jacob favors free will, and in "The Incident" tells Ben that he has a choice whether to kill him. Loophole speaks in terms of liberation; he seems to see Jacob's followers as his slaves, whom he sets free by having Ben kill their master. But even though Loophole, like Jacob, speaks of freedom, it seems to be a more determinist, less voluntarist, conception: Since Jacob's followers can't have freely chosen to follow him, then the only way to free them is to eliminate Jacob. Whether either position is more than just rhetoric remains to be seen. However, this raises age-old questions about freedom and will. Can one freely give up one's freedom? The voluntarist would say yes, that even giving obedience is an exercise of one's will. (This is similar to the Stoics' belief that no one was a slave who didn't allow himself to be a slave; even obedience requires the choice to obey.) The determinist would say no, that choice and will are illusions and that the only way to become free is for the circumstances that make one a slave to be removed; servitude is servitude, plain and simple, and the slave's supposed "assent" to his master's commands doesn't change that.
And speaking of slavery, could Loophole's comment to Richard—"It's good to see you out of those chains."—if taken literally, mean that Richard had been brought to the Island on the Black Rock, a slave ship? If the ship that we saw near the Island at the beginning of "The Incident" was the Black Rock, then Loophole certainly could've met Richard if he was on board.
So the idea—and Juliet's intended final words, "It worked," bear this out—is that the conjunction of Jughead's detonation and the electromagnetic energy at the Swan site caused a second timeline to come into being and branch off from the one we know, a timeline in which Desmond never mans the Swan station—because the explosion sank the Island in 1977, perhaps by "moving" it à la the Orchid, but downward?—and Oceanic 815 arrives in Los Angeles after a relatively uneventful flight. Juliet, meanwhile, is never recruited by the Others; she may still be working for her jerk of an ex-husband, but at least she doesn't have to worry about losing Sawyer, which was her whole purpose for helping to detonate Jughead. Of course, this isn't the flight 815 we're familiar with, and I thought I'd try to take account of the differences that I noticed (other than stuff like longer hair; I honestly don't remember Jack's hair being different during the first season):
- The big one, of course, is Desmond's being on the flight. Why was he in Australia, and why was he flying to LA?
- Hurley believes that he as good luck, not bad.
- Charlie was in the bathroom coughing up a bag of heroin, not trying to take it.
- Though we don't actually know this, I seriously doubt that Jin was carrying all that money on the original flight 815, since it never came up.
- Christian Shephard's entire coffin is missing, not just his body.
- Locke actually went on his walkabout (assuming he wasn't lying to Boone).
- There may be a significance to items that passengers lost (cue portentous music) during the flight, not just Jack's father (or, as Locke pointed out, just his body), but also Locke's knives and Charlie's guitar (I doubt they let him take that with him when they arrested him).
There are also at least a couple potential differences that I spotted, but I can't say until we get a bit more information:
- Does the new timeline's Sun speak English? I know that the long pause after she was asked at customs suggests that she does but was keeping it hidden (for the same reason that the old timeline's Sun kept it hidden), but different circumstances in her and Jin's post-1977 lives could account for her never planning to leave him, and thus never learning English.
- Is the new timeline's Claire pregnant? We only see her briefly in the back seat of the cab when Kate hijacks it, from the neck or so up, so for all we know there's no Aaron on the way in the alternate 2004.
Something else I noticed was, in addition to Shannon, there's no sign of Michael, Walt, or the Tailies (Ana Lucia, Eko, and Libby). Unfortunately, these are probably all explained by the actors rather than the storyline, i.e., not being on good terms with the producers, being several years too old, getting homesick for foggy London town, and not being welcome on the public roads of the State of Hawaii. But of course, who knows what the future may have in store?
At this point I don't have a whole lot to say about the new timeline, since there doesn't seem to be such going on mythologically speaking (yet) other than the various little differences from the original timeline, but one thing that stood out clearly, and that I was very happy to see, was the little character interactions upon which, in the end, Lost is built, and which are allowed to take center stage a bit more with less wheel turning, Monster avoiding, and space-time continuum rupturing going on. In particular, I was just pleased as punch watching Jack and Locke's little conversation at LAX. I hope that we get a lot more little interludes like that over the upcoming months.
In addition to splintering off an alternate timeline involving missing luggage, arrested rock stars, and terrible CGI, the Incident tossed the 815 folk, Miles, and what was left of Juliet thirty years into the original timeline's future, to the night of Jacob's demise. (The fact that there was nothing left of them in 1977 after Jughead's detonation could explain why Richard says that he saw all of them die, i.e., he saw an explosion (or whatever the Incident looked like) and didn't see them walk away from it.) Obviously there's a lot going on here that will only be fleshed out as the season progresses, but as things stand right now battle lines are being drawn between Jacob's followers and Loophole, with the Temple apparently about to come under assault, Richard out of commission, and a lot of confused airline passengers caught in the middle. Meanwhile, Sayid dies, takes a dip in the nastiest-looking fountain of youth I think I've ever seen (really, they should call somebody about that), and returns to life—but is he the same Sayid we knew? Its healing—and perhaps immortality-granting in Richard's case—waters are undoubtedly what healed little Ben of his gunshot wound in 1977, but if the process "took away his innocence" and made him "one of them," then can we expect the same for Sayid? What's the significance of the fact that the water was murky instead of clear as usual?
Also, someone who wasn't shown or mentioned last night was Charles Widmore. What role, knowingly or ignorantly, is he playing in all this? Whose side, other than his own, is he on? Is he working with Loophole to overthrow Ben and Richard, and with them Jacob, in order to retake the Island? Is he hoping to play a similar role under Loophole as they played under Jacob? Or is he planning, like Saruman, to play along with Loophole only until he's strong enough to overthrow him as well and take total control? Here's what we know: He knew enough about the importance of Oceanic 815 to put a fake wreck at the bottom of the ocean. He sent a freighter to the Island with a band of utterly ruthless mercenaries to capture Ben and, if necessary, kill everyone else they found. He knows about the warp point (or whatever) between the wheel cave and a spot in the Tunisian desert, at least by 2007 when he set up a camera to monitor that spot. He was very eager to help Locke along his way, not only in 2007 when he had Abaddon shuttle him around to visit the Oceanic Six, but even before he got on Oceanic 815, when Abaddon disguised himself as an orderly and suggested to Locke that he go to Australia for the walkabout.
I haven't even really touched on the implications of the Monster's definitely being a manifestation of Loophole. ("I'm sorry you had to see me like that." "Let's not resort to name calling." Fantastic.) It seems that the circle of ash was keeping him prisoner in the cabin, at least until someone broke the circle (when? who?), but if that's the case, then how has Loophole, in Monster form, been rampaging around the Island since the pilot? Or maybe he was being kept out of the cabin (since the "shadow of the statue" folk expected to find Jacob there), until at some point the circle was broken and he took it over, perhaps impersonating Jacob in doing so. How is the sonar fence surrounding Dharmaville effective against him? How, and why, can Ben summon him, as he did in 2004 against Widmore's mercenaries (nota bene, the fence had been deactivated by Alex, and I don't remember its ever being reactivated) and again in 2007 when "Locke" showed up instead? Why does he—or at least his Monster form—seem to reside under the Temple wall, when the Temple seems to be a Jacob stronghold? How is he a "security system"? (We got that from Rousseau, Rousseau got it from Robert before she shot him, and he got it from . . . Loophole himself after he climbed down under the wall? Speaking of her, is the "sickness" that Rousseau claimed had overcome her team a result of a dip in the Temple pool?)
And now that we're dealing with not multiple points on the same timeline, but two different timelines branching off from the Incident, how will this end up resolving itself (as much as anything "resolves itself" on Lost)? Will consciousnesses begin to jump back and forth between timelines, as Desmond's did in "The Constant"? Will one timeline eventually cease, will they both continue on their merry ways, or will they "merge" into one somehow? Will there continue to be two of each of these characters, or will the universe "correct course" by eliminating the alter-egos until there's just one Jack, one Kate, etc.? What if that happens, and the two timelines continue, but, say, with Jack in the original timeline and Kate in the new one, dividing the cast between two parallel universes?
It's crazy to me, and really exciting, to think that there are still so many possibilities, so much room for speculation, on a series that has five seasons behind it and is supposed to be wrapping up. I love this show.
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