I just thought I'd catch up with the three most recent episodes, "Lighthouse," "Sundown," and "Dr. Linus," and share my thoughts, ideas, and questions. I thought all three were terrific episodes, very entertaining and enjoyable, though in different ways.
(As a very cool sidenote, the director of "Dr. Linus" was none other than Mario Van Peebles, of Heartbreak Ridge, New Jack City, Ali, and the biopic of his groundbreaking father Melvin, BAADASSSSS!)
"Lighthouse" and "Sundown" demonstrate what seem to be Jacob's and Loophole's respective M.O.'s in getting people to do what they want. In the former, Jacob (or his ghost, or whatever) has Hurley lead Jack out of the Temple to the previously unseen and unmentioned lighthouse, where he sees his childhood home in the mirrors; despite Jack's immediate reaction of anger and confusion, it leads him to believe in his importance to Jacob and to the Island's destiny, as seen in his later conversation with Richard inside the Black Rock. Jacob—much like Lost itself—often doesn't give people the whole truth but only what he thinks they need to know at the time, to the point of manipulating them, but ultimately leaves them to reach their own conclusions and make their own decisions. In "Sundown," on the other hand, Loophole promises people whatever they want to hear—that Sawyer will leave the Island, that Claire will get Aaron back, that Sayid will have Nadia, that Ben will rule the Island—and kills those who don't accept his devil's bargain. (Sure, he let Richard live, but perhaps he could tell that he'd try to kill himself within a few episodes anyway. Moreover, given that he killed at least a couple dozen Others at the Temple, the fact that he let one person live doesn't really change the equation that much.)
In "Lighthouse," Jacob told Hurley that he was sending him to the lighthouse—aside from getting him and Jack away from the Temple and letting Jack know he's his special little guy—in order to help someone find the Island. Then, at the end of "Dr. Linus," we see Charles Widmore (whom we haven't seen since last season) in a submarine offshore. Is he the one Jacob was talking about? My first instinct is no, that Jacob (who, while not perfect, seems better at least than Loophole) would never want Widmore (who sent Keamy's mercenaries in the fourth season and told Ben to kill Rousseau and Alex in the fifth) on the Island. But, on second thought, Widmore hasn't really been any more ruthless, devious, or "evil" than the rest of Jacob's followers; his beef seems primarily to be with Ben, who overthrew him and may not have been ruling the Others according to Jacob's wishes (their easy DHARMA-style living during his tenure contrasts with their simple ways before and since); and, most significantly, Widmore helped Locke to bring the Oceanic Six back to the Island, which, given their status as candidates, accords with Jacob's plans. At this point, despite my instinct to see Widmore as the "bad guy" (a dangerously simplistic concept on this show), I think that he's on Jacob's side; whether that'll end up being the "good" side, however, remains to be seen.
So Sayid has given in to the dark side. This is really tragic, given that his arc over the course of the series has been trying to overcome his past, his demons, and his fear that he's a "bad man" and undeserving of redemption or anything good in life. I read somewhere someone comparing him to an alcoholic who struggles for years to overcome his addiction, but finally gives in and embraces the bottle. Similarly, Claire has forsaken all else—friendship, morality, even sanity—in her quest to get Aaron back, turning into a latter-day Rousseau. Though Dogen said that Claire was "claimed" as Sayid was, how this happened remains unclear to me, since he apparently had to die first. Maybe she died in the mercenaries' assault on Dharmaville in the fourth season when a rocket blew up the house she was in, but she seemed fine when Sawyer found her seconds later; reader-of-the-dead Miles seemed weird around her after that, so it's possible that she died and returned to life claimed, but everything about her abandonment of Aaron and her appearance in Jacob's cabin with Christian still seems bizarre to me, so I hope we'll get some answers in that regard.
We've seen more evidence of the original timeline "informing" the new one. We haven't seen the cut on alterna-Jack's neck again, but we got some much clearer evidence in "Lighthouse" in his appendectomy scar; though his mother offers an explanation, the fact that he doesn't seem to recognize it indicates that it doesn't really belong in the new timeline, but is from the appendectomy Juliet gave him in the fourth season ("Something Nice Back Home"). And in "Dr. Linus," the fact that alterna-Ben teaches at Alex's high school, that he acts as her friend and mentor, and that he would sacrifice his own ambition for her sake, seems to show that the hard-learnt realizations of the original timeline—that power, and even the opportunity to do what he thinks is right, aren't worth sacrificing her—are nudging that Ben in a different direction, keeping him from repeating the original Ben's mistakes.
(Speaking of alterna-Alex, as much as I enjoyed Ben's flash-sideways, I had to suspend a lot of disbelief that she would be in LA, given that both her parents are French. I thought that, since her parents were scientists, maybe they held positions at universities in LA, but then I remembered that Alex said her mother had to work two jobs to pay the rent; I know academia can be rough, but not like that. I guess we'll just have to chalk it up to the Rule of Drama.)
I think that these episodes are three among the strongest in recent memory; in fact, these, in addition to "LA X" and "The Substitute," are giving me a lot of confidence about how the writers, directors, and actors will bring Lost to a close. In "Lighthouse," the two Jacks' parallel feelings of being in over their head and out of their element, their frustration and self-doubt, are finally overcome with a new-found sense of meaning, centeredness, and purpose. (Not only that, but it was pretty awesome seeing Jack as a father; it should be very interesting if we get to see more of David, given that daddy issues have defined Jack as a character. I do wonder, though, who his mother is; Jack met Sarah only a few years before taking Oceanic 815, but given how coincidence-prone the new timeline is, I wouldn't rule her out.) "Sundown" managed the rare feat of moving the plot forward briskly, delving into the mythology, giving us great character development and interactions, as well as awesome action and suspense, and having a tense and touching flash-sideways; it was the total package of Lost episodes. Though not much happened plot- or mythology-wise in "Dr. Linus," it was a powerhouse of character development and acting, thanks above all to Michael Emerson's complex and shattering performance. (Seriously, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, just give him and Terry O'Quinn their Emmys now.) Ben's conversation with Ilana after he runs for the rifle ("Because he's the only one that'll have me.") was one of the half-dozen or so most moving scenes in the entire series, up there with Boone's death, Michael's killing Ana Lucia and Libby, the end of the third-season finale ("We have to go back!"), and Alex's death. "Dr. Linus" may be the best episode of the season thus far; I'd expect nothing less from Mr. Van Peebles.
P.S. — As much as I enjoyed "Dr. Linus," I was a little disappointed, at the end with all the happy reunions on the beach, everyone hugging and laughing in slow motion as the score swells, that we didn't see the reunited Ben and Richard slo-mo running across the beach into each other's arms, laughing and crying like a couple of girls. Would've been the perfect cap to a great episode. Oh well, can't have it all.
P.P.S. — Watching Ben and Alex's study session made me want to look up the Charter Act of 1813. That's how much of a history nerd I am. Turns out the answer was "the Punjab, Sindh, and Nepal."
I'm not going to think too hard about what I'm about to say, so if you need to correct/clarify anything for me, feel free:
ReplyDeleteThere was a moment in 'Dr. Linus' that I flagged in my head as the most significant moment in the "sideline" (flash sideways, side timeline, etc - see what I did there?) thus far that you didn't even mention in your post. I'll allow you to tell me whether that was a simple oversight, or the moment was far less important than I thought. Ben's Pops (alive and old) mentioned that they had, in fact, been on the island with Dharma. What does that mean? I had been viewing the sideline as some type of butterfly effect in and alternate reality, but based on some intense research (and by that I mean repeat viewings of Ashton Kutcher's 2004 masterpiece and Treehouse of Horror V) a butterfly effect would have a singular moment of inception. Again, I haven't given much though to this, but I can't place that moment. You are probably going to tell me that it was the bomb going off and that any type of linear timeline is irrelevant, but I don't buy it.
Tangentially, if your assertion is that the bomb simply dropped an alternate Jack, Ben, etc. into a sideline, F$#& you because that makes no sense. I don't know why it doesn't make sense, except to say that each character in the sideline seems profoundly influenced by events in their respective "pasts" and that would imply that they made decisions or took actions that caused their sidelife to turn out differently than their original life. Which gets me back to the butterfly effect.
I'll stop there. I just developed a far greater respect for your ability to put these posts together without rambling. If you can make any sense out of what I just said, give me some feedback.
Actually, I remembered that scene in "Dr. Linus" as I was wrapping up this post and thought about mentioning it, but decided not to try to work it into my already almost-finished post when I didn't have much more to say about it than "That was weird. What's up with that?" I thought I'd wait till we got more information before delving into the implications of what, I agree, is a very significant scene, but since you brought it up I'll say a word or two on it.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching "LA X" I had assumed that the new timeline and the sinking of the Island in that timeline were both the immediate result of the Incident; in other words, that the Incident was the "singular moment of inception," and that all the differences between the new timeline and the original were the result of there being no Island after 1977. As I mentioned in a previous post, however, things appear not to be that tidy. The fact that Ben is around in the new timeline means that the new timeline began to diverge from the one we know either before the Incident (so Ben was never shot and taken to the Temple) or after (so Ben was healed in the Temple and returned to DHARMA, and he and his father left the Island before it sank, perhaps because Roger feared for his son's safety).
That scene in "Dr. Linus" both confirms and further complicates this "untidiness," since it means that the Linuses definitely did go to the Island as part of DHARMA, but left before the Island sank. So either they left before the Incident occurred (meaning the new timeline's inception is before the Incident, despite the fact that the Incident was supposed to be the event that created the new timeline in the first place), or they left after the Incident occurred (meaning the Incident couldn't have been the cause of the Island's sinking, since both Ben and Roger were on the Island at the time; but if that's the case, what sunk the Island?). As you can see, thanks to alterna-Ben the tidy, clear-cut "Incident = start of new timeline = sinking of Island" that I'd taken away from "LA X" needs some serious revision.
And just to clarify regarding what you wrote in your third paragraph, it sounds like you think I believe that the new timeline began at the point when we first see it, on Oceanic 815 in 2004, and all the people there were transported there from the original timeline, their memories erased, and made to think that they'd been living their "sidelives" all along. (Or maybe I've just completely misinterpreted what you wrote.) To clarify, what I think happened is that the Incident created a new timeline in 1977 that, from that time on, began to diverge from the original timeline. So on the Incident's date in 1977, little 11-year-old alterna-Jack is fighting bullies on the playground, and little 8-year-old alterna-Sawyer is mad at Mr. Sawyer for making Daddy kill Mommy and himself, and 21-year-old alterna-Locke is off doing God knows what, etc., and everyone lives their whole lives between then and when we meet them in alterna-2004, with the difference being the subtle changes resulting from that "butterfly effect" Mr. Kutcher told us about. I think that a few elements of the original timeline unconsciously "bleed over" into the new one (e.g., Jack's appendectomy scar, Claire's naming her son Aaron, Ben's affection for Alex), but that doesn't mean they haven't been living their lives normally (relatively speaking) all this time.
So much for not rambling.
I probably have enough here for a full post, but I will respond because I like the conversation.
ReplyDeleteI respond because I think that your conceptions of the sideways timeline are a bit off. The whole idea of the butterfly effect is not, from my estimation, a good way to look at it nor is any idea that there is a point where the timelines diverged. So much of what happens in the past is influenced by what has happened in the future that to think of anything that happened on the island without what happens later overlooks the entire concept of time as presented in the show. The original timeline is much like the the John-Richard compass: it is stuck in a loop. The compass is given to Richard by Locke but the person Locke originally receives it from is Richard. The writers said they purposefully created this paradox that the compass exists within its own loop and I think that is the case with our main timeline. In order for The Incident to occur, the people from the future have to crash on the island because they create it. The entire lead up to the explosion involves the past so in order for that to happen, the future has to already exist.
Where does this create a problem? The idea of the two timelines being the same until the incident. As far as we know -- and I think it has to be the case -- The Incident did not happen on the sideways timeline (that is me predicting, not a for certain fact). I rewatched the scene with the Linuses and they do not say anything about leaving because of The Incident. Furthermore Locke does not appear to have "the sickness" or he would have not chosen to abdicate his opportunity for power or take care of his ailing father. Furthermore the idea of them being the same until The Incident where they started to diverge does not seem to explain at all why there is a difference in someone like Jack, who as you mentioned has to have a different past preflight in order to father a child. From what I have seen, with some help from clarification by Lindelof and Cuse saying the sideways should not be considered an alternative timeline, the sideways timeline is completely distinct from the original timeline and there is not a point from which to place where a butterfly effect occurred. Perhaps The Incident created a new timeline, but it created a timeline that existed all on its own and has its own past, present, and future. It is not stuck in that loop because that loop has never existed in its past. This is the working understanding that I use when I watch the episodes and because of that, in thinking of how I would respond I came to the realization of my own grand theory of the sideways timeline (copyright 2010, Matthew David Lopas).
Part 2 as it cut off my post because it was too long. Told you it should have been a post! This is where it gets good...
ReplyDeleteThe difference in the sideways timeline is that the Jacob-Loophole struggle does not exist. The sideways timeline is one in which there is no outside influence or control. My important moment of the show was Ilana talking to Ben about Jacob touching people and I think she meant this literally. I need to go back and rewatch the season 5 finale, but my guess is our character's lives are different because they lack the moment in which Jacob intervened and took their life on the detour that ultimately led to the island. In that case I guess you could say their are different butterfly moments for each character. I have written at length about the philosophical differences in our cosmic warriors, and I am seeing this theory explaining how the two timeline fit into this. The island timeline is where there is manipulation, determinism, and predestination while the sideways timeline is one in which the characters truly have free will and the ability to control their own destiny. The island sinks because no one is there to properly protect the bomb from creating a more serious incident than what we saw occur. The way the original bleeds into the sideways does occur because I think it was a creation of the incident we saw, but not a diversion from it. This is just my theory so far, but it is the first one I have had that has made me start to think I might have the sideways timeline figured out. I'll just wait for them to prove me wrong.