the tindog coffeehouse

Wow. Thinking through last night’s Lost, it’s hard to know where to even begin. Here are some initial thoughts about it, although I’m sure tons of people who are way smarter than me will be able to dissect it much better than I ever could.

In the beginning…

• Mother: “Every question I answer is going to lead to another question. You should rest, just be grateful you’re alive.” A warning upfront from the writers: Don’t overthink this thing, just sit back and enjoy the story for what it is. Sorry, we crossed that bridge a long time ago.
• Claudia: “How did you get here?” Mother: “The same way you got here, by accident.” Jacob and the Man In Black’s mother may be the “Eve” from Season 1, but this isn’t a story that directly parallels the Creation story in the Bible. This is a story that has been going on for a long time before Jacob and MIB were ever born. But I think it’s interesting that Mother uses the phrase “by accident”, as opposed to being brought to the island on purpose. Whereas the Losties were chosen, selected, marked and numbered as Candidates, Jacob and MIB are products of mere chance. I think this is significant.

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Random thoughts, theories, and questions from last night’s Lost:

• “Because it’s going to be you, Jack.” The last words of Zombie Sayid before he became Pop-Goes-The-Sayid. A confirmation that Jack is “the candidate”, the numero uno choice to become the next Jacob, a job he seems more than willing to assume.
• “You’re a candidate.” Sideways Jack to Sideways Locke, explaining that Locke could be able to walk again with a new experimental procedure. But…
• I wondered a couple of weeks ago if Jacob and the Man In Black exist in the Sideways world. Such a premise might not be so farfetched after all. Last night’s Sideways storyline showed a guilt-ridden Locke who couldn’t forgive himself for incapacitating his father, Anthony Cooper. Even when he had a chance to walk again, Locke chose the punishment of the wheelchair, a penance that not only caused physical and financial hardship but strained his relationship with true love Helen. By not letting go of that guilt, by not realizing that his father is gone and what’s done is done, is Sideways Locke setting himself up for the same tragic ending that his Island counterpart experienced? More on that in a second.

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Once again, my semi-random thoughts on last night’s Lost:

• First, the biggest moment of the episode: Sun and Jin finally reunited! And it feels so good! And Sun got her voice back! And look, exclamation points!
• Thank you, Sawyer, for confirming that Sayid is in fact a zombie. Although apparently he’s a zombie with a heart. What, you don’t really believe he killed Desmond, do you?
• Speaking of Desmond, wasn’t that well a lot deeper and darker last week?
• So Lapidus was in all those Burt Reynolds movies. Makes so much sense now.

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A short (but lovingly sweet) list of semi-random (but probably connected to a similar list in an alternate universe) thoughts from last night’s Lost:

• Hurley and Libby finally got their date on the beach. No, I didn’t cry, but that was pretty cool.
• If Lost is ultimately a love story, then that point was certainly hammered home in this episode. Is there such thing as a true soul mate? Yes, absolutely (I’m married to mine).
• There’s probably a lot more that can be said about the importance of love within the context of the show, but just to repeat a point I made last week: the “man of science” would make the argument that love doesn’t really exist, that like any other emotion it’s a product of evolution to help further the survival of our species. But the “man of faith” would argue that love is the basis for our (and the universe’s) very existence, and as such, it drives (or should drive) everything we do. Faith — and love! — wins.
• I guess both the island and the writers were done with Ilana. That will go down as one of the greatest character deaths in TV history, mark my words.

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I’ve been doing these weekly recaps of Lost for several weeks now, and usually I do so from the “man of faith” perspective. But this week is a little different. Today is all about science.

It just so happens that while ABC was showing “Happily Ever After”, an episode in which the Island world and Sideways world intersected via electromagnetic pulse-surviving Desmond Hume, the Science Channel was showing a program about… wait for it… parallel universes. Crazy, right?

Now, I know nothing about quantum physics or advanced mathematics. I was a history major. But the whole concept of parallel universes (whether you agree with it or not) plays a pretty big role in Lost, so let me see if I can summarize it at an extremely basic level. (Bear with me.)

In the 1980s a mathematical model called string theory emerged as a way to explain how the universe is constructed. It presented the universe as a collection of infinitely small oscillating strings, and it proposed the idea that there were multiple dimensions, some of which we couldn’t see or experience. Over time, several string theories developed, all of which contradicted each other, and a new idea came along to take its place: M-theory.

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My weekly thoughts about last night’s Lost:

• Not as much mythology this episode, but we did get some. Seems my theory that Widmore and Smokey are on the same team may not be right. Apparently the only way Smokey can free himself of the island is to get the remaining candidates (Jack, Hurley, Sun, and Sawyer) off of it. But Widmore is trying to keep them on the island in order to keep Smokey contained. (At least if you take what Smokey and Widmore say at face value.)
• Interesting that all the candidates left the island previously. Except for one: Sawyer. I guess Sawyer’s decision to jump out of the helicopter was pretty critical. Of course, at that point Jacob was still alive, so maybe that wouldn’t have mattered as long as they all returned before Jacob’s death.
• Sawyer asks Smokey why he has to take a boat to Hydra island. Why not just turn into a pillar of smoke and fly over to it. Smokey replies that if he could do that, he would’ve already left by now. That raises a lot of questions about what exactly keeps Smokey imprisoned there. Again, it must have something to do with the fact that either Jacob or his successors are on the island. I mean, theoretically you could just line the perimeter of the island with those fancy pylon things and keep him penned in (as long as someone kept the power on). So why isn’t Widmore doing that?

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