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He lied.

The topic before him had no bearing on his words: he deceived in matters large, in details small.  The consequences of dishonesty figured into his thoughts only to the extent of laying the groundwork for the next deception, which in turn would provide the foundation for subsequent misdirection.  He manipulated facts and fabricated stories to suit his purpose, to frame conditions to his liking, to cause those he controlled to believe he was advancing their agenda so that he could nefariously implement his own well-engineered plans.

He manipulated, coerced, forced those under him to commit the worst offences.  When lying was insufficient to his ends, he murdered.  He killed with his bare hands or with weapons, with guns, gas, or rope.  He actively participated in mass murder.  A reasonable jury of his peers would be obliged to find him guilty on all charges and pass down the severest of sentences.

Benjamin Linus was arguably the most villainous, hateful character on the Island.  But we found ourselves liking him.  Ilana, who knew his crimes, was never taken in my his tricks, pardoned him.  The man who was his opposite, who endeavoured never to fabricate an untruth, took him on as advisor.   At Ben’s own death he was found worthy to make the voyage to the Church of the Holy Lamp Post, having served well as Hurley’s faithful consigliere.

It is appropriate to ask what might reasonably be considered the greatest unanswered question in the six years of LOST:  Who was Benjamin Linus?

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Tags: Alex, Benjamin Linus, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews

The pill contained enough poison to kill five men.

Jack swallowed the pill and Dogen rushed into action, performing the martial arts equivalent of the Heimlich Manoeuvre, dislodging the green capsule from Jack’s throat and forcing it out of his mouth.  Thank goodness for clear thinking and fast action, you say.  Indeed.  But let us imagine a hypothetical situation in which Jack consumed the pill in private, without Dogen’s knowledge.  What would have happened to Jack?

Nothing.  Jack would have gone about his business, suffering no ill effects whatever.

You read this thinking “Pearson has lost touch with reality–again.  The pill would kill even a person in perfect health.”  I do not argue; the pill would indeed kill a person in good health.  Death would be instant; the person taking the pill might as well have been holding in his hand a stick of dynamite, fuse lit, sparks flying, seconds left…  A person in good health would have been blown to bits, but Jack… not a hair on Jack’s head was harmed.  The green pill could have had no more physical effect on Jack than the dynamite had in the belly of the Black Rock.

But what would have been the effect of the green death on Sayid?

Here is a question worthy of deliberation and thought.  The only valid answer boggles the mind.  The single possible response to this query will bring us to the heart of a new genre of fiction, a radical way of thinking about drama, an audacious expectation of the audience, and the key to understanding LOST.

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Tags: LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews

We have no choices.

Morpheus offers us neither red pill nor blue pill.  The range of human volition includes provision for neither blue-pill amnesia nor red-pill awareness.  Enlightenment is not choice, but responsibility, and amnesia is not comfort in innocence, but oblivion in non-existence.

According to LOST, we have only the green pill.

We live and move and have our being in a world with firm foundation in rules known to all.  LOST’s premise is a monopole; the series is without choices, without dilemma, without unified conflict–even the antagonist has no name.  Far from positing the vast, intricate, computer-generated, consciousness-bending false comic-book reality of the Matrix, LOST forces us to confront our world as a complexity beyond logic and cognition.  Our daily reality is the chaos of the wreckage-strewn beach which we walk aimlessly, our muddled thoughts ruled by confusion, pain, and anxiety.

Lost is not drama, not science fiction, but a fresh genre, unique to fiction.  LOST has a protagonist, Jack Shephard.  But the antagonist is a nameless, formless black void that comes, fights, destroys, corrupts.  Lost is not drama, but metadrama, for we are the story, and we know the antagonist, who bears seven billion names, who reads the words on this page in this instant.  The antagonist is the Smoke Monster.  We know this because we have met the Smoke Monster, and the Smoke Monster is us.

How deep does the rabbit hole go?  There is no Matrix, no Wonderland.  But the rabbit hole goes deep.  The voyage is long, for the journey ends at the central core of our humanity, at the Source.  There, bathed in brilliant light, stands Jack Shephard, bearing in his hand the single object of our contemplation:  the green pill.

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Tags: LOST Theories, Pearson Moore

LOST is not a story of good versus evil.  When Kate and Jack killed the Smoke Monster no dramatic music played.  The credits did not roll.  The greater part of the story remained.

LOST is not a story of freedom versus destiny.  Jack “chose” to become Protector of the Island, but only because he recognised the office as his destiny.  The entire story was built on a continuous assumption of ultimate purpose; free will was given short shrift.  But the story was not about fate per se.

LOST is not a story of science versus faith.  Once Locke freed Jack from the shackles of logic, the deepest part of the story remained.  We discovered with Jack his true purpose, the purpose of the Island, our purpose as human beings.

LOST is the story of our humanity and the cultural elements comprising its essential core.  LOST tells us the unceasing perpetuation of civilisation is the source and final goal of all culture, all humanity, all divinity. If we cannot live together, if we die alone, we are lost.  But if we recognise and honour the call to civility, allow the Light inside to guide us, we find our way to each other, and we are not lost.

A simple idea.  A one-hour Hallmark special ought to suffice.  Hell, even a Histori.ca minute oughta do it, right?  No.  Six years were required, and for good reason.  This will not be a short essay.

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Tags: LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps & reviews, recaps&reviews

“Psyche profiles said you would be amenable for coercion.”

Deputy Sheriff Eddie Colburn was matter-of-fact in his delivery, and his words were in accord with everything we understood of the man.  He trusted Anthony Cooper and lost a kidney, then his self-respect, and finally his ability to walk.  He trusted Benjamin Linus, and received in payment for his good faith a brutal strangulation by electric power cable.  “Amenable to coercion” was a polite way of stating the obvious:  John Locke was gullible.

He cried tears of frustration and disappointment, shouted and railed against Jack, against Ben, against the Island.  He had faith and courage, but at critical moments doubt and fear overwhelmed him.  When the world was against him, he planned and nearly executed his own demise.  He gave up.

Weakness.

In the ordinary world, John Locke was a nobody.  Not a single person, other than his most vociferous enemy, grieved his passing.  He was a noisy, ignorant, gullible fool.  But that was the reality of the ordinary world, the fragmented, incomplete reality of a world consumed with buying and selling, wealth and power, human creations over divine beings.

The attributes we consider weaknesses were John Locke’s strengths.  The world’s measure of John Locke was flawed, warped, inhuman and insane.  The Island’s measure of the man was true:  Gullibility meant trust; tears meant unwillingness to accept setbacks.  And his greatest failure, his inability to convince even one of the Six to return, proved instead to be his greatest strength.

LOST was about our humanity, and the story’s natural narrator was its strongest and most faithful voice:  Prince of the Island, Man of Faith, John Locke.

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Tags: John Locke, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews, Videos

He is the most enigmatic character in the six years of LOST.

Jack confirmed his death in a Sydney morgue.  We saw his dead body for seventeen seconds.  But he made appearances in each of the six seasons, apparently a living, breathing person, all over the Island:  on jungle paths, in Jacob’s cabin, in and around the Dharma barracks, at the wheel under the  Orchid Station.  Locke, Frank, Sun, and Claire conversed with him in the shadow of the statue.

He is the source of Jack’s greatest anguish, but the highest goal of Jack’s yearning.  He is many things to Jack, and many things to all of us.  He challenges, he consoles, he frustrates.  He fails in life example, leads through powers not his own, unites science and faith, triumphs over chaos and death.  He is healer, guide, father, shepherd.  He is neither good nor evil, neither light nor dark.  He does not choose sides, does not play the game.  In fact, he writes the rules, he is the game.

Christian Shepherd is the Island.

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Tags: Christian Shephard, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore

Did Jack Shephard’s death have meaning?

I believe we might answer this question with any of four different responses.  First, some may agree with the Man in Black:  Jack’s death had no meaning because the Island has no value.  It’s “just a damn island”.  Second, a few might say Jack’s death meant something to him, but not to anyone else.  Maybe the Island was more than “just a damn island” or maybe not, but in the end, it was not worth sacrificing a life.  On the other hand, some may contend Jack’s death was meaningful precisely because he achieved his life’s goal, regardless of any value that may attach to the Island.

I believe the fourth possible response is the one most of us would offer:  Jack’s death had meaning because the Island has intrinsic value.

An analysis of the question will reveal that Jack’s death was the dénouement for the cultural and mythical facets of LOST, and was the only conceivable segue to the emotional catharsis inside the church.  In Jack’s death LOST brings the plot to its natural conclusion, unifying every aspect of culture, mythos, and character, and ensures LOST’s value as enduring literary masterpiece.

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Tags: Jack, John Locke, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore

A single question fascinated us for six years.

One question, posed over six seasons, in each of 121 episodes, in thousands of scenes, the query was always the same.   Thirty-five characters tried to answer the question; twenty-one of them died in the attempt.

The scope was measured not in years but in millennia, not in lives lost but in the hundreds of souls sacrificed.  Time itself had no meaning, for those asking the question and seeking the answer could move about unrestrained by the forward march of the clock.  Each character formed the question into unique words.  For Pierre Chang, the question centred around the origin of exotic matter.  Charles Widmore wondered how the place might be exploited.   The question in its most essential form was simple:

What is this Island?

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Tags: Jack, Jacob, John Locke, Kate, LOST Finale, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews, Smoke Monster

Previously, on Lost:

Goodbye to all my friends at home,
Goodbye to people I’ve trusted,
I’ve got to go out and make my way,
I might get rich you know I might get busted,
But my heart keeps calling me backwards,
As I get on the 707,
Riding high I got tears in my eyes,
You know you got to go through hell,
Before you get to heaven,

Big ol’ jet airliner,
Don’t carry me too far away,
Oh big ol’ jet airliner,
Cause it’s here that I’ve got to stay …

This week, on Lost: LA X. Christian Shephard has finally reached his destination – or at least a package with his name in big, bold stencils indicates as such. While his coffin is loaded on board a truck by a pony-tailed baggage handler, AlternaJack sits in his office, going over x-rays. Jack prime washes his face, and ponders his wet, aged hands. AlternaBen steeps some tea with his good arm, while Ben loads a cartridge and ponders how long he’ll have to continue killing people. AlternaLocke takes one last look at his wheelchair as he’s wheeled away on a gurney toward his healing surgery. AlternaSawyer wraps up his day in the police force, as Sawyer takes a seat next to Freckles on a log and checks her gunshot wound. AlternaKate sits in the AlternaCamaro as the Oceanic delivery truck pulls up to a church, and AlternaDesmond meets the pony-tailed delivery guy and signs for the package. The two lift the coffin onto a dolly and Desmond asks pony-tail to wheel it around back. As Desmond heads back to the Camaro, we know it’s time to start. Let’s get to it.
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Tags: Chris Kirkman, LOST Finale, LOST Theories, recaps&reviews, Season 6

This analysis is for Ree Hines.

I write this for everyone disappointed, angered, or confused.

You invested six years.  Give it one more shot.  Watch the finale again; you’ll thank yourself for the effort.  Enlightenment may not require a punch in the face or renewed sense in legs once dead, but it does require careful thought.  Enlightenment was not intended for the already-dead inhabitants of the sideways purgatory.  It was intended for us.  For the thirty millions around the world, most of whom sacrificed a Monday morning to experience the end.

Give it one more shot.  If anyone should be disappointed in the ending, it’s Pearson Moore.  Not one of my grand predictions proved correct.  But I can tell you this, after a third viewing:

LOST is the greatest piece of fiction ever presented on television.

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Tags: Hurley, Jack, John Locke, LOST Finale, LOST Theories, Pearson Moore, recaps&reviews, Season 6