Here’s a new interview with Henry Ian Cusick, via TV Guide’s Natalie Abrams:

NOTE: this interview contains minor spoilers.

TVGuide.com: How does it feel knowing that Desmond is the key to everything?
Cusick: Desmond certainly is a part, but is he the key? There’s not one character that is the key. There are many characters that will have to step up and do things before this is resolved. Desmond has a part to play, a significant part, but there are many others that will step up.

TVGuide.com: “Happily Ever After” was very similar to “The Constant.”
Cusick: It was an interesting episode. Compared to the other Desmond-centric episodes, it wasn’t so high-stakes and angsty, with Desmond running through the jungle and shouting for Penny. This was a bit slower, I thought. The Desmond in the sideways was very different from the Desmond on the island.

TVGuide.com: Would you say that Desmond is everyone’s constant?
Cusick: No, I don’t think that’s right. In the flash-sideways, the characters are all slightly different from the characters on the island. They’re all slightly hypnotized or haven’t seen the truth. Like Desmond, he’s slightly dead in this life. He’s just a hollow corporate guy until Charlie [Dominic Monaghan] comes along. Desmond also recognizes that everyone in that sideways world — there are clues when you look in the mirror — when they look at their reflections, they go, “Hang on, what is reality?” They’re aware something is not quite right, but they can’t put a finger on it. Desmond now knows he’s alive again and knows his purpose.

TVGuide.com: And now he wants to find everyone on Oceanic 815 to show them that truth.
Cusick: Yeah, at the end [of the episode], Desmond says “Where’s the manifest? I need to show them something and it’s going to be beautiful.” When they get to see this other world, that’s when their hearts will open and know what they have to do; they’ll know the truth.

TVGuide.com: Based on what Desmond, Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and Charlie saw, their flashes seem to be based in love. Would you say that’s a strong theme of the series?
Cusick: Yes, you’re absolutely right in a sense that the driving force of Lost is love. Desmond is totally driven by love. What’s interesting is how they see this other world. Charlie and Desmond both had near-death experiences and they recognized their loves. It’s sort of spiritual, the thing they have to get to at the end of this, what Desmond has to do.

TVGuide.com: Since it appears that one has to almost die to see the alternate universe, does that mean everyone in the sideways universe has to die to fuse the two timelines?
Cusick: We don’t know which is the real universe at the moment. We don’t know which universe the show will end up in. Desmond is going to show them a glimpse of the other world and we’ll see how and if they collide, and what will happen when they do.

TVGuide.com: Desmond changed his fate in the sideways universe by meeting Penny. Does the fact that he suddenly then woke up mean their fates are determined by their upcoming choices?
Cusick: Desmond says to Charlie that there’s always a choice. He’s only out for a very short time when he’s given that electromagnetic charge, but when he comes back to the island, he is enlightened and knows exactly what his mission is. He embraces that and now knows what he has to do, so he follows Sayid [Naveen Andrews] because that is a way for him to further his mission. He’s not struggling with anyone; he knows what has to be done. It’s a very odd moment with Sayid, but this is the way for him to fulfill his mission.

TVGuide.com: Is Desmond claimed like Sayid and Claire (Emilie de Ravin) are?
Cusick: No, absolutely not. He’s not claimed at all. It’s the polar opposite. Sayid and Claire have been claimed by the Man in Black. Desmond, on the other hand, has had an epiphany. He’s enlightened. He has no fear of the Man in Black.

TVGuide.com: Eloise (Fionnula Flanagan) seems like she knows what’s going on in the sideways universe and even tells Desmond that he’s not ready. How is it that she’s conscious of this?
Cusick: She is a law unto herself. She’s working on a different timeline. She always seems to know more than everyone else. She’s like the oracle. If I was a fan watching it, how she seems to know wouldn’t bother me just now, but hopefully these things will be addressed. She’s opposed to the idea of Desmond trying to bring everyone together. She’s trying to cover everyone’s eyes.

TVGuide.com: What’s the mission that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) wants Des to complete?
Cusick: Widmore and Desmond are on the same mission. Basically, Widmore says if Desmond doesn’t survive the electromagnetic blast, we’re all going to die, so Desmond is there to help make sure that people don’t die, along with a lot of others. There will be more explosions.

[TVGuide.com]

Related posts:

1. New Interview with Henry Ian Cusick
2. Henry Ian Cusick Talks about LOST’s Final Season

This is the video recap LOST season 6 episode 11, “Happily Ever After,” which aired April 6, 2010 on ABC.
I summarize the night’s events and share my personal reactions to the show as it aired.

This episode focused mainly on Desmond Hume’s life off of the island in the flash sideways.
Complete summary and personal reactions in the vid!

Thanks for watching! You can catch up on all my recaps HERE.

Check out all my videos at RuckitUp.com and follow me @ Twitter.com/AdamRucker

See you next week!

Related posts:

1. LOST 6.10 “The Package” Live Reaction/Recap Video
2. LOST 6.09 “Ab Aeterno” Live Reaction/Recap Video
3. LOST 6.08 “Recon” Live Reaction/Recap Video

Spoiler Alert: this interview contains minor spoilers.

So there are limits to what Ben will do to get what he wants, at least in the Sideways?
Yes, Ben was presented with a parallel choice — a smaller one, but an echo of a bad choice he made in the island world — and he made a different call, a softer call that we’re happy about.

Was it nice to play Ben’s softer side?
I’ll tell you what was fun: When Ben tries to play his card with the principal but he hasn’t the confidence that his alter ego has. He trembles a little when he makes his big play because he knows he’s out of his depth. It was fun to find that shakiness because that’s a color they’ve never asked of me on the show before. It’s almost like I’m playing a different character this season.

Now that Widmore’s back, will Ben’s battle with him resume?
You’d think. [The producers] went to such pains to establish it. But there are three episodes still to film and that’s something that hasn’t been shot yet. I suppose it’s possible that the characters’ [conflict] can be resolved without facing off against one another, maybe through the agency of some third party.

Would that be disappointing?
I’m just a passenger on this ride. But I am anxious for answers that don’t seem to be coming in a rush. I think it’s partly my own personal misunderstanding of the narrative of the show and an over-expectation of climactic answering.

Some fans feel a similar frustration.
I think the answering is coming in a subtler way than many of us expected. But the writers’ agenda may not yet be clear to us.

When will you get the finale script?
Two days before we shoot it. If I get a complete one. You know with the finale of all finales, there are gonna be blank scenes in it that only the actors involved are privy to. I hope I’m on the show long enough that I’m in one of those secret scenes.

Wait — could Ben really not make it to the end?
There have been some casualties. Pretty soon, there’s only gonna be a few standing.

Head over to People.com to read the rest of the interview.

Related posts:

1. Michael Emerson Teases New Revelations About Ben
2. Michael Emerson Teases LOST’s Final Season
3. Michael Emerson Teases A “Dark, Violent” Finale

Magnificence
The Cultural Mythology of LOST 1.01 to 6.18
by Pearson Moore

His name is Kambei Shimada, a ronin who lived five hundred years ago. He is an aged, balding, unemployed swordsman, symbol of a dying breed of men useless in an age of muskets. His story required only two hundred seven minutes of celluloid. We think we know him: hero, defender of peasants, leader of men. But his story does not end with one year’s barley harvest, or even an entire nation’s movement into the modern age. Without Kambei Shimada, we understand neither sixteenth century Japan, nor even twenty-first century America. This single figure from the imagination of Akira Kurosawa holds the key to LOST.

The Adventure of LOST

This six-year adventure has become the most monumental endeavour in the history of television. Millions around the world spend hours each week, not watching a programme so much as engaging our senses, immersing ourselves in an experience unlike anything ever presented on the small screen. We attend online lectures by professors of linguistics, Egyptology, and quantum string theory. The tome in Sawyer’s hand or the thin volume on the Swan Station bookshelf becomes our weekly order from Amazon. We listen to Al Trautwig, Carmel, Mr. James, Iain Lee, and Doc Jensen. Lostpedia is our bible, Vozzek69 our prophet.

We scour every scene for clues. Hurley is buying HO-HOs. Hurley and Jack play horse, but they proceed only as far as HO before Jack decides to leave. Hurley is in the recreation room, and behind him, conspicuous to our fanatical eyes, a plastic sculpture of the letters HO. This is rich fare for a guy who spends sixty hours a week in pharmaceutical laboratories, and I immediately reach for the periodic table in my mind’s eye. Holmium, a heavy metal, a lanthanide, atomic symbol Ho. Can’t say I know much more about it than that–it is obscure, even to a professional chemist. So I turn to the chemist’s best friend–Google. Holmium has the highest magnetic susceptibility of any element, several times more magnetic than iron. The Swan Station has peculiar and extreme magnetic properties. Is Holmium the key to understanding the significance of the Swan Station?

No.

I know this because of my acquaintance with Mr. Friendly. To his complete amazement, I’m sure, I explain to him every nuance of mutually-orthogonal four-dimensional electromagnetic space, and how the unusual concentration of unstable energy at the Swan explains not only the local magnetism, but also the strange light scattering properties of the Island, which are due to shifts away from the normal range of Mie and Fraunhofer diffraction. Five hours later, when I’ve explained every detail of electromagnetism in the Land of Mittelos, Mr. Friendly just shakes his head in amusement. “That’s not what the Island’s about, Pearson.”

What is the Island, then?

I’m going to apply the Mr. Friendly Rule to the remainder of this article. If a concept useful to full understanding of the core reality of the Island requires graduate-level expertise in a physical science, then the concept is not essential to that understanding. Studying the non-intuitive etiologies deriving of Schrödinger’s Cat and other quantum phenomena is entertaining, but at least for the purposes of my discussion, I’m going to bring the question to Tom Friendly and Flight Attendant Cindy Chandler (now Temple dweller Cindy, I guess). If they can’t figure out what I’m talking about, it probably is not relevant to the deeper aspects of the story. The Island is not a Mr. Wizard science freak show.

What is the Island?

The question is daunting. We are aware of two hundred forty-seven questions outstanding, thousands of details that must be woven together over the course of so many years to figure out just what Jacob’s Eye of Horus might signify, why it contains important Egyptian and Greek elements, and why nine individuals are depicted as bowing in obedience to the Eye. Jacob’s tapestry, laboriously spun from wool and woven on a hand loom, is symbolic of the tremendous investment in time we have given to reconciling unusual phenomena, extreme and unpredicted events, and most of all, the strange circularity and interconnectedness of Island, people, and time.

Much more than science is required to understand the Island. We gain important clues to the deeper appreciation of Mittelos’ significance from the narrative structure of the story itself.

Normal storytelling does not work on the Island, because LOST cannot unfold in linear fashion. The chronologies of cause and effect were difficult to track long before the time travel of Season Five, before Daniel Faraday demonstrated the bizarre curvature of spacetime around the Island in Season Four, before even we heard Mama Cass exhorting Desmond Hume to make his own kind of music in Season Two.

Why is the story nonlinear?

(Connections Web, Lost, Season 2. About 8% of the web is depicted here.)

A woman’s body is found unmoving in a pool of blood in a basement apartment. Neighbour calls the police, detectives come, interview tenants, landlord, husband. They search telephone calls, internet usage, medical records. Police identify suspects, assign motives, make an arrest, and there’s a trial. Bad guy goes to jail, and the world is safe again. Best thing is, it took only forty-three minutes (not counting seventeen minutes of commercial messages) to tell the whole story from start to finish.

Law-And-Order storytelling could not possibly work on Jacob’s Island. I suppose one might imagine LOST as a simple story of good versus evil, much in the manner of CSI, Law and Order SUV (Or is it CSI-SVU?) or any of the other programmes that seem to fill prime time in North America. But LOST brings much more to our dialogue: Free will versus Destiny, Destiny versus Fate, the philosophical imposition of Rousseau, Locke, Dogen, Burke, Bentham, and the religious sensibilities and histories of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Even Greek mythology and ancient Egyptian religion are heavily represented. Now that we’re finally inside the Temple, it looks like we might soon be absorbing a dose of Shintoism as well.

As Lex Luthor said thirty-two years ago, “Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it was a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.” LOST is not a simple adventure story. If we apply and focus the full range of analytical tools on the story we will unlock ideas of great value.

The Island operates on a hierarchy of values. Any valid thesis regarding LOST must account for the vital and mortal truths of Mittelos. Theses addressing only scientific phenomena, character relationships, or pure mythology will fall short of identifying the most potent and enduring of LOST’s ideas.

LOST must be presented in a nonlinear, non-chronological, non-causal manner because of the complexity of the hierarchy. Most of the time Cerberus can mind his own business, curl up under the Temple and contemplate getting off the rock he has been stranded on. Sometimes he gets ornery; knowing when the MIB is in a bad mood–and where he is at the time–constitutes useful information to anyone interested in prolonging her stay on the Island. Sometimes the rules of the Island dictate that he will kill. Being aware of the conditions that oblige Smokey to execute the full force of Island law is a matter of life and death.

LOST Mythology

The mythology of LOST is insufficient to a satisfying appreciation of the Island’s deepest meaning. The creations of the Island that appear to be unique–The Smoke Monster, Jacob, Ricardus, the Temple Master–are not self-referential. They are not unique creations at all. This statement subtracts nothing from the unparalleled creativity of the series. Fifty years from now LOST will be considered no less a masterpiece of storytelling ingenuity than the story of Kambei Shimada’s defence of a poor village during the barley harvest.

The Man in Black can transform into a cloud of black smoke. Nothing new. Over a hundred years ago H.G. Wells created The Invisible Man. Men turning into wolves and other animals have been standard fare on movie screens for eighty years. The MIB acts according to law, a judge of thought and action, a guardian of the world under the Temple. Nothing new. The Dharma Initiative knew the MIB as Cerberus, from the Greek myth of the guardian of the gate between Hades and Earth. I would guess at some point in the near future we will come to understand the MIB as something closer in character to an angel. Again, nothing new. I imagine if Damon and Carlton read this, they will not feel slighted in any way by these words. I think they’ll be smiling, actually.

The goal of LOST is not creativity for the sake of innovation. LOST is the most creative programme ever produced for television, but this is not its unique or most important objective. Neither is it intended as Lex Luthor’s adventure-story interpretation of War and Peace. The intention is to create an idea of permanent value. The next seven hundred minutes–the remaining sixteen episodes–are crucial, for the story will have to resolve many plot threads and concepts for the creators’ grand ideas to establish enduring purchase in the literary world.

The genius of LOST is its profound connection to our awareness as human beings, to the deepest sensibilities of our nature. A story becomes literature, I think, when it engages the reader, plunges her into the story, and forces her to examine and perhaps even reconsider her own values in light of choices made by the characters in the difficult situations created by the author. Literature best achieves these ends when it weaves into the story elements of thought immediately recognisable to the reader.

Kambei Shimada did not act alone to save the farmers from marauding thieves and bandits. And Akira Kurosawa did not restrict himself to self-referential creations. The master storyteller reached back to over a thousand years of Japanese history to invoke themes and ideas that have stood these many years, proof to wars, plagues, and all manner of human imperfection. He examined poverty, nobility and altruism, gratitude–and the lack of it, and the injustice of a class-based society, among the grand themes of the film.

Kurosawa gave us memorable characters, most notably in Shimada, the balding leader past his prime who, on first attempt, failed to convince other ronin to follow him to the village. But more than memorable characters and situations, the director wove his story from the strong yarn of enduring culture. His film stands not only as an irreplaceable pillar of modern Japanese culture, but is considered by many the greatest film ever produced.

Few in North America have experienced the genius of The Seven Samurai, but the most frequently offered movie on American television is familiar to almost everyone on the continent: The Magnificent Seven.

Set in 1880s Mexico, seven unemployed gunslingers agree to risk their lives for twenty dollars to protect a village of farmers.  The lead role of Chris Adams, an aging bald man past his prime, was played by Yul Brynner.  John Sturges’ characters were as memorable as Kurosawa’s, most notably in Chris Adams, who, on first attempt, failed to convince gunslingers to follow him to the village.

The story of the Seven Samurai works perfectly well in any culture because the enduring and necessary elements of any culture transcend time and place.  One of the notions that works equally well in sixteenth century Japan, nineteenth century Mexico, or the twenty-first century South Pacific, is the idea of perfection.  In both the Kurosawa classic and the American remake, perfection is expressed in a number:  Seven.  In Japanese, Hebrew, and Western cultures, the number seven is perfect.  The perfect number of selfless men to protect a village? Seven.  The perfect number of selfless individuals to protect an Island?

The very stressed characters on Jacob’s Island are striving toward some better condition.  They strive toward perfection.  As Jacob said, “It only ends once.  Anything that happens before that–it’s just progress.”

The six numbers, the Oceanic Six, all their striving to date has had little effect because it has lacked coherent and collaborative movement toward perfection.  The single biggest loop-changing event, the action that temporarily displaced two instances of spacetime, was initiated not by one of the Six, but by the son of the former leader of Jacob’s people.

Six are not enough.

All of Jacob’s plans, all the Temple Master’s plans, and the hope of the Six must converge on the absolute need to deliver one very important seventh member of the posse safely to the Island.  At least two will die on the journey.  But their work will not have been in vain.  Because the person they need to deliver is the one person in the world Cerberus cannot touch.  In fact, this person will stare down the Smoke Monster–and win.  He will stare down Jacob–and win.  And one person, supported by the Six, will rule the restored Island–the place once called Eden.

The perfect number of selfless people to protect a Japanese village?  Seven.
The perfect number of selfless people to protect a Mexican village?  Seven.

The perfect number of selfless crash survivors to protect an Island?

There will be Seven.

Culture

Those of us with degrees in language or literature share an interesting hubris:  We believe we enjoy not only innate curiosity regarding the nature of the human condition, but also an obligation, essentially a moral imperative, to find the means to engage others in a contemplation of the meaning of existence.

Usually the artist is thwarted in her attempts to engage the audience.  She must feed herself, after all, and employers are not interested in art for art’s sake, they’re interested in selling a product or service.  Radically new ideas, risky by definition, are not generally seen as worthy of investment.  So the artist becomes a waitress, or sells commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade, or works sixty hours a week in a pharmaceutical laboratory… and the sculpture goes unseen, the screenplay unread, the great symphony unheard.

Sometimes the artist gets lucky.  A small work gains attention, a former employer earns a profit on the artist’s work, a second employer, willing to take a risk, agrees to feed the starving artist while she whips up another small creation.  That was the intention with LOST, as far as I can tell.  But something unexpected occurred:  18.6 million viewers.

What does an artist do when she’s given a nice salary and carte blanche?  Room 23 in Los Angeles is full of cartes blanches, and for nearly six years the writers have been filling them with scenarios, plot developments, character arcs, storylines, and most of all, cultural references.

The writers know the best way to engage the audience is to weave LOST into the very fabric of our lives.  They can do this only if the basic material is already there.  The greatest demonstrable skill of the artist is not the creation of new ideas.  Ideas are a dime a dozen.  The greatest skill is the ability to engage an audience.  If, in order to achieve this end, the artist must use fabric already present in the viewer’s psyche, she must endeavour to choose the strongest, most enduring yarns from that fabric, then re-weave them into something new.  The bottom line for us:  Regardless of any story innovations, LOST must rely on cultural motifs we all recognise.  The necessary connections between culture and the completed plotline provide a basis for a reasonable understanding of the outcome of the story.

The Island

The Island is Shangri-La and LOST is James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, updated to the internet age and stuffed with a hundred-fold more cultural references than Hilton ever thought to include in his masterwork.  The Darlton Shangri-La surpasses Hilton’s creation in ways critical to the telling of the story.  Most importantly, Mittelos is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Shangri-La with origins in Tibet, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hawaii, and Japan, deep religious roots in Judaism and Christianity, and mythic roots in Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt.  Those in the Western world will recognise elements of Eden:  Adam and Eve, harmony with nature, timelessness (e.g., Ricardus’ immortality), inaccessibility (a trait shared also with Lost Horizon), guardian angels (MIB and Jacob).  Mittelos references myths from around the world because this is a story for the entire world–for all of humanity.

The Island is a stern kind of paradise.  Mittelos has unbreakable rules.  Anyone making a decision to break these rules faces judgment of the Dark Angel–the MIB.  The MIB’s decision is immediate and final.

What The Island Is Not

The Island most emphatically is not Cheech and Chong’s pot-smoking, hippie-infested free-love paradise.  Lennon may wear love beads around his neck, but he feels no emotion of any kind when he relays the command to exterminate prisoners.  Lennon is only the most recent representative of the hippie counter-culture.  Darlton have made clear to us their unreserved disdain for any organisation on the island expressing hedonistic ideals.  Hedonism in LOST is a ploy, a diversion used to mask the true agenda of those in command, and that agenda is the acquisition of power over others.  Culture, on Darlton’s Island, seeks the Common Good.  Counter-culture seeks to concentrate power into a single dictator and her minions.  Counter-culture is what it implies:  a radical opposition to culture.  It is the purest expression of evil because it rejects everything of humanity that endures and is worthy of being held as ideal and exemplar of thought and behaviour.

Stuart Radzinsky, the first Man in Black, is the archtype for the Dharma hippie, and Darlton’s sternest warning to those who would abandon our common humanity in favour of power, wealth, or any of the other counter-cultural idolatries of self and selfishness.

Radzinsky doesn’t give a hoot about anyone else’s projects, ideas, or needs.  He believes his motivation to be scientific exploration, but his supreme selfishness has made him not only oblivious to others, but willing to fulfill his smallest desire at gunpoint.  If Dr. Chang had stood in Radzinsky’s way at the Swan even one more minute, Radzinsky, not the unrestrained power of infinity electromagnetic energy, would have chopped off Chang’s hand.

In Russian culture, the supreme insult, worse than anything that one might say about another human being, is formed with these words:  Он некультурный человек.  He is uncultured.  Radzinsky is uncultured.  He is an insult to the Russian people.  He is humanity’s disgrace.

Widmore

The off-Island Radzinsky is, of course, Charles Widmore.  Charles has turned his insider knowledge of past, present, and future into a multi-billion-dollar international conglomerate in league with nefarious uncultured thugs like Mr. Paik and the bloodlust mercenary, Martin Keamy.  The writers may try to rehabilitate Widmore in the next few episodes, but I tend to doubt it.  Power and wealth are counter-culture objectives, and Widmore is the greatest off-Island example of their successful acquisition.  He fathered a child off-Island.  His banishment may have been the only possible outcome of  breaking an unbreakable rule, or the one-way submarine trip may have resulted from nothing more than Benjamin Linus’ own lust for power.  But his activities since that day in shackles place him in Radzinsky’s ideological camp.

If Widmore is to be rehabilitated we will see him devote his massive wealth to the support of the Seven.  More likely, I feel, he will bring not only his wealth but his very presence to the Island, and the final war will be his naked, all-out attempt to seize control of Mittelos.  Charles Widmore is the top dog, the main antagonist of LOST, not the equal of Benjamin Linus, but the final obstacle to the leader of the Seven.

Cerberus

The Man in Black is not evil.  He has an assigned task, and he is fulfilling his destiny.  The Smoke Monster is, in Dharma terminology, the Island’s “security system.”  He is among those unearthly creatures–angels–who have been assigned the grim but necessary tasks associated with the care and grooming of Planet Earth.  It was he or his cohorts who were entrusted with the visiting of ten plagues on Egypt.  He, over the millennia, who has caused armies to win over impossible odds or die in battle when victory seemed assured.  It was he who was tasked with keeping people away from Eden.  His contempt for Jacob’s breaking of rules was most manifest in their discussion on the beach at the end of Season Five.  Cherubim with flaming swords are supposed to prevent anyone from ever again entering Eden.  The MIB is a cherub, and he wishes to have none of Jacob’s lawlessness.  Although the original job description says nothing about killing a fellow angel, Jacob is thwarting the Dark Cherub’s divinely-appointed task.  Cerberus has reasonably interpreted this to mean he is free to eliminate the entity thwarting the Divine Plan.  Though he doesn’t like his job, he must obey:  The Man in Black had to kill Jacob.

Jacob

Jacob is He Who Wrestles With The Deity.  He is of his own mind about the value of humanity, and his worldview is broad but incomplete.  He sees humanity as an infinite, multi-dimensional divine experiment having as its goal the attainment of perfection.  The best way to attain perfection, in his mind, is to allow the broadest possible movement of actors and agents over the field of play.  He is a Light Angel, and his mandate is to lift humanity to perfection.  He neither understands nor has any patience for the Dark Angel’s insistence that people be kept off the Island.  No one told Jacob he had to clear his plans with another Cherub.  He has his divine mandate and the instructions are quite clear.

Jacob doesn’t understand any requirement for rules.  While the MIB’s rule book is literally etched in stone, Jacob’s rule book is, well… flexible.  Or so he believes.  If he feels he can interpret the divine mandate in such a way that offering someone a free choice among possible destinies will further the task of achieving perfection, he will emphasise personal volition.  If he feels he needs to coerce to achieve his objective, he’ll do that, too.  Jacob is a free-flowing agent of improvement and advancement.

Jacob is not dead.  He understood the MIB’s plans, but he also understood the potential for Faraday’s Boulder, and the fact that a splitting of spacetime would allow him to achieve his objective in a condensed time frame.  Jacob is either off-Island, or he is on the Island but in some other form:  inhabiting the rusty pool in the Temple, inhabiting a dead body.  Perhaps to be seen as a pillar of white smoke or Locke’s brilliant white light?

The Numbers

The numbers provide the clearest insight into coming events on the Island.

I don’t know what the seventh coefficient will be.  In fact, I don’t know that the writers will even decide that the six existing coefficients will need updating, or that 108 will have to be revamped to some higher number.  But a seventh person, and a seventh number, must appear.  I have to admit to the strange desire of hearing an invocation of the Valenzetti Equation in its correct form, with all seven coefficients:  six variable coefficients and one constant.  The equation that determines the inevitability of human self-destruction rendered inert by the unopposable will of one human being.  I’m going to guess that a single click in the integer position will accomplish the task, and the seventh person will be assigned the number One, for a new seven-coefficient sequence:

1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42

Regardless of the specifics, a seventh key player will somehow appear on the Island.  The seeking after perfection implicit in Jacob’s statement will find expression at several levels in the story, beginning with the establishment of a Perfect Number (seven) as the unstated goal of those on the Island.

Aaron

A corollary implication:  The full Oceanic Six must be present on the Island before the Seven can complete their work.  Aaron, or some duly anointed proxy, is going to return.  I’m seeing in my mind’s eye a desperate Carole Littleton, in league with Kate Austen, coercing Claire into an emergency flight on Oceanic or Ajira (no time to create a third airline for Season Six, I’m guessing) with unborn or infant or fully grown Aaron in tow.  By the time of the flight the Island vortex will be growing more and more unstable (see my discussion of Faraday’s Boulder in last week’s analysis, “The Wounds That Heal Us:  A Cultural Analysis of Lost 6.01/6.02″), and the Island will either be raised from the ocean floor or the airliner will fly through the vortex into main-channel spacetime to the unsunk Island.

The Disciple

Jack Shephard is first disciple to the leader of the Seven.  He was the Man of Science, and now the Doubting Thomas, who will sacrifice anything other than his own humanity to see the leader installed as ruler of the Island.  Jack’s road has been troubled because he has spent most of his life pushing toward reconciliation with his father rather than fulfilling his own destiny.  He will experience redemption, which is not harmony with Christian, but realisation of his place in life, which is acolyte to the Seven.  His is unquestionably the most important task in this sweep of six years, and because his task is greatest, he will have to sacrifice the most.  Jack Shephard, in safely conveying the leader back to the Island, or in ensuring the leader’s success, will sacrifice his own life.

The Advisor

Kate Austen loves Jack Shephard in a way that few have ever come to love another human being.  She will do anything for him.  She is willing to give up all of her plans to support Jack in his great work, and in fact, she will, in the end, being willing to sacrifice herself rather than see Jack thwarted.  The love triangle could find resolution in precisely this way, I believe, and the keepers of the symbols of Light and Dark–Adam and Even–could turn out in the end to be the two great sacrificial heroes of Mittelos:  Jack Shephard and his true love, Kate Austen.

The real triangle of LOST is not anything the Skaters and Jaters have contemplated to this point.  The competition for Kate’s heart is not between Jack and Sawyer.  The triangle is established by Kate, Jack, and the leader of the Seven.  Kate will have to decide whether she wishes to have Jack for herself, or whether she can sacrifice her love to the greater goal of realising the Island’s destiny.  In the end, she is going to be the Advisor who gives Jack that final push, encouraging him to surrender his own life for the good of the Seven and the Island.  This scene, this gloriously emotional and profound scene, will be remembered as possibly the defining image from LOST.

There is cinematic precedent for Kate’s Choice.

Rick and Ilsa loved each other in ways no less profound than Kate’s love for Jack.  But as deep as their love was, the needs of humanity were far more profound.  In the end, Rick made the only humane decision, the only cultured decision:  He gave up his love for the good of Victor Laszlo, the Resistance, and the freedom of all mankind.

Rick’s Choice now becomes Kate’s Choice.  The stakes are even higher this time around.  Rick and Ilsa faced the prospect of an eternally enslaved Europe.  Kate and Jack are at the crossroads of two equally evil future worlds:  A world without rules (Jacob’s vision) or a world without compassion (Cerberus’ unyielding stone tablets).  The future of humanity rests in the fragile heart of one woman.  The final scene at Casablanca Airport was magnificent.  Magnificence will shine even brighter when Kate makes her final choice.

I am not sure of Kate’s final destiny.  I think chances are good she will die in giving Jack the final push, and she will be revered as Eve.  I think this would be the most satisfying conclusion to her position as primary heroine.  But Sawyer’s arc may require a prize.  As much as he reads, he is no Churchill, and I don’t see his character requiring a sacrifice.  But reality is split, Juliet lives, and Sawyer and Juliet love each other.  The quadrangle is satisfied with the heroic deaths of Jack and Kate and the reunification of Sawyer and Juliet.  This is most obvious from an examination of the rubrics of storytelling.  Juliet is not the primary protagonist, so she does not have to experience complete sacrifice.  Kate, higher in the storytelling hierarchy, must sacrifice more.  Giving up Jack may suffice in the writers’ minds, but I think if they push this story to its natural perfection, Kate will have to die.  I see the Skaters’ wet dream ending of LOST as a minor but entirely supportable possibility.

The Heretic

Ben, chosen decades ago by Jacob, fell from grace when he decided to pursue his own agenda rather than working for the good of the Island.  He will come back into Jacob’s fold, leading Hurley and a handful of others, recharged, reinvigourated, with greater zeal than he has ever shown.  But for all his ardour, he will realise almost too late that he is still fighting on the wrong side.  A last-minute conversion to discipleship under the true leader will save him from destruction and raise him to hero status.

This seems the most logical outcome to Ben’s story.  He is the most conflicted, ambiguous character in the LOST universe, and I believe the writers will use him as the final example of the redemptive power of human culture.  A distant possibility, I think, is Ben’s defence of Jacob to the bitter end, and martyrdom to Jacob’s incomplete vision of humanity.  Even more distant, I feel, is the possibility of Ben’s continued rejection of Jacob and an inability to subsume himself to the needs of the Seven.  But because of this character’s complexity, I think it quite possible the writers could weave new aspects of Ben’s character that could yet cause him to fall in line with Widmore, or even take Widmore’s place as antagonist.  But I see these as unlikely scenarios.

The Seven

As of Episode 6.01, Sayid has experienced either rebirth or bodily possession by some other entity.  He yearns for a life free of torture, murder, and death, and probably feels no love for the gun-toting hippies and martial arts practitioners in the Temple.  Is he going to find the MIB’s team any more appealing?  I think the most likely outcome of Sayid’s rebirth or bodily possession is his quick ability to see the folly of both Jacob’s ways and the lack of compassion in Cerberus, and he will be the first of the Six to advocate and plan for the return of the leader.  Sayid is the catalyst of the leader’s return.  His would be the most logical death if the writers decide to give Kate as prize to Sawyer.  Otherwise, Sayid will go on to enjoy torture-free life on the new Island under its compassionate and rule-abiding leader.  Sayid and Hurley, I think, are the two of the original Six most likely to “live happily ever after.”

Sun will find her Jin.  Her aversion to Ben will blind her, and despite Ben’s efforts to convert her to what he believes to be the  just cause of returning Jacob to power, she will succumb to Widmore’s entreaties, at least temporarily.  She is the most likely of the Six to help Widmore or his agents find or gain access to the Island.  But both she and Jin were touched by Jacob, and in the end she and Jin will come back, not as followers of Jacob, but as disciples of the true leader.

Hurley will find himself in the unlikely and uncomfortable position of fighting side-by-side with Benjamin Linus in the interest of bringing Jacob back to the Island.   His will be another almost last-minute conversion, when he realises there can be no paradise under Jacob.  He will join the true leader’s camp, probably in an all-out sprint, huffing and puffing, clearing the barrier just before a door or portal or spacetime displacement closes forever.

The Leader

His name depends on the story.  In The Seven Samurai, his name was Kambei Shimada.  In The Magnificent Seven, his name was Chris Adams.  On the Island… he has had many names on the Island, too.

The actor portraying him needs to have solid credentials, because the masterful execution of the role is critical to the success of the multi-million-dollar storytelling enterprise.  Takashi Shimura had over twenty years of acting experience before Akira Kurosawa offered him the role of Kambei Shimada.  Yul Brynner had been acting for over twenty-five years when John Sturges chose him for the role of Chris Adams.

The themes are similar from one story to another.  One man, wise beyond even his advanced years, enlists a group of six to fight an enemy much more powerful than their individual combined strengths would indicate, not for any benefit to them, but for the benefit of others.  The six at first are hesitant; some refuse the first offer to work for nothing with the risk of giving up their lives.  But when they become the Seven, they are unstoppable, because they have achieved perfection, and perfection means they fight for the Common Good, not for themselves.  They fight to establish and uphold our common humanity, which is our culture.  It is the only correct side of any fight, and the full force of human goodness is on their side.

In the sixteenth-century Japanese village three of the Seven died.  In the nineteenth-century Mexican village three of the Seven gave up their lives.  On the twenty-first century island, three of the Seven are likely to die.

Like Kambei Shimada and Chris Adams, he is bald.

His name is

Man of Faith
Sodding Old Man
Geek
Prince of the Island
The Colonel

He goes by many names, but his final name is Leader of the Seven.  Most of us know him as John Locke.

Locke.  Man of faith.  He stands ready to put his trust in anyone.  But those around him are not so pure, and his easy faith in others has been twisted time and again into gullibility.  Duped, deceived, taken advantage of, made into buffoon and worse, he has suffered the cruelty of others, but has never made others suffer.  He has never unleashed righteous anger on anyone other than himself.  Locke is pure of heart, pure in his defence of the Island.  The Dark Angel cannot touch him, because judgment can be meted out only against those who transgress the laws of the Island.  Locke has broken no laws.  He will become the final defender of law, freedom, and human culture on the Island.

Unbridled free will leads to hedonism.  Culture is the only valid human origin of personal autonomy.  Most of us, like Radzinsky and Widmore, never learn the lessons of youth.  Freedom begins with responsibility, not with the momentary impulses of personal desire.  This is a concept foreign to Radzinsky and Widmore, foreign to almost everyone trying to make sense of life on the Island.

Law without compassion leads to the dark judgment of Cerberus.  Those of us who do not become slaves to momentary desires surrender ourselves to arbitrary law.  But even those who believe themselves “law-abiding citizens” break laws we consider to have no moral hold on our lives.

Locke obeys the law, but he is compassionate, too.  He is Dark Angel, Light Angel, and reservoir of human culture:  The complete human being.

Claire’s dream in Season One contains the essential clue to the end of the story.  Locke will faithfully execute both the MIB’s mandate and Jacob’s mission, providing his faith and trust in eventual human goodness as the solid foundation for fair and compassionate judgment and the complete freedom of action that will allow humanity to proceed on the road to perfection.

LA X.  The Locke-Aaron Crossroads.  Locke and Claire’s child are the two remaining essential players not yet on the Island.  But with the flight of 815 through the vortex over the sunken Island, the crossing of Locke and Aaron from the sunken-island spacetime over to the unsunken spacetime is now a possibility.  Sayid will realise the first glimmer of this possibility, and he will try to rally everyone to the cause.  He may achieve just enough for Kate to take charge, but she will not be able, on her own, to bring Locke back to the Island.  That role was pre-destined to fall to Jack.  His love for Kate will prevent him from committing himself immediately to the duty.  But Kate will convince him, and he will make the final sacrifice.  Kate will most likely die, too.  At least one other among the Seven will die, most likely Sun, but possibly Sayid.   Of the Seven, Hurley is least likely to die.

The Final Chapter

Shangri-La will be restored.  Adam and Eve, the two who allowed a return to Eden, will be revered for their heroic sacrifice.  Most likely we will find out the skeletal guardians of Light and Dark are the remains of Jack and Kate.  Less likely possibilities include Sawyer and Juliet, Rose and Bernard, Sawyer and Kate, or Sun and Jin.

Jacob and the MIB cannot die, but neither will they hold power.  I get the feeling the MIB will be granted his wish, and he will be summoned home.  So too, Jacob.  Humanity has not achieved perfection, but the Island will be safe in Locke’s hands.

The final page will tell us all we need to know.  There are places in this world, and places inside each one of us, where we can find the enduring traces of our deepest humanity.  It is the unabashed assertion of human goodness in all of its cultural forms that provides the only possible basis for true freedom.  At the end of Episode 6.18 we will discover we are free, but more importantly, we will see in ourselves the deep roots of value, truth, respect, and collaborative enterprise that make us civilised, cultured human beings, magnificent in bearing.  And with the final word on the final page, we will no longer be LOST.

Related posts:

1. “Whatever Happened, Happened” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman
2. SL-LOST Podcast – Ep 5.11 “Whatever Happened, Happened”
3. The Wounds That Heal Us – A Cultural Analysis of LOST 6.01/6.02

Related posts:

1. LOST Season 4 DVDs – Ben’s Secret Door
2. S4 DVDs: Three New Bonus Videos
3. Season 4 DVDs Bonus Feature: The Guns of Lost

Previously, on Last Cake Standing: Bronwen, Courtney, Mary and James had out-baked Elisa Strauss (no sock monkey for you, babe!) in the last surprise wedding cake elimination. Darn shame there, ’cause Elisa’s super cute. This time, the twist came about in teams – Bronwen and James (Team Smiley) were teamed up against Mary and Courtney (Team Emotion) in designing superhero cakes. Everyone was seeing green, as they all pulled eco-heroes out of their creative butts – all except for James, that is, whose Captain Beachtowel was the best of the bunch. His idea might have been the best, but it wasn’t Bronwen’s idea, so that meant that almost none of it got used. Queen bee much, missy?

Anywho, Team Emotion combined their ideas and crafted a well-sculpted, glow-in-the-dark homage to fireflies, hippos and toxic sludge, while Team Smiley crafted a thong-clad man in a cape that rotated on top of a giant, phallic tower, complete with a single, enormous ball at the base. I wish I was kidding. Team Emotion took the prize easily, and Bronwen and James were forced into a 30-minute cake decorate-off. Bronwen won. Duh.

And I believe that just about catches us up. (By the way, check out the Lost 100th episode cake, made by Duff’s Charm City Cakes over at Jorge Garcia’s blog! It’s awesome.)

This week, on Lost: Alright, listen up – I know I’m not going to win any popularity votes here, but looking back on this week’s episode just left a bad taste in my mouth. I know, I know, it’s full of all my favorite things – Juliet, temporal theory, big twists, Jack getting shot at – so I should be happy, right? And, yet, somehow I just wasn’t. There were too many frayed ends dangling out there, too much history happening far too quickly and not fitting into four seasons’ worth of carefully laid-out continuity. I will say that upon further thought and some much-needed reflection, I have come around a bit. We’ll get to some of that later, after the recap, but for now let me just say that even though I wasn’t completely thrilled by the 100th episode, it did manage to do one thing that every successful episode of Lost must: make me think. Moving on …

We open in the emergency room, in 2008. Desmond’s just been shot by Ben, and he is rushed toward surgery while Penny is left outside with baby Charlie. She’s understandably worried. In this time of crisis, Eloise – old Mama Time, herself – shows up to give comfort. She admits to knowing Desmond and tells Penny that this is her son’s fault. Penny gets a bit agitated at the thought of this woman being Ben’s mother, until Eloise straightens her out and tells her that Daniel Faraday is the man she meant.

Back in 1977, Dan steps off the sub and greets Miles, just like we saw two weeks ago. We find out that Dan’s been hanging out back at Dharma HQ in Ann Arbor. Not a bad way to spend three years, I suppose. He’s come back to the island because he just saw the picture of the new class of ‘77 – Jack, Kate and Hurley. Miles takes Dan over to Jack’s house, where Dan proceeds to tell Jack that Eloise Hawking is basically full of shit and so is Jack for believing in a “destiny.” Hold it, Dan, we almost had the old jackass going and now you had to go and ruin it.

Flashing back, now, or forward, as it were (don’t you love time travel?), to when Daniel was a boy, we see him at the piano. He’s not half bad. A young Eloise Hawking comes into the parlor, stops the metronome, and asks young Dan how many beats the metronome has made since it started. 864, he replies. This, his mum says, is why he has no time to waste on music – he must occupy his brain with math and science, and hone his skills. This does not make young Dan very happy.

“Mum, I’d like you to meet my cauliflower, err, I mean, girlfriend, Theresa.”

Let’s get the other flashbacks out of the way, too, shall we? It’s Dan’s doctoral graduation at Oxford, now, and he has himself a girlfriend – Theresa Spencer, whom he’ll later turn into a temporally-displaced vegetable. Mum wants lunch alone and Daniel is peeved that she’s rude to his girlfriend. Being a momma’s boy, though, he relents. At lunch, he tells her that he’s received a grant from a wealthy industrialist. Charles Widmore, of course. She gives a gruff glare, then hands him a gift before leaving. He opens it. It’s the journal, blank for now, with an inscription.

“… even if I accidentally shoot you in the back. Hugs to you. <3″

It’s 2004-ish now, and Dan is watching the news conference telling the world that Oceanic flight 815 has been found at the bottom of the ocean. He’s sad. We saw this last season. What we didn’t see was Chuck Widmore coming to call. They shoot the shit about the usual stuff: how Dan didn’t mean to turn Theresa into a stunted vegetable, how his memory is full of more holes than swiss cheese, how Chuck wants Dan to go to this Island on a big steamer full of insane mercenaries so he can eventually go back in time and set things straight. Charles also admits to Dan that he faked the whole Oceanic wreckage. Charles adds that the Island could also heal Dan’s riddled memory, to which Dan remarks that he sounds like his mum. It makes sense to Charles because he and Ellie are old chums. I’ll just bet you are, bub. Chums with benefits.

It’s not much later and Dan is playing the piano again. He’s come full circle, playing the same song he did as a child. Eloise enters and he tells her about the job offer. She says he should take it. He asks if this would make her proud, and after a little bit of hesitation, she says yes. Dan agrees to go, and as we shall soon see, that’s not going to work out too well for either of them.

Back in 1977, Jack goes over to Sawyer’s bungalow to tell him Dan has returned. Sawyer shows off the shit he’s gotten into in the meantime – Phil is tied up in the closet. Jack doesn’t ask what sort of crazy party Sawyer and Juliet were throwing.

Ahh, the old “I’ll carry around this big heavy thing and look important” disguise. Tell me, dear readers, why did Dan need to keep a low profile when he ran directly up to Dr. Chang not two minutes after he had knocked into him, and Chang was nonplussed? Why did Dan need to act on the downlow to begin with? Just one more reason why this episode felt a bit whacked.

Over in a well-run patch in the jungle of mystery, Miles and Dan arrive at the Orchid. Pierre Chang is there, and Dan follows him down into the Orchid sub-basement. We can recognize this scene – it’s where we started back in episode one of this season. Dan bumps into Chang and checks out the damage from drilling so near a large source of electromagnetic energy. Dan soon runs up to Chang and tries to convince him that he needs to order the evacuation of everyone on the Island. In six hours, says Dan, someone at the Swan is going to take a pick axe to a world of hurt. Chang thinks he’s full of crap, so Dan pulls out the “I’m from the future” card. This doesn’t work too well, either. He probably should have told Chang how he came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, but whatever. Dan decides to unleash his ultimate trump card: he tells Chang that Miles is his son. Of course, Miles denies it, so Dan is back to square one: nobody leaves, everything go boom.

Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Jin all get together at Sawyer’s bungalow to discuss their options. They can either get the hell out of dodge on the sub, or head off into the jungle to start from scratch. The group is split, and soon they are interrupted by Dan, who has this crazy idea of going in search of the hostiles so he can reunite with his mum. Jack wants to help, but doesn’t know how to get to the Hostiles’ camp. He asks Kate, but Sawyer wants Freckles to stay. This doesn’t sit too well with Juliet, who eagerly gives Kate the code to the sonic fence, basically in the hopes that the bitch will go off and be eaten by Ol’ Smokey or taken hostage for good by the Others. Good for you, Juliet.

Sawyer, you miserable bastard. You made her cry. C’mere, baby, I’ll comfort you.

While Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley and Jin start packing up to leave for the beach, Jack and Kate are off on one of their wacky adventures with Dan in tow. They head to the motor pool to get some guns – you know, because every mechanic worth their salt keeps an arsenal in the garage. This ain’t the South, people. (I’m from the South, I can say that.) On the way, Dan spots a little red-headed girl and it’s about the time that he has that little talk with young Charlotte. He tells Jack and Kate to go on and he’ll catch up, then proceeds to be that creepy, scruffy guy that hangs out at the edge of the playground and offers candy.

He gets down on bended knee, and Charlotte says that she isn’t allowed to have chocolate before dinner – the very thing she said before she kicked the bucket a few episodes back. Dan assures her that he won’t tell. Then McWeepy breaks down and gets a bit creepier and tells her that she is going to have to get on the sub with her mum in a couple of hours so they don’t asplode. He really wanted to avoid telling her the whole thing, but he can’t help himself because he thinks he may be able to change things. Dude, if you really wanted to “change things” then you could have just not had the conversation in the first place and seen what happened. If Chang’s going to order an evacuation, she’s probably going to get on the sub and be safe and … whatever. This part just seems lazy and dumb.

“Hello there, stranger. Let me proceed to tell you how much I love chocolate.” What are they teaching these kids? No wonder the Hostiles win.

Dan soon catches up to Jack and Kate and they’re in the middle of raiding Uncle Al’s Auto Stop and Gunnery Shop when Radzinsky and a couple of his lackeys show up in a Dharma bus. Someone had the bright idea to give the physicist a pistol, so we all know how this goes …

“I’m totally not holding a gun, especially in plain sight where you can see it. No, this is one of them new wrenches. We were just going to try and fix an engine, or, failing that, blow a hole in it.”

“Dude, ow! Time out, time out … seriously. Ow.”

“Jeebus, we’re being shot at! Kate, you run out there and get taken hostage while Dan and I escape in this here jeep!”

Poor form, Jack. There are eight-year-olds on Xbox Live right now that could take out your kneecap with a rusty six-shooter and a blindfold.

And they all die in a fire. Just kidding, they miraculously escape in an open-topped vehicle that’s parked 50 yards from Radzinsky & Co. Um, yeah. I don’t know. It IS the late ’70s, after all. Starsky & Hutch were doing stranger things on television, I suppose.

Jack, Kate and Dan arrive at the sonic fence and Kate shuts it down. Jack looks at Dan’s wounds and tells him he has just a scratch. Whew, that was close. Sure am glad Dan didn’t get shot or something. Anyways, while they’re waiting, Dan has to have a little speech on basic temporal theory, reminding everyone that even though they’re all in 1977, this is basically their present and their future is unwritten, and blah blah blah Miles covered all this a few weeks ago, and I covered it in, oh, early 2008. So, yeah, we got it. Thanks.

Back in Dharmaville, Juliet and Sawyer are packing up when the alarm goes off and the goon squad shows up. Radzinsky wants to know where the hell LaFleur has been, and then hears some scuffling going on somewhere in the house. Radz finds Phil bound and gagged in the closet, and immediately surmises that something fishy is going on. He and his men in black force Juliet and Sawyer to the ground at gunpoint.

Back in Hostile territory, Jack, Kate and Dan have taken a breather at a creek. In other words, it’s time to have a deep discussion before they run into the Hostiles, because otherwise you’d probably want to hightail your asses onward before the whole Island is engulfed in electromagnetic hell. Ahem. At any rate, Daniel proceeds to lay it all out for Jack: In a few hours, someone at the Swan is going to trigger a massive electromagnetic pulse that will cause mass devastation. As a result, Dharma will build the Hatch and enable a failsafe protocol that involves having someone push a button every 108 minutes. Desmond will ultimately end up down there and one day forget to push the button, at which point a large electromagnetic pulse will be released that will force Oceanic 815 down onto the Island and eventually lead to all these temporal shenanigans.

Dan used to harp on and on about whatever happened, happened, but now he’s changed his tune. He knows about the constants in the temporal equation, but has forgotten about the variables, which are the people. He now thinks they might be able to change things because of their actions and free will. Gee dude, you just came up with that after all these years? Oh, and get this: Dan wants to change things at the Swan by preventing the “incident.” And how does he want to do this? By detonating Jughead, the hydrogen bomb from 1954. Let that roll around in your head for a couple of seconds – he wants to stop a pulse of electromagnetic energy with a pulse of pure, atomic death-on-a-stick.

Whooo, somebody pour that boy a big, tall mug of crazy.

Back in 2008, at the hospital, Penny is still grief-stricken about Desmond, and she can’t believe her ears when it comes to Eloise. Yes, Daniel Faraday is Ellie’s son. Penny asks Eloise if Des is going to be alright, to which Mama Time replies that she doesn’t know. She also remarks that it’s the first time in a long time that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Penny soon receives good news, however, and she and Desmond are reunited.

Here, Desmond is telling Penny that he is never going to leave her, because he promised. Hooray! There are still some characters that I can actually care about on this show.

Outside the hospital, Eloise is approached by Charles Widmore. Of course. He asks how Desmond is doing and Eloise says fine. She also tells him that his daughter’s in there with him. Chuck basically says that he’s had to sacrifice his relationship with his daughter over these years. This doesn’t sit too right with Eloise, and she says that he has no idea of sacrifice, since she had to send her son to the Island to get … wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Chuck remarks that Daniel is his son, too, and gets a slap upside the head. So … I guess we all knew there was another Widmore running around somewhere, and Daniel was as good a candidate as any.

And now, back in 1977, Jack, Kate and Sawyer have finally arrived at the Hostiles’ camp. Dan doesn’t wait, and trots right into camp, shooting up the place. Richard comes out and confronts Dan, whom he seems to recognize. Dan wants to see Ellie, and he wants to see her right that instant. Just as Richard is about to talk Dan down, a shot rings out. Dan looks down to see a bloody hole in his chest, and he slumps to the ground. Behind him is Eloise Hawking, holding a rifle. She leans over him, and he gasps with breath: “You knew this was going to happen, but you sent me anyway.” Eloise wants to know who the hell he is, and with what might just be his dying breath, he tells her that he is her son.

“Rose … bud.”

Cue the thonk!

Whew, crazy episode. As I said earlier, a lot of things that were happening in this episode just weren’t sitting right with me. I fully admitted that having Eloise ultimately shoot Dan was a nice bit of temporal-based irony that ultimately saved the show. The very small, but very welcome, appearance of Desmond and Penny warmed my heart and reminded me why I care. The rest of it, though – not so much upon first viewing. However, after jotting down my concerns and doing a bit of backlogging, I’ve reconciled a few of those. Before I get down to some temporal dissection, a look at Dan’s notebook and a healthy fashion discussion about the snazzy new “evil” Dharma jumpers, I’d like to cover some of the things that were bothering me, and the possible solutions that make it all a little more palatable. Some of you may have had the same concerns, and I hope my thoughts will help ease your troubled minds, as well.

WAIT, WHAT?
Thing the one: What the hell is up with the timing of the “incident?” All indications up to this point have pointed to the incident occurring in the early to mid-80s. Granted, no specific time has been mentioned in the show for when the Incident occurred, but we’ve all been speculating since around season two. The Swan orientation film was the first to mention the Incident, and we soon learned that the button protocol was instituted because of it. There’s even a significant incident mentioned on the blast door map, and it pinpoints the “incident” occurring in 1985.

“Hey Ethyl! He’s got that damn blast door map out again!”

Now, in this episode Dan tells us that the Hatch was built because of the Incident. If that’s true, then the Incident seems to be occurring about five to eight years too soon.

However, upon further reflection there is one saving grace for this particular timeline: the Swan computer, also known as The Button. That computer is an old Apple II, which was introduced in 1977, so it’s entirely possible that Dharma set up the new Swan protocol with the venerable Apple II at the helm. Something still doesn’t feel quite right, deep down in my gut, but I’m willing to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Thing the two: Everything seems to be happening too fast. For three years, Sawyer and Co. were hanging out with the Dharma Initiative and everything was hunky dory. Now, with in a couple of weeks of Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid being back, all hell has broken loose. I know that Jack and Kate are hell on wheels, but give me a break.

When they first showed up, Sawyer went over to the Flame where Radzinsky was building a model of the Swan from proposed blueprints. Within a few episodes – a matter of a week, maybe two – we’re to believe that construction of the Swan had already begun in earnest, including a huge, underground geodesic dome. Why the model, then, Radzinsky? Oooh, it has haunted my brain for the past few weeks.

And then, I realized how completely oblivious I was being. The model was probably for the orientation film. Many of you probably already thought of this, and maybe I missed something in a previous episode (it happens, I can’t catch EVERYTHING), but it finally made sense as to why he was building that architectural model, besides the obvious “hey cool, let’s get that on film” factor. So my mind was eased a bit by that, which is nice.

Thing the three: Charlotte. I mentioned it in the recap, but Dan pretty much negates his whole mutable timeline theory when he talks to Charlotte. He even tries to explain to her that he wanted to avoid it, but he couldn’t and now he wants to try and change things. Well, you just didn’t change a thing, dude, because you were the scary older guy that she told you about right when she died. Try going over to her and not getting all weepy and just say, “Hey, Dr. Chang is going to want everyone to leave, so go find your mommy.” Now, granted, he loved the woman, so seeing her as a child is bound to bring back some traumatic memories of her dying in his arms but c’mon. The whole set-up just seemed to culminate in a cheap payoff. At least that’s my opinion, I could be wrong.

There are more, but let’s move onto something more constructive, something like …

TIME IS ON MY SIDE, YES IT IS
Well, Dan, way to switch your temporal theory on us in mid-stream. You went from preaching static timeline theory straight on to divergent or mutable timeline theory. I’ve covered the specifics of these particular theories ad nauseum over the past two years, so if you want to read more about them, you can check them out in the analysis for “He’s Our You” and in last season’s “The Other Woman.” What I do want to look at is how the future for the Oceanic Survivors could look depending on the theory.

There is nothing specific in Daniel’s monologue this week about the Variables to indicate which of the two alternate theories he may believe can take place, but the safest would be divergent timeline theory. Within the confines of this theory, the future of the Oceanic survivors that we have come to know and love would involve a branching timeline that shoots off and offers another outcome after 1977, if Daniel, or Jack and Kate, are able to change something in the past. Their individual futures where the plane crashed, they survived, etc. would still exist, but in an alternate, branching timeline from this one. They were all able to travel back to this particular spot on the timeline because the event causing the branch had not transpired before this moment in 1977.

In the graphic above, the original timeline is represented by the branch that includes 2004a. In that timeline, Oceanic 815 crashed because of Desmond, etc., all because the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) occurred. The Oceanic survivors traveled back to before the EMP from this particular timeline, setting them up to potentially change the outcome and create a new branch.

This new branch would be represented by the timeline marked 2004b. That branches off when the hydrogen bomb was detonated, preventing the EMP. Now, if our survivors manage to pull something like that off and are able to travel back into the future, they will have to travel along the timeline for 2004b, eventually appearing in an alternate timeline where Oceanic 815 never crashed. There would be no paradox, because a timeline where the survivors did crash and did travel back in time existed prior to this branching timeline. Is this cooking your noodle yet?

Okay, look at it another way: raise your hand if you’ve seen Terminator 2. Just about everybody, okay, good. Let’s pretend that Terminator 3 never happened (not a film review, it’s actually quite good, but for the sake of argument). Now, within the confines of that movie, Skynet sends Robert Patrick back to try and kill John Connor. John Connor sends Arnold back so that he would be protected. Now, in the course of Robert Patrick and Arnold’s struggle, both Terminators were destroyed, along with the parts for all the terminator technology that Cyberdyne was using to develop Skynet to begin with. Once that happened, an alternate timeline branch was created where Skynet never came into existence and the terminators never came back, etc. Got it? Go back and watch T2 if you need to. It’s okay, it’s a good way to spend 2.5 hours.

Now, with mutable timeline theory, things get sticky. In this theory, if the survivors were able to change things and the EMP never went off, which later led to Oceanic 815 crashing and them subsequently traveling back in time, then the timeline of 2004a would be destroyed, and “rewritten” as 2004b. If that were to happen, the survivors would be erased, as well, rebooting the timeline and, quite possibly, resetting everything to zero. It could cause a new timeline to develop where the Oceanic survivors never existed in the first place, or it could create a causality loop where the alternate timeline can never really exist, so the timeline reboots to the original setting, the Oceanic survivors crash again, go back in time again, and another set of outcomes become available.

This causality loop would occur every time that an action took place that changed the past, possibly for infinity. Got all that? Don’t worry if you don’t – it would be absolute suicide to subscribe to mutable timeline theory, or at least if you followed it logically. My fear with the writers diverging from static timeline theory (ie,”whatever happens, happens”) is painting themselves into a corner, or forcing the general public to swallow yet another convoluted time travel theory. Sure we’d have some fun over here, but the general audience would be left scratching their heads all through fifth season.

Personally, I think that Dan is wrong, and no one is able to change what has been set in motion. I could be wrong, though, as we have a whole other season to wrap all this up, and I’m not quite sure what crisis the survivors will face before the end.

THE MEN IN BLACK
Okay, can someone, for the love of Juliet, tell me how Radzinsky and his goons were suddenly able to raid Johnny Cash’s closet?

Seriously, where did these jumpers come from? Did I miss something in a previous episode? It’s entirely possible that I did what with all the lack of sleep. Did they get dark jumpers just so we would feel a tinge of evil? And who are these ruffians with Radz, anyway? These are all burning questions that keep me up late at night.

I’M GOING TO WRITE ABOUT THIS IN MY BLOG
Okay, we got to see the origin of Daniel’s journal! Granted, we only saw its birth and none of the important stuff, like how in the hell it’s all filled in, what, exactly is within its contents other than random, insane writings on space-time, the Orchid, etc., and who put all of that into writing in the first place.

As for who filled it in, I’m sure that it was mostly Daniel. There’s a reason he was given that journal in the first place by his mum. He used it to keep track of his experiments, as well as his many forays into the temporal unknown. It was probably a way for Daniel to keep track of the many events he came across during his experiments with temporal flux. He admits in this episode that he tried out his experiments on himself before he did so with Theresa. I’m imagining that Daniel’s experiments caused him to “leap” through time, much like Desmond did in “The Constant.” Daniel was able to see forward and backward along his lifetime, even seeing some events transpiring on the Island, and making appropriate notes. One evidence of this is the marking for the Orchid in his journal. This leaping is also probably what taught Daniel about the importance of a constant, which he passed onto Desmond in order to save his life.

It’s important to note that when Daniel first sees the journal, the pages seem empty and it’s brand new, except for the inscription from his mother. So it seems that a former theory of mine – that the journal was Ellie’s, passed down to Dan – may not be true. It is possible, however, that the journal was taken by Ellie after she shot Dan, and she may have added additional events and notes to it over the years. I imagine that it’s this very journal that allows her to know what’s going to happen through the years. How it’s filled in with such great detail is a bit of a mystery, however. Unless Daniel saw just about everything during his leaps, there would be holes that are almost impossible to gap. For instance, in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” Desmond meets Eloise for the first time in the jewelry shop. Eloise knows that Desmond is going to be there, and sets up the meeting so that she can steer him back toward his “destiny” with the button.

In a sense, Ellie has been acting like a bit of a timecop throughout much of the series. She steered Desmond back to his path, made sure that Jack and Co. got back to the Island so they could travel back to 1977, and even sacrificed her own son by sending him to the Island because that’s just the way it’s supposed to happen.

AND A COUPLE THINGS MORE
1.) Daniel may not be dead. He got shot in almost the same place as young Ben, and they’re even closer to the Temple, this time around. Would that be a huge copout? Probably. Would it make a lot of sense? Hell yes, if even just for the sake of consistency. Which means, of course, that it probably won’t happen.

2.) Speaking of electromagnetic pulses, do you know what else emits EMPs? Detonated nuclear bombs. Jughead had a leaky casing. The Hostiles had to do something with it. Bury it, perhaps? More than likely. Dharma digger go boom. Voila, one hell of an EMP. Just something to think about.

And that’s about it for this week. There’s a lot more rattling around in my head, but I’m too frazzled to prattle on about it. Sorry for getting cranky about this week’s episode; I’m just used to such high quality from Lost that I get a little grumpy when something doesn’t sit right with me. There are still three episodes for the creative team to really ramp things up and take us back to formula, and I’m looking forward to it as much as any one of you.

Thanks for reading and until next time, keep thinking those good thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, write and tell me something good.

Namaste.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

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Karen and Andreas talk about last night’s episode, “The Variable”:

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Previously, on Lost: Sawyer. Cassidy. Baby. Con. Kate. Copter. Whisper. SPLASH! Kidnap. Lawyer. Carole. Island. Past. Ben. Sayid. Van. CRASH! Escape. Jungle. Run. Jin? WHACK! BLAM! Thud. Thonk!

This week on Lost: Okay, this week it’s time for me to be fast and furious (in theaters today!), so bear with me. Let’s roll!

After Kate gets off the Island, she goes to see Cassidy – Sawyer’s ex and mother of his daughter, Clementine – and spills the beans. Cassidy calls Sawyer a son of a bitch and a coward for jumping off the chopper. Kate hands Cassidy money, but she doesn’t want it since it’s dirty blood money from the Oceanic settlement.

Later, later, like 2007 later, Kate leaves the docks where Sun has Ben at gunpoint and decides, despite the shock of potential gunfire around her “son,” that it’s okay to stop off at the local supermart for some chocolate milk. Aaron doesn’t want chocolate milk, dammit, he wants a juice box. So, somewhere between aisle three and aisle five, Kate loses Aaron. That kid is damn slippery. Anyone else have a problem with this scenario? Did your mom ever lose you in the grocery store as a child? Hell no, when you were Aaron’s age, your mom got a shopping cart even if she was going in there just to pick up panty hose and you were in the cart, standing up at the front, playing King of the World like Leonardo fucking DiCaprio. You know it’s true. Anyways, she gets all frantic and sees someone who looks a lot like Claire walking toward the exit with Aaron. She grabs him and holds him close. Next time, use a cart Kate. Moms everywhere agree.

A little later, like when it’s time to go back to the Island later, Kate visits Carole Littleton and tells her the truth about little Aaron. She’s a bit shocked, understandably. Kate tells Carole that she is going back to the Island to find Claire (really? Really Kate? Like, seriously?) and that Aaron is two doors down. Kate then goes off to tell the little dude goodbye and she boo hoos quite a bit and, for a second, my heart actually melts for Kate.

Damn you for making me care!

Hey, alright, back on the Island in good old 1977 now! Baby Ben’s been shot! Sayid’s run off! Jin’s unconscious! Dogs and cats … living together … mass hysteria!

Jin wakes up and finds that baby Ben has suffered the first of many beatdowns he will receive in life. Ben is still alive – yep, we all figured as much – so Jin scoops him up and loads him into the Dharmamobile.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the price of tea in China, I just thought it was a cool shot.

Back at Dharmaville, Horace has cooked up this crazy theory that someone in Dharma must’ve helped Sayid escape. While he and Sawyer (as LeFleur) are checking out the cell and security cameras, everyone else is on clean-up duty, straightening up the place after a flaming Dharmamobile took out a bungalow. Roger Linus asks for the wench’s help with … oh, hahahah, wait, he asked for Kate’s help with the winch, my bad, and I can swear that Kate makes flirty freckle face with him. Ew, Kate. Just ew. In the middle of flirty freckle face action, Jin drives up and drags out a bloodied boyhood Ben. To the infirmary!

Kate visits Sawyer down at the Dharma jail, looking for answers to what happened to boy Ben. Horace shows up and they have to play it cool, so Kate can get out while the getting’s good. Horace finds some keys in the jail cell lock and says that only three people have keys like that, two of them being Roger Linus and new guy, Jack. Sawyer orders Miles to go watch over Jack, Kate and Hurley, and make sure they don’t leave their bungalow until he can straighten up the town.

In the infirmary, lovely Juliet tries desperately to save boy Ben’s life, but the tween has lost a lot of blood and it’s not looking good. If only there was a trained surgeon on the Island! Wait, there is? Oh yeah, Jack! Somebody get Jack! Oh good, Sawyer’s gonna get Jack. Surely he’ll help.

“hufffff … No way, man … like, that requires me getting up, and, like, caring and stuff. Besides, Horace has, like, some amazing shit growing back over near the Arrow. It’s totally premo. Oh, hey, could you, like, throw me the Dharma chips on your way out? Righteous.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bungalow, Hurley is channeling his inner Marty McFly, and I’m having a little deja vù of my own.

Hurley, waiting to see if his hand would disappear a la Marty’s picture in Back to the Future, just like I mentioned in last week’s analysis. Oh, he’s talking about mutable timeline theory, just for the record.

Hurley and Miles then get in a heavy discussion about the implications and repercussions of mucking about in the past. If anyone would like a more detailed recap of what and all was discussed during their temporal pow wow, feel free to look back at my analyses of the entire last two seasons. It’s pretty much all right there, in black and white.

Back to Jack, Kate tells him that she can’t believe he won’t help and that she doesn’t like the new him. Jack just does a little head bob thing, does two snaps in the air and tells her that she didn’t like the old him, either. Oh no, he didn’t! You just been served, bitch. Kate decides she’s had enough and leaves to go help Juliet in the infirmary, despite the protests of Miles.

Back in the infirmary, little Ben isn’t looking so hot. Kate shows up and offers her blood to help Ben, since she’s a universal donor. That’d be type O negative for all you completists out there.

“Now, Kate, you just lie back for a couple of hours. He’s lost a lot of blood, so I figure we’ll need about 4 or 5 liters …”*

While Kate is waiting to get her “I Donated Blood” sticker and the free cookie, Roger comes in and there comes flirty freckle face, again. What does she have for Uncle Rico, anyway? Roger takes a seat and laments that he wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest father, and that Ben took his keys to let Sayid out.

Back at the Oceanic bungalow, Miles continues to try and get Hurley to understand the laws of time travel, and it makes me kind of glad that I just get to write about this complicated crap without someone going “but … but … but …” the whole time.

“Aha! But, dude, that guy on HoboTrashcan.com said that we’re, like, all connected by temperamental string and stuff and that there’s a chance one of us could leap back in time into a woman’s body to set right what went wrong … or something like that. Let’s just see if Jack has any more of that stuff around here.”

After Kate gives a little less than the four liters that Juliet needs, Juliet informs Kate that little Ben isn’t going to make it without some help. She suggest that the Others might be able to do something. The Others! What a stellar idea! So, Juliet helps Kate get little Ben into a Dharmamobile, and off Kate goes, to the sonic fence. It’s not long before Sawyer catches up to her, though. Figuring that he’s come to stop her from giving Ben over to the Others, she plants her feet and gets all Miss Tuffpants. Sawyer tells her that he’s not there to stop her, though, he’s there to help … BUT, he’s there because Juliet asked him to be there, not because Kate might need his help. Sawyer loves Juliet! Oh, there is justice on the Island, after all.

Sawyer deactivates the sonic fence, drags little Ben out of the van and he and Kate set off into the jungle of mystery, looking for the Hostile’s M.A.S.H.

Meanwhile, back in Dharmaville, Juliet is tearing into the Oceanic bungalow and she is pissed. Good god, it’s hot. She tells Hurley and Miles to take their temporal wanking elsewhere and rushes them out the door, before storming into the bathroom to catch Jack … in a towel? Oh, c’mon! Juliet closes the door and lets it all spill out. She demands to know why Jack wouldn’t help her or Ben, and why he’s come back to the Island, after all. Jack thinks for a minute and simply says that he knows he was supposed to come back to the Island, but he doesn’t know why just yet. Careful there, Jack … you’re starting to sound like Locke. FINALLY.

“What? Help? Yeah, like, sorry but I just had take a shower, man … there were, like, spiders and shit on me.”

Back in the jungle of mystery, Kate and Sawyer are carrying Ben deeper and deeper into Hostile territory. Since Kate is there, it’s not long before they find themselves at gunpoint, and Sawyer demands to see Richard Alpert. Kate and Sawyer are escorted further into the jungle until Richard appears. Richard recognizes Sawyer, but doesn’t register Kate. It’s okay, though, says Sawyer, she’s with him. Sawyer tells Richard that they have come for his help because the boy has been shot. Richard asks if the boy is Benjamin Linus and Sawyer raises an eyebrow, wondering if the two have met before. At any rate, Richard agrees to help Ben, but if he does, Ben will never be the same. He will be changed, losing his innocence and forever becoming one of Them. Oh, and he won’t remember any of this, or how R2 saved the Republic again, or even master Obi-Wan.

Richard takes Ben in his arms, and one of the Others tells him that Ellie and Charles won’t be too pleased. Well, well, Mrs. Hawking and Mr. Widmore do end up together as speculated. Anywho, Richard says that they’re not the boss of him and he takes off with Ben through the jungle. He comes out into a clearing and there’s the Temple, in all its styrofoam glory. Richard walks up to the Temple wall, flips a magic switch that opens a stone door, and carries little Benjamin Linus off to meet his pod, and his destiny.

Cue the … WAITAMINUTE.

Back on the Island in current time (well, show current time, you know what I mean), we see big Ben curled up inside the Hydra station, sleeping peacefully after having been conked on the head for the 81st time. The camera pans up to reveal a figure beside the cot, looking down on Ben. It’s Locke, who, when Ben opens his eyes, grins that wonderful mischievous grin and welcomes Ben back to the land of the living.

You just can’t keep a good man down. Hey, buddy. We’ve missed you.

And NOW … cue the thonk!

This was a nice, solid episode. Not a lot of totally mind-blowing moments, but a good time, overall. Surprisingly, despite the humorous lesson in temporal mechanics given by Miles, there’s not really a whole lot of time theory to rehash in the analysis. As any of you who have read the column for awhile now know, pretty much everything they’ve said has come up at one point or another. Anyone new to the party who needs a temporal fix should just go back and re-read my analyses for this season. Oh, hush, you’ll like it.

Well, despite no new temporal shenanigans, there are definitely a couple of things that came into sharper focus after that episode. Most importantly, more of the structure and operations of the Others were revealed, as well as how the Temple and Cerberus play a role. Let’s take a trip down the Other rabbit hole now and see what we’ve got, so far.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Ah, Ol’ Smokey, old buddy. Cerberus doesn’t even appear in this episode and yet his amorphous mark is all over it. As soon as Richard took Ben into the Temple to be “fixed,” I immediately started thinking back to the cerberus vent and how Ol’ Smokey dragged Montand – a member of Rousseau’s science team – kicking and screaming into the Temple. His friends had no recourse but to follow, and a couple of months later we find that they’ve all been converted into pod people that Danielle has no choice but to gun down. Cerberus has been referred to as a “security system” for the Island, and that would be one hell of a security system – if you have a problem with a bunch of people on the Island, get Ol’ Smokey to grab a few of them, drag them through a cerberus vent and into the Temple, where they attend Orientation on how to be a full member of the Others. Once they come out of the Temple, they’re fully on the Other train, ready to do just about anything to protect the Island. They are, as Richard puts it, forever changed.

“Oh, hey, look … he’s got that damned blast door map out, again.” I do, indeed! It’s my favorite show prop of all time. Anyway, on this map there are certain locations with markings such as CVII and CVIII – as we’ve covered before, those stand for Cerberus Vents. There’s a pretty important one at the Temple, and one that we’ve all seen with our own eyes not too far from the Swan. What’s that vent? We’ll take a look at that in a second.

Now, within the context of that set of principles which might govern Cerberus, we can go back and cross-reference that with encounters that our main players have had with Ol’ Smokey to try and get a clearer picture. Let’s start with Locke, and the Cerberus Vent I mentioned above.

Waaay back in season one, in “Walkabout,” Locke encounters Ol’ Smokey for the first time in the jungle. We don’t get to see Cerberus just then, but we see Locke from its perspective, as it looms over him. Later, he recalls that he had looked into the eye of the Island, and what he saw was beautiful. We know now that Ol’ Smokey was analyzing Locke, looking for something that it could take back and, possibly receive orders in regards to.

Locke’s first encounter with the “eye of the Island.” Yup, it’s a pissed off giraffe.

Locke encounters Cerberus a second time during season one, only this time Ol’ Smokey doesn’t seem as benign as in his first encounter. As a matter of fact, Cerberus grabs Locke and tries to drag him down a “hole.” This, we now know, is our first encounter with a Cerberus Vent.

Jack, being helpful, back when he wasn’t being quite as much of an asshole.

You always remember your first time. *sigh*

Later, after Jack was able to pull Locke up out of the Cerberus vent, Locke remarked that he didn’t think that the smoke was trying to harm him. That sounded like the ravings of a half-mad man back then, but it makes a ton of sense, now – whatever Cerberus saw in Locke during their first encounter, it knew that the Island needed him and Cerberus would have to get Locke down into one of those hidey holes and then over to the Temple for orientation. I believe that’s what Ol’ Smokey had planned to do, and I think that’s Ol’ Smokey’s true purpose – not to be the weapon of the Island, but to take the future protectors over to the processing center to be weaponized. Cerberus is but one being, seemingly, but an army of loyal and expendable soldiers is many.

Further proof for this comes from Cerberus’s encounter with Mr. Eko in season two and season three. During their first encounter, Cerberus “scans” Eko, much like it did with Locke, and we see many of Eko’s memories in flashes within the smoke. Later, during “The Cost of Living” in season three, Eko encounters Cerberus again, in the form of his brother, Yemi. Yemi asks Eko to confess and atone for his sins, and Eko tells him that he’s not sorry for anything. This vexes Ol’ Smokey greatly, and later Cerberus grabs him and slams him against the ground and up against a tree, killing him. This shows that Cerberus acts as a conduit for judging those that come to the Island – whether they are worthy of being its servants and protectors or whether they pose a threat. Locke’s love for the Island and his search for purpose made him a perfect candidate for indoctrination, and, indeed, for leadership of the Others. After the Swan was destroyed and Eko lost his way a bit, it was Eko’s unwavering belief that there was nothing wrong with his past actions that put him in dangerous opposition to the constructs of the Island. And, so, he had to die, rather than being sucked down a Cerberus Vent.

A couple of niggling questions remain. The timing and events that occurred with Locke after his attempted kidnapping by Ol’ Smokey in season one are a bit off. After that, Locke never really had another encounter with Cerberus, and his long, strange trip to becoming one of the Others had to be set in motion by Ben, posing as Henry Gale. Second, it seems as though Cerberus is not an autonomous entity, so the question remains: who, ultimately, controls the beast? We saw towards the end of season four that Ben can call upon Cerberus from a secret room in one of the bungalows, but in season three, in “Left Behind,” after Kate and Juliet are chased by Ol’ Smokey and repelled by the sonic fence, Juliet tells Kate that they (the Others) don’t know exactly what Ol’ Smokey is, but it doesn’t like the fences. Was Juliet lying? Or was she intentionally kept in the dark because Ben – and Richard – are probably two of the few to know the truth about everything?

There’s more – lots more – but we should move on.

CHARLES IN CHARGE
So, we learn for certain in this episode, that Charles and “Ellie” are in charge of the Others in 1977. I think it’s safe to assume that the Charles and Ellie referenced are Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking. Are they a couple? Back in my analysis for “The Little Prince,” I postulated that Charles had to eventually leave the Island because his wife was preggers and he wanted to save her. I also figured that Eloise might just well be Charles’ wife – or ex – since they both have history with the Island and are connected. Of course, they could just be co-leaders, no romance involved at all. The important thing to note, however, is that they both seem to share in the leadership of the Others at this point.

Which brings us to an interesting point about the hierarchy of the Others. Why is there a shift in leadership from time to time? And what role, ultimately, do Jacob and Richard Alpert play?

We know, for certain, that Jacob has been around for a long, long time. When Sawyer, Locke and the gang jump back to 1954 in “Jughead,” Locke gets Richard’s attention by telling him that Jacob sent him. That indicates that Jacob has been at the height of the Island infrastructure for at least 50+ years. We know that Richard isn’t fully in charge, as he has often deferred to the wishes and plans of the current leader of the Others, such as Ben. However, he has his own autonomy, of a sort, because in this episode, he doesn’t care about the opinions of the current leaders of the Others – Ellie and Charles. That could be because of his autonomous nature, but it could also be because he no longer agrees with the leadership of Charles and Ellie, and he takes it upon himself to save Ben, indoctrinate him and guarantee he continue to be the right-hand man on the Island. The same goes for Locke – when Ben starts to go rogue, Richard transitions into a guide, of sorts, for Locke, and tells him that he is destined to lead the Others.

As for the direct report to Jacob, it can only be speculated that Charles and Ellie, at some point, became full leaders and counseled with Jacob. In 1954, it appeared that young Charles and Ellie may not have assumed the mantle of leaders just yet. Richard seemed to be in charge of the group when Locke spoke to all of them, but it almost seemed as though he was acting as more of a mentor, or, perhaps, a baby sitter.

As to who may have acted as leader prior to Charles and Ellie is anyone’s guess. Did Magnus Hanso – captain of the Black Rock – once become a member and a possible leader after he was shipwrecked on the Island? Was Richard a member of that crew, or is he even older than that? Who is Jacob? Future Jack/Locke/Ben/ who returned to the past and became Jacob? Or is he somehow an ethereal manifestation of the Island itself? Maybe he’s Ol’ Smokey. I’m hoping that we get to learn more about Jacob and the Others by the time the finale rolls around. If you all have thoughts, send them my way.

WE DON’T EVEN HAVE TO THINK FOURTH-DIMENSIONALLY
So, after all that postulating last week, it came down to the simplest explanation: Young Ben didn’t hit the ground and die after Sayid shot him. Most everyone agreed with me that that would probably be the outcome, and would corroborate that the prevailing temporal theory on Lost, at least for the time being, is static timeline theory. As mentioned, Miles attempts to explain the basics of this theory to the consternation of Hurley, who is just not thinking fourth-dimensionally. Hurley even asks that question that was nagging us from static timeline theory – if it all happened just as it happened, why doesn’t Ben remember anything or anybody? That was a pretty big aha that Miles couldn’t rectify, and, honestly neither could I. We did find out later, however, that nobody remembers what happens to them after they are taken into the Temple and laid down next to one of them pods until their evil pod twin pops out. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, people, try to keep up.

DAMN, WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?
Since I am holed up in my secret underground lair for the two days it takes to write this post, I sometimes miss something really cool on the Internets. It’s usually okay, though, because I’ll come around to that way of thinking eventually, and that’s just the way I work. However, sometimes someone sends me a tidbit or an idea that is too cool to ignore and I not only have to see it, I have to share it.

So, you remember the comic book that Richard brings as one of the items for young Locke to choose from in “Cabin Fever,” last season? That one right up there? Yeah, that one. Well, in that comic, there is a short story called “March Has 32 Days.” In that story, set in 1956, a man fails to inspect a bridge, which later collapses. This man, John, wishes that he could go back in time and change the outcome of the bridge collapse. He blacks out and comes to on that same day – March 31. John sets off to inspect the bridge, but is delayed by a friend who tells him that the bridge has been inspected and is fine. John sets off on his errand to take his wife to the airport, just as in the last time he lived through this day, but decides that he needs to check the bridge anyway to prevent the same thing from happening. He reaches the bridge, finds the flaw and prevents the bridge from collapsing, thereby changing the events of the past.

The story obviously correlates to the show and the fan’s constant debate on the mutability of time and the events in the past. I find it fascinating that the story, from a comic no less, could have such parallels with the events on the Island, and it was introduced in the middle of last season. Nice thinking ahead on the parts of the creative team.

Oh, and another fun tidbit? This episode was broadcast on April 1st. That’s March 32nd. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. As usual, I had a hundred more things running through my brain, but the time has come to put this analysis to bed. I wanted to get a full transcript of Miles and Hurley’s time theory conversation on here for all of you, but I didn’t have the time, and there is no transcript yet written for this episode. Maybe I’ll pull it and post it here next week. I’d be interested in reading over it. I thought it was hilarious. Oh, and plagiaristic, of course. All I’m asking is for a creative credit, guys. Is that so wrong?

I jest. Until next time, keep thinking those good thoughts, and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste.

*That’s a little medical humor, there. Y’see, the body only holds about four to six liters of blood, and … well, you get it. Wow, that joke was way up there … you’d better go look at it again. I’ll bet you even forgot about the asterisk, didn’t you? For shame.

- Chris Kirkman

Visit hobotrashcan.com to see Chris’ weekly LOST drink recipe!

Related posts:

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3. “LaFleur” Recap & Analysis by Chris Kirkman

Karen and Andreas discuss episode 5.11 – “Whatever Happened, Happened”:

[audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Campetin-Episode511WhateverHappenedHappened555.mp3]

Click here to download this Podcast.

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Related posts:

1. SL-LOST Podcast – “LaFleur”
2. SL-LOST Podcast – 5.05 “This Place Is Death”

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Source: The Monitor

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Digital Spy has a new interview with Alan Dale, in which he talks about his new project: “Renaissance”. There’s no mention on LOST, which kind of worries me, because I love Widmore as a character and I’d hate to think that we won’t be seeing him too often next season.

Echo Beach is dead (commiserations, Martine) – but Moving Wallpaper lives on. Hurrah! Hoping for a second chance of primetime success, Jonathan Pope and his team are back with a new project: Renaissance, a one-off zombie drama pilot starring Alan Dale and Kelly Brook. We caught up with veteran actor Alan for a chat about his heroic role in the pilot and the prospect of playing himself in the accompanying comedy series.

Is Renaissance intended to be a serious drama or is it comedic?
“No, it stands on its own. It’s not like Echo Beach was last year. Moving Wallpaper makes the show, but it’s just going to be one half-hour pilot. My character is the hero and Kelly Brook plays the heroine. We’ve both been in most of the episodes of Moving Wallpaper too.”

How does the story of Renaissance play out?
“It starts on a 747, which lands and gets overrun with zombies. My character has three children, Kelly joins us, we escape. At one point I’ve got a flamethrower and we’re cooking zombies! At another point I’m jumpstarting a landrover in the forest somewhere. I had a lot of fun doing it. But it’s dead straight – there’s no attempt at comedy, it’s a horror. It’s a pilot for a horror series.”

So where do these zombies come from?
“It’s explained by one of the characters as a military experiment. Someone got hold of the virus and put a strain of it in the reservoirs. Then the people drank the water and turned into zombies, then started biting non-zombies and turning them into zombies too.”

In the real world, is Renaissance actually a pilot too? Could this be a potential real series?
“We laugh about it and chat about it, but I don’t think that’s the intention. On the other hand, it could happen I suppose!”

What attracted you to this show?
“They sent me some DVDs of Moving Wallpaper last year and I just couldn’t stop watching them. Also I love England and love coming here.”

Did you watch Echo Beach as well?
“No, I never saw that. Actually I had lunch with Jason [Donovan] when I was doing Spamalot and he was still hoping they might bring that back as well. I never saw any of it. Even its name tends to indicate that it’s a soap and I don’t really watch soaps, so I wouldn’t have watched it anyway.”

Are there many crossovers from Moving Wallpaper in the script for Renaissance?
“In Moving Wallpaper Kelly and I play ourselves, so I’m Alan Dale and she’s Kelly Brook. I’m trying to chat up one of the writers – it’s very funny. I feel very uncomfortable playing myself because I’ve never done it before and I don’t really like some of the things I say, because I wouldn’t say that. But when I quoted some of them back to my wife she said ‘they know you!’ I think I probably am like the character more than I think. But whatever, it’s such a thrill to be in it. For me, it’s a more watchable The Office.”

What was Kelly like to work with?
“Lovely. Gorgeous girl. Obviously physically she’s gorgeous but apart from that she’s lovely. A girl much sharper than anybody thinks.”

Source: DigitalSpy

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Here’s a new interview from E!online.com with Fionnula Flanagan, where she talks about her character on LOST, Mrs. Hawking.

Warning: the interview contains some minor spoilers.

Lost fans want to know: Who is Mrs. Eloise Hawking?

We know she’s a mother and something of a mystic, and that her mysterious character (played by the superfine Fionnula Flanagan) has both mucked up Desmond David Hume’s (Henry Ian Cusick) life and helped the Oceanic Six get back to the Island. But as Fionnula reveals to us in an exclusive interview, the full story won’t be revealed until a certain episode a few weeks out…

In the meantime, if she’s Daniel Faraday’s (Jeremy Davies) mother, then who is Daniel’s father? Could it be Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)? Says Fionnula, “Mrs. Hawking never talks about her past sexual relationships.” (Say it with me: LOL.)

And what else is Mrs. Hawking? Could she be an alien? That’s actually on the table, or so says Fionnula…

Having already done three episodes so far this season, Fionnula promises she will bring Mrs. Hawking back again later this season: “I’m literally waiting for the car to come pick me up because I’m going back to Hawaii to do another one.” That episode, likely number 14 (of this season’s 17 hours), explores Mrs. Hawking’s many abilities. “I do know quite a good deal [about her now] from the episode that I’m just about to do. I know a great deal about her past and her present and her future. But I am contractually unable to tell you, or they’d have to kill me.”

OK, so we can’t know who she is (and she isn’t telling if she’s the cute little Ellie from Richard Alpert’s camp in the 1950s), but can we know where she is? Does she ever go to the Island? Says Fionnula, “Oh, I do think Mrs. Hawking can come and go anywhere she pleases. I think she has that capacity. Whether she’s able to control it or not, I don’t know.” Hmmm…

Some watchful Lostpedians noticed that Mrs. Hawking wears a couple of quasi-religious totems—a snake eating its tail and a Tibetan Buddhist symbol. So what is Mrs. Hawking’s religion, if she has any? Is she a woman of science or a woman of faith? “[Her spiritual beliefs] are definitely not of this world and not of this planet. That’s for sure!” Um…not of this planet? I suppose it was just a matter of time before the show introduced aliens!

Continues Fionnula, “I think she’s got that wonderful blend of scientist and spiritual believer. When the stars are properly aligned she seems able to call upon great strength. I think she’s a woman of enormous strength.”

Fionnula doesn’t know why Mrs. Hawking’s photo appeared on the desk of the abbot of Desmond’s monastery. “In fact, I was told about my photograph having appeared. A man stopped me on Bond Street in London last year. He grabbed my arm and said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I have to know: Why was your photograph on the desk?’ And I thought, this man is a lunatic.”

We’re all mad here, but at least we’re in good company. Fionnula is famous in theatrical circles for her appearances in productions of James Joyce‘s works, and she thinks there’s a connection between that writer’s literary fever dreams and our beloved, nutty Lost. She says, “I think there’s definitely some connection between Lost and Finnegans Wake—James Joyce’s great magical, mythical book drawing on seven languages. Yes, I think Joyce would have enjoyed Lost, for sure.”

Source: eonline.com

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Source: Sky.com/Lost

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Beware, MAJOR spoilers are ahead.

5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sneak Peek #1

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Watch the other two sneak peeks after the jump.

5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sneak Peek #2

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loop="false"
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5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sneak Peek #3

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splashimage="http://www.sl-lost.com/flv/player.jpg"
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Source: DocArzt

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3. 5.07 “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” – Sky1 Promo

Here’s a new interview with Michael Emerson where he talks about Ben’s upcoming storylines, Widmore, Annie, Jacob, Ms. Hawking, Juliet, time travel and more.

Warning: this interview contains some spoilers.

TVGuide.com: Has Ben’s revenge mission against Charles Widmore been trumped by the getting the Oceanic 6 to return to the island?
Michael Emerson: I think Ben has not forgotten what Charles Widmore has done to him, and I think he’s going to try to take care of that business at the same time as he’s taking care of the larger mission.

TVGuide.com: With all this time jumping happening on the island, will we see young Ben again?
Emerson: Yes. In fact, now that we are sort of ping-ponging around in the time-space continuum, all those backstories are re-emerging in more important ways. And the characters are, to some extent, going to be recontextualized. I know Ben is. You’re going to learn things about him that either mitigate or intensify some of the judgments you’ve made about him.

TVGuide.com: It’s pretty hard to tell if he’s good or bad on any given day.
Emerson: I think they mean you to be right there and not know. You may leave the series at the final conclusion still not knowing if he’s good or bad.

TVGuide.com: Did Ben’s little girlfriend Annie die in The Purge?
Emerson: We don’t know. That’s still up in the air, but I’m guessing that’s one of the most burning questions of the backstory that I’m sure will be dealt with. We have so much bouncing around in time and space to do this season it will make you dizzy. It’s also going to provide some thrills and chills. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: So you think Annie will pop back into the picture?
Emerson: Yeah, I think so. In fact, I may go so far as to say we may already know Annie. Have you considered that? I’m not speaking from knowledge of a script because that’s not a thing that has been written, but stranger things have happened on the show. Everyone is more connected then they ever thought, and it’s often by blood.

TVGuide: Maybe Ben has unknown relatives on the island as well?
Emerson: That’s a good one. Or it could be a deal where maybe some people never escaped a time or place. Or maybe some people are no longer in control of the when of their lives. Our writers are smart sci-fi guys and they’re going to push the envelope.

TVGuide.com: How about revisiting that crush Ben had on Juliet?
Emerson: I think it must be explained, or its end must be explained — the end of those feelings. You might want to put that in the file labeled “Stuff Ben Doesn’t Have Time to Think About But May Be Able to Further Down the Line.” I suppose it’s possible, though, that the writers have made us understand that Juliet made her feelings too clear to Ben and the world, and he’s moved on.

TVGuide.com: How often have your scenes crossed with Fionnula Flanagan’s Eloise Hawking?
Emerson: Well you haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve worked with her a lot. One of the tributes to the genius of our writers is they will introduce a character like Eloise Hawking in a one-off kind of deal and we all think, “Oh, that was an interesting side journey that we could have gone on and didn’t.” But the writers haven’t forgotten about it. They’ve brought it back around so it dovetails neatly with what’s going on.

TVGuide.com: Can you give us any idea on when or how we’ll next see Jacob?
Emerson: Jacob seems to have fallen away from our consciousness. The show is so much more wrapped up in intermediary leader figures. There seems to be a whole raft of people Ben must answer to, but they’re not as high up as Jacob. Jacob seems to have receded into the mist again — sort of mysterious and godlike. He continues to be much talked about, and ultimately is the force behind the island. And the island is changing. We thought of it as a rock in the water, but now it appears to be more of a movable organism now. So to be in charge of such a thing — what does that mean? These are questions I ask myself.

TVGuide.com: Do you ever find yourself just reeling after reading a script?
Emerson: I have read a couple of scenes in the middle part of the season where I’ve dropped the script while reading it, or I stood up and said, “Oh my God, they can’t do that, can they?” And they can. They can do whatever they want. There are a couple of things that will just make your hair stand on end. People across the country are going to jump up off their sofas and scream, “No! No way!” I just love it. [Laughs]

Source: TVGuide.com

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After a couple of busy weeks we are back with the SL-LOST podcast discussing last week’s episode: “This Place Is Death”. Enjoy!

[audio:http://blip.tv/file/get/Campetin-505ThisPlaceIsDeathThoughtsTheories564.mp3]

Click here to download this Podcast.

Subscribe on iTunes.

Related posts:

1. “This Place Is Death” – Recap & Theories By Chris Kirkman
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• Michael Emerson tells us if, in fact, Ben will have to “make do” with not the entire Oceanic 6.
• Emerson also updates us on the status of Ben’s vendetta against Widmore.
• Who will have the most emotional reunion when the Oceanic HowEverMany are reunited with the left-behinders? I took that question to executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.
• And lastly, if Jin survived the freighter explosion, might Michael have, also? I caught up with Harold Perrineau on the set of his new ABC series, The Unusuals, to get his take.

All told, lotsa fun stuff, so hit the Play button already!

Source: TV Guide

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