Alright Losties, it’s the beginning of the end. It’s the overture before the fat lady sings. It’s the antipasti of your last meal. It’s the Season Premiere of the Final Season of LOST!!! Can you believe it? It seems saddening yet, necessary. We’re all ready to figure out wtf this show is all about. Let’s hope it’s satisfying.
The season premiere introduced us to a new story telling device, the flash-sideways. It’s showing us an (one of a few?) alternate reality where Oceanic Flight 815 never crashed. Yet the lack of crash is not the only thing that is different. The more I thought about it, the more I think this is a good idea, but I’ll get into that a bit later. Let’s save the alternate reality for the end and dive right into the on island reality of what appears to be 2007.
Like many a Lost episode, we begin with an opening eye. This time it’s Kate, apparently blasted up a tree. Shall I go into the irony and hidden meaning of “Up a Tree”? Nah. Doc says, “The sound effect sounded like she was hearing the jungle from underwater — and since these scenes took place immediately after the reveal of the sunken Island in the Sideways World, I wondered if the watery association was intentional.” After a few minutes of disorientation, Kate finds Miles, Jack and Sawyer while Jin and Sayid are by the van with Hurley. It appears that they’ve traveled back to 2007, after the Swan Station hatch was blown up by Desmond. I had to remind myself that Kate and Hurley never experienced the on island time travel, hence Kate’s muffled hearing loss and Hurley’s utterly hilarious reaction: “The sky just went from day to night dude!!” As Hurley tried to tend to Sayid’s wounds, Jin runs off to find the rest of the gang. A recently dead Jacob appears to Hurley and tells him to take Sayid and his guitar case to The Temple, in order to save his life. Back at the Swan, they eventually realize that beneath all of the magnetic field sucked metal, Juliet is still alive. Now, it appears that people have mixed feelings about Juliet’s scenes in this episode. Some think that her dramatic death was cheapened by such a sappy final scene. Some people like that Sawyer and Juliet got a final moment together. I was a fan of their relationship, so I could go either way. The IMPORTANT thing here was that Juliet had a final message, which after death she relayed through Miles. After a brief commune with Juliet, during which engine and turbulence sounds from the Alternate 815 are heard, Miles tells Sawyer her message: “It worked.” Sawyer responds back with a grumbly, “What worked?!?” I understand his confusion here, to them it doesn’t appear that anything has changed, and it hasn’t, except for the fact that they are back in 2007. I was always skeptical of Jack’s plan to begin with. I wondered why he thought anything of significance would happen to THEM, and by them I mean their consciousnesses and their physical being (aside from maybe blowing up). He didn’t see the grander picture with blowing up the bomb, but it appears that Juliet may have.
They make it to the hole in the Temple and as they are going through stumble upon poor, armless body of Montond. He appears to have been reading Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling which is described as. “…a highly original and provocative interpretation of the Binding of Isaac story as told in Genesis Chapter 22, and uses the story as an occasion to discuss fundamental issues in moral philosophy and the philosophy of religion, such as the nature of God and faith, faith’s relationship with ethics and morality, and the difficulty of being authentically religious.” Interesting. Doc thinks this has something to do with Hurley’s new leadership abilities. “Hurley decided to bite back on his incredulity and follow this dead god’s orders, becoming the show’s newest man of faith. And so it was fitting that upon descending into the shadowy crack in the Temple’s wall, it was Hurley who found the copy of Fear and Trembling amid the remains of Montand’s one-armed corpse…Fear and Trembling is all about becoming ”a knight of faith,” whose strength lies in the willingness to embrace the absurd. And I would say that Hurley following the will of ”carry my guitar case across space and time and down into a crack in the wall” Jacob is pretty damn absurd.” Truth Doc.
The Losties are taken out one by one inside the tunnels and brought out into the courtyard of what appears to be The Temple. We’ve heard about this Temple for like three seasons now so I’m glad we finally get to see it. Though, I’m a little disappointed here ABC. I know Disney wants to save money and all, but did you really have to recycle leftover costumes from The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise?? And then there’s the John Lennon look alike whom Lostpedia tells me is actually named Lennon. SERIOUSLY?? The Others are a bit caricaturish this episode, especially new Rambo Cindy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dogen.
Vozzek69 has some commentary on how these other Others behave: “This is the way Widmore led his people, before Ben moved everyone into the barracks. As a result, these Others seem a lot more educated as to what’s going on. They know of Jacob, and of the dangers of his enemy. They also know how to keep the dark man from crashing their party: with a giant circle of ash. They don’t seem worried about this however, until Hurley reveals that Jacob is dead. Once that slips out, everyone becomes very, very on edge. Break out the fireworks and karate. It’s also kinda cool to think this isn’t the first time we saw these Others. As Jin and Mr. Eko lay crouched in those bushes back in season two, they watched the dirty bare feet of these others, as well as the children, drag themselves through the jungle. Later on, we’d assume this was part of Mr. Friendly’s posse – especially after the fake beard. But in reality, what we probably saw here was this group of more radical island dwellers, lead by this trigger-happy Japanese dude who hates English.”
Hurley manages to convince Dogen not to kill them all by revealing that Jacob sent them, to get help for Sayid. He opens his guitar case (the same given to him by Jacob in the taxi) to reveal a wooden Ankh. Dogen immediately cracks it open and finds a piece of paper, then demands all of their names. Interesting how The Others, once again, have a list with names. Doc has some theories on some answer we may just have been given: “In the tunnels, the castaways heard the Whispers, and then were attacked by the Others. So just in case you stragglers weren’t sure of this before, the Whispers = the Others. But perhaps a certain classification of Others, i.e. the hard-core Island mystics that hang in the spiritual heart of the Island, anchored by a ziggurat, a step pyramid more Mesopotamian than Egyptian, even though there were Egyptian hieroglyphics everywhere. I am beginning to feel Island archaeology is tangential to what the Island really is. The Island: the original and purest expression of the God idea, of God power. These ruins? The remains of those zealots who’ve attempted to claim, name, and tame this place over the centuries — those people the Man In Black spoke of last year: ”They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.”
Inside The Temple, there is some sort of magical mikvah pool, where they treat Sayid like Jesus. Lostpedia summarizes, “Lennon comments that the spring is not running clearly. Dogen approaches the water, cuts his hand and then submerges it in the water, noting that the water did not heal it. After informing Jack that there are risks, Dogen orders his followers to submerge Sayid in the water and turns over an hourglass. As Sayid appears to be revived the Dogen refuses to lift him out of the water until the timer is finished. It soon appears that Sayid is drowning. Jack protests but when he tries to stop them he is prevented. After the last sand grains fall Sayid is lifted lifeless from the water. Dogen announces to the shocked group that “your friend is dead.” He leaves the survivors alone to mourn Sayid.” Ah see, that makes a little more sense. At first I thought Dogen was like ‘offering his blood to the magical mikvah or something, but apparently it was a test. Gotcha. “Hurley reveals that Jacob is dead, which shocks Dogen and Lennon who rush out of the room. The two issue orders to the rest of the Others, who hurriedly pour lines of ash around the Temple, barricade the entrances, and launch a rocket flare. Lennon reveals that they are not keeping the survivors in, but rather keeping “him” out. While waiting in the Temple spring room, Hurley and Miles sit near Sayid’s body, as Hurley says goodbye to his friend. Lennon enters and asks to speak with Jack in private, but Jack argues and scuffles with several of the Others. The fight is interrupted when all present are shocked to see Sayid sit up, very much alive. He pauses, confused, and says “What happened?” Now, I think we are to assume that Jacob has now possessed the body of Sayid, much like MIB has possessed the body of Locke. “Last year, after Sayid shot Young Ben, Richard Alpert brought the boy into the Temple for healing. We may now surmise that what happened to Sayid was what happened to Ben, albeit more successfully. But what did Alpert say? ”He’ll forget this ever happened, and his innocence will be gone.” The bottom line is that the spring’s affect on people may be more than physical — it could be spiritual, too.”
Still on Island, over at the statue, we begin moments after Ben has just stabbed Jacob and FLocke kicked him into the fire. It seems like his body burned up and disintegrated pretty quickly, because there’s no trace of him. Does the Island have magical disintegration skills? Continuing his manipulation, FLocke tells Ben to go and get Richard for him, who is outside arguing with Ilana and Bram, trying to convince Richard that Jacob had summoned them. Richard, in a lovely moment where he gets to finally shove Ben’s face into the ground, points out that HEY! John is calling me?? Cool. Let’s go see him, OVER HERE IN THIS BOX! DUMBASS! Ben goes back into the Temple bringing with him Bram and his posse of dudes with guns. Doesn’t work out for them so well, however, as the moment that FLocke disappears, SMOKEY appears!!! And then kills them all!! Bram tries to protect himself with a circle of ash (a circle of ash we’ve seen before by the way, around Jacob’s cabin) but Smokey is too stealthy, and kills gets to smash everyone. Doc points out something hilarious: “Then Bram was impaled. The guy with the Dracula writer’s name got a vampire death.” HA!
Moments after the attack, FLocke reappears and utters one of Lost’s best lines ever, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” OMGWTF….was that actually an answer?? MIB is Smokey? AWESOME!! Uhm…ok…but….what are THEY? Crazy FLocke seems to hear us, and points out to Ben that he isn’t a what, but a who. FLocke goes into the story of John Locke’s death, illuminating Ben in detail to Locke’s final thoughts, that Locke wouldn’t stop thinking to himself, “I don’t understand.” The Man in Black goes on to explain how sad and pathetic Locke’s life was. He finalizes that Locke’s only redeeming quality was being the only one of the Oceanic 815 survivors not to want to go back to their worthless pre-Island life, but rather to stay on the Island. He finishes his speech to Ben by reflecting on the irony of this situation, because unlike Locke, he just wants to go “home.” This makes Vozzek think of a silly/fun Kevin Smith Movie: “Dogma springs instantly to mind here. Although the movie itself was fairly cheesy, the premise of Loki and Bartleby, two angels cast out of heaven, totally fits. They’re even looking for a loophole, too. While I’m not sure Jacob and his nemesis are a pair of fallen angels, there’s certainly a higher power above them. Maybe they’ve been placed on the island for a specific purpose: to serve a penance all their own. Perhaps their game isn’t a game at all, but a lesson that needs to be learned before they can move on. If this is the case, the island becomes their own personal Purgatory…. and yes, I said Purgatory.” Who ARE you MIB? We don’t know yet, but Doc’s done some pretty good character analysis, “Smokey… the avenging angel of Lost fans everywhere? Seriously, I do wonder if Smokey is fundamentally anti-mystery, anti-gamesmanship. Remember last season, when he rallied the Others to march on Jacob’s Four Toed beach house? His motivation for them? To get answers from Jacob. Reasons for his behavior. An end to puzzles and all those little slips of paper. FLocke had a secret agenda, of course, but I wonder if he was actually dead serious in his abhorrence for ambiguity. He embodies brutal honesty. In his psychological profile on Locke, FLocke noted that John ”was a victim who shouted at the world for being told what he couldn’t do, even though they were right.” Ouch! FLocke then spat venom at the thought of Locke as ”weak” and ”pathetic” and ”irreparably broken” — then spoke admiringly of him for embracing his Island life and not wanting to return his frail, damaged old life. Throughout this entire speech, I was struck by how FLocke moved from shadow to light and back to shadow again. Not sure what it meant, but it was a great effect. And finally, the punchline — FLocke’s stated ambition. ”I want the one thing John Locke didn’t,” he said. ”I want to go home.” What did that mean? I think the question actually begins with who do you think FLocke really is (God? The Devil? Other?), and if you think that person or entity is good or evil. What’s your vote? And what’s your proof?”
The flares from the Temple are seen from the beach as Ben and The Man in Black leave the statue. Richard confronts FLocke, who responds to Richard that “it’s good to see you out of those chains.” Richard is stunned and replies “You?!,” indicating some familiarity with who The Man in Black is. The Man in Black responds “Me,” and knocks Richard out, hoisting him onto his shoulder. “The popular theory is that FLocke was alluding to the Black Rock with his chains reference, as if Richard had come to the Island as a slave. What might be the reason for their bad blood? My hunch is that FLocke is bitter toward Alpert for conspiring successfully to keep FLocke locked up all these years. FLocke hoisted the unconscious Alpert on his shoulder and walked into the jungle, yelling before that: ”I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN ALL OF YOU. As he left, he passed the body of the real John Locke lying dead on the sand. I yearned for this betrayed man of faith to take to his feet and walk again. That didn’t happen. But I do wonder if the book Fear and Trembling offers us some hope for this world’s Locke. Kierkegaard says the knight of faith is characterized by trusting the strength of the absurd and confidence that everything they give up in this life (even, presumably, life itself) will be regained. Might that portend resurrection? I think we should all check to see if Fear and Trembling speaks to Locke. After all, Kierkegaard wrote the book under a pseudonym: Johannes de silentio — John The Silent. And right now, no John is more silent that the dead one in the sand.” I have to say, Terry O’Quinn is freaking awesome. I Love him as FLocke, I love him as crazy knife wielding John Locke from Season 1, and I love the pathetic mess that he is as Sideways Locke. Heck, the only time Terry O’Quinn has pissed me off is when he was trying to mess with Sydney Bristow. And that was like 5 years ago and…oh…wait… wrong JJ Abrams show. Anyways, he gets to close with one of the creepiest and best faces EVAR.
Now, moving on to the more difficult and more omgwtf particulars of the flash sideways reality: First, I’d like to point out some details from Darlton in an EW Interview.
“EW: The whole idea of flash-sideways and the plan to use season 6 to show us a world where Oceanic 815 never crashed — how long has that been in the works? Why did you want to do it?
DAMON LINDELOF: It’s been in play for at least a couple of years. We knew that the ending of the time travel season was going to be an attempt to reboot. And as a result, we [knew] the audience was going to come out of the “do-over moment” thinking we were either going start over or just say it didn’t work and continue on. [We thought] wouldn’t it be great if we did both? That was the origin of the story.
CARLTON CUSE: We thought just doing one [of those options] would inherently not be satisfying. Since the very beginning of the show, characters started crossing through each other’s stories. Part of our desire [in season 6] is to show that there’s still this kind of weave, that these characters still would have impacted each other’s lives even without the event of crashing on the Island. Obviously, the big question of the season is going to be: How do these [two timelines] reconcile? However, for the fans who have not watched the show closely, that’s an intact narrative. You can just watch the flash sideways — they stand alone all by themselves. For the fans who are more deeply embedded in the show, you can watch those flash sideways, compare them to what transpired in the flashbacks and go, “Oh, that’s an interesting difference.”
LINDELOF: Right out of the gate, in the first five minutes of the premiere, you get hit over the head with two things that you’re not expecting. The first is that Desmond is on the plane. The second thing that we do is we drop out of the plane and we go below the water and we see that the Island is submerged. What we’re trying to do there is basically say to you, “God bless the survivors of Oceanic 815, because they’re so self-centered, they thought the only effect [of detonating the bomb] was going to be that their plane never crashes.” But they don’t stop to think, “If we do this in 1977, what else is going to affected by this?” So that their entire lives can be changed radically. In fact, it would appear that they’ve sunken the Island. That’s our way of saying, “Keep your eyes peeled for the differences that you’re not expecting.” Some of these characters were still in Australia, but some weren’t. Shannon’s not there. Boone actually says that he tried to get her back. There are all sorts of other people that we don’t see. Where’s Libby? Where’s Ana Lucia? Where’s Eko? These are all the things that you’re supposed to be thinking about. When our characters posited the “What if?” scenario, they neglected to think about what the other effects of potentially changing time might be and we’re embracing those things.”
This totally intrigues me, and I agree with Carlton. We need to know what’s behind this story just as we need to know what would have happened if well…it never happened. And you can’t just put the Oceanic 815 landing reality in one single episode, because that’s simply not enough time. We need to see how these characters are meant to be intertwined and how it would always happen. A lot of people are dismissing the sideways actions and saying wtf, who cares, but I actually find the new vamped reality more interesting than the on-Island happenings. Even though no character acknowledged it, I got this little hint of a feeling that some characters knew something was up. Vozzek69 felt this too when he blogged, “From the beginning, you can see that Jack remembers stuff. Although he may be back in seat 23, his mind obviously hasn’t fully let go of the island. Jack’s initial confusion and déjà vu over the turbulence is similar to when Desmond woke up flat on his back during Flashes Before Your Eyes, with only vague recollections of where he’d just been. In time, Desmond’s memories began coming back to him – jogged by the beeping of his microwave, meeting Charlie on the streets of London, and his impromptu meeting with Ms. Hawking in the ring shop. Perhaps this will be true of Jack also, as the alternate timeline plays itself out.…Rose’s dialogue seemed the most important; her words were eerily relevant to our past storyline. This makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider all the inside information Rose and Bernard seemed to be holding back during The Incident. Telling Jack to ‘let go’ once again echoed his father’s words to him, both on the island and off. And when Jack sheepishly tells her that it looks like they made it, Rose affirms “Yeah, we sure did” with a sly hint of knowing something Jack does not.” Also, why is Rose reading The Weekly Woodsman???
Let’s go over the Sideways Flash reality and try to figure out the main differences. In what’s almost a mirror scene, we open with Jack gazing out the window of Ocean 815. Since we don’t really know where the flash-sideways are heading, our best bet is to take stock of the differences, and see how it all pans out. It does seem everything is a little crooked in this alternate reality. First, take a look at a side by side comparison of the first few minutes of the Pilot and LA X:
Some noticeable differences:
1) In LA X, it is Jack who is more visibly shaken by the turbulence and Rose who is doing the comforting.
2) Cindy gives Jack only one mini bottle of vodka instead of two. You’ll recall that second bottle of vodka is what he used later on when Kate stitched up his wounds. Perhaps the single bottle means nothing more than he wouldn’t need two.
3) Jack is in a completely different seat. Hrmm.
After the initial few minutes, the rest of this flash-sideways can go pretty much anywhere. Jack get’s up to take a potty break. Noticing that he has a razor cut on his neck. Significance? A nod to his wound from the Pilot that never got its chance? Doc thinks so: “Jack’s nicked neck RX was analog to Pilot’s ”physician, heal thyself” moment when Jack excused himself to the jungle of Craphole Island to patch up the ugly gash on his side. One wonders if the entire season 6 side ways story line will model the general thematic thrust of the castaway story, but with different incidents and events — a gritty, more down-to-earth version of the mythic, larger-than-life Island epic, like how Dorothy’s adventure in Oz was a fantastical extrapolation of her life in Kansas. Lost also loves its Alice in Wonderland references, and so we recall that Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland was entitled Through The Looking Glass, which begins with Alice gazing into a mirror and wondering if it could be portal into a topsy-turvy Otherworld. The book itself is a cracked mirror reflection of the previous book — the same story in essence, sharing similar if not identical themes, just rendered with different incident and detail.” When he comes back someone has taken over the aisle seat it’s…it’s…Desmond!!!! OMGWTF.
Like Darlton said, the Losties didn’t fully understand the consequences of detonating Jughead. In this scenario, apparently, no Hatch means no button to push means no Des stuck in it. How much of Des’s life is different. Some theorists even believe that Des wasn’t even really there, citing Rose and Bernard’s inability to see him. A nod to Hurley’s ability to see those who aren’t there, perhaps? Notice also that he’s wearing a wedding ring. Did he not join the army? Did he not join the boat race around the world? Did he marry Penny? Des is also reading one of my favorite books ever, Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. One of the reasons I love this book (meant for kids, sort of) is that it has that very Wizard of Oz feeling of, “You were there! And You! And you!” woven throughout its stories. It’s the story of well, a story teller, with a running theme of truth and lies as storytelling devices throughout. There are many instances in the novel where we meet characters that we’ve felt we’ve met before, only they are slightly changed and something just doesn’t…seem…right. Looks as if Desmond is reading a book with déjà-vu right there within the plot.
Moments later, Jack is back in his seat and glances (longingly?) out the airplane window. Seems like Jack is having his own déjà-vu moments. He seems to recognize Desmond, but can’t quite place him. Doc says, “Who was this Sideways Jack Shephard that we met last night? There were a few fleeting moments when it seemed like even he didn’t know the answer. We met him looking… lost. I wondered if Jack’s 1977 Jughead-displaced mind had suddenly settled into his 2004 Oceanic-flying body, producing profound disorientation — just like Desmond’s experience of consciousness transfer time travel in season 3’s ”Flashes Before Your Eyes.” When the first blast of turbulence hit, Jack was again gripped by foreboding. The thought balloon above his head: This has happened before. I think...” We crash dive into the Pacific and are taken on a submerged tour of….The Island??? We see the Dharma barracks, the Dharma Shark and eventually, the foot of our four toed statue. The Island…was sunk. Blogger Anna from the Four Toed Foot thinks, “Why do we see what appears to be part of an ankh from the original “whole” statue of Tawret next to it? Is it possible that in Timeline X the statue could have still been whole at the time the Island sunk, and the very act of its plunge is what tore it from its remaining foot? I have been thinking for some time now that the events that have taken place on the Island have actually been going on for countless iterations. Using a skipping record as an analogy, one could theorize that the Island has seen multiple rounds of the same major occurrences, just with small insignificant differences. If we remember what Jacob said, this is all just progress. We are somehow working our way towards a final resolution. “It only ends once…”, he says. Does this mean the Island keeps replaying events, with each complete cycle having the purpose of making its way a little bit farther towards this eventual and final outcome? I am not sure I have figured it out completely, but I do feel in my gut that Timeline X is not as separate as it would first appear to be. In fact, and maybe this might be a little bit crazy, but what if sinking the Island in the X-timeline is actually the reason the statue of Tawret was broken in the first place as we know it in our “normal” timeline? We have only seen bits and pieces of the history of the Island, so I can only assume (and hope) that these two seemingly separate realities do indeed connect and potentially even collide at some point. Perhaps this is the final outcome Jacob is so diligently working towards. If anything, he at least seems to have the knowledge to some degree of what will happen and the players, i.e. our main characters that he literally touched during their lifetimes that are going to help bring it all to the grand conclusion. As Faraday pointed out, they are the Variables in the Equation”
So how was the Island sunk? By Jughead? By something else? We know it must have happened post 1970s, since the barracks are there and all. Could it have been Radzinski’s Black Swan experiments? Either way, no island means no crash, leaving Oceanic Flight 815 to finish out its journey. Throughout the rest of the flash-sideways, we come to realize just how different everyone’s lives are:
Hurley- Is the self-described luckiest man in the world. Is active in the running of Mr. Clucks chicken, and seems genuinely happy. Question: With what numbers did he win the lottery?
Jin and Sun- Aren’t married…yet, as Sun is referred to as Ms. Paik. Unclear if she speaks English. Both still miserable.
Kate- from a Comic Con released video we’re made to think that Kate’s crime was a bit different. Seems as if her planned step-daddy execution actually lead to the death of an innocent guy. Seems a little less noble. In fact, Kate seems a little less noble. In Round 1, she was extremely protective of the Halliburton case because it had her first love Tom’s toy airplane. In this world, she leaves it behind. Really liked the pen switcheroo here. Jack was going to try his good ol’ pen tracheotomy trick that he did in the Pilot. Too bad Kate swiped it. Kate eventually get’s herself out of the airport and hijacks a taxi whose passenger is…
Claire: Pregnant? Unclear. Confused? You bet!
Charlie: First off, CHARLIE!! Apparently, Charlie tried to kill himself by swallowing a baggy of heroin. Loved the, “I was supposed to die” moment there. Vozzek69 revealed a cool little leitmotif I never noticed before: “Examine Charlie’s many deaths a little more closely, and they all have one thing in common: not breathing. Desmond saw him drown (once in a dream, once in reality), Ethan hangs him to asphyxiation, and we see a vision in which he gets shot in the throat with an arrow. Now, in this episode, Charlie’s choking on a big bag of heroin. Whatever happened to kill Charlie must apparently happen again and again, in the same basic way, no matter where, when or what universe he happens to be in.”
Boone: BOONE! Turns out, Shannon didn’t feel like going back to LA with him. Did anyone else feels like Ian Somerholder was totally playing Damon from the Vampire Diaries and not Boone? Boone was never that cocky. Someone needs an Uta Hagen etude. I did love, however, Boone’s remark to Locke, “If we go down in this thing, I’m sticking with you.” Probably not a good idea dude, since it was your jungle adventures with Locke that got you killed in the first round.
Speaking of Locke: Locke (the real one) had some of the best material this episode. He straight out lies to Boone about going on his walkabout (I half expected him to get up and walk off the plane, alas), even though in his explanation he did give an awesome nod to Captain Sully. The scene in the Oceanic baggage claim office with Jack was television brilliance. Never in the 5 seasons of the show have the man of science and the man of faith been so civil to one another. Christian Shephard is still dead, yet it seems as if his coffin never got on the plane. Something else of import was also lost (snicker): Locke’s hunting knives. It’s as if this reality is trying to take away his one link to the man he wants to become. Doc goes into detail, “The two men shared their respective stories, and then Locke went metaphysical on Jack. ”How could they know where he is?” Locke asked rhetorically, referring to Christian’s current coordinates in the afterlife. ”They didn’t lose your father… they just lost his body.” In the Island world, such talk might have driven man-of-science Jack into a pissy attack on Locke’s mystical mumbo jumbo. But Sideways Jack received Locke’s words as a kind of deep comfort — a condolence, at least, for his father grief. Touching.
And then Jack returned the grace, if somewhat awkwardly. He asked Locke how he wound up in the wheelchair. Which was amusing for two reasons. (1) For the first two and half season of Lost, Locke’s defining mystery was how he wound up in the wheelchair. (2) For years on Lost, fans complained about how the castaways were never curious enough about each other to ask personal questions like this — and here was Jack, busting out with maybe the most personal of personal questions anyone could have asked anyone during the early seasons of Lost. Jack explained his intrusive curiosity by identifying himself as a spinal surgeon and offering Locke a free consult. ”My condition is irreversible,” said Locke. Jack replied: ”Nothing’s irreversible.” Which may have been the sum-it-all-up line for an episode marked by time reboots and resurrections. But the line also flicked at Jack the Fixer, so perhaps this Sideways Jack is still hooked on hopeless cases and risky rescue missions. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a humble, balanced man who knows his limits — a fighter who knows when and how to let go. We shall see. Locke took Jack’s card, then shook his hand. Each said ”Nice to meet you” and parted ways. I was deeply moved by watching these men — bitter adversaries in the Island world — strike up a friendship, and more, speak into each other’s lives from the perspective of their respective worldviews and offer one another something they needed most in that moment: hope. It left me wondering if in this new world, they might continue to be friends and allies in their respective redemption projects. It also left me wondering if what they may gain in the process could be applied to saving and redeeming their other selves in the other world, or vise versa. That’s not a pipe dream. Just ask… a boy named Haroun.*
*Season 6 Doc Jensen! New and improved with 50% more cornball!”
Those we didn’t see or didn’t see much of:
Sawyer: Is Hurley his next mark? Sayid: Complete with fake(?) Iranian passport. Feet still capable of killing. Michael and WAAAALLLLT: Walt is now as tall as a basketball player so I doubt we’ll ever see that actor again. Shannon: Lost didn’t offer enough Maggie Grace? Cause you’re such a great actress and all. Libby, Ana Lucia, Eko: Tailies?? Did they dump you? Vincent: Still licking his own but in the cargo hold.
All in all best cameo: GREG GRUNBERG(!) as the voice of Captain Seth Norris!!!
Until next episode kids, let’s see that crazy face one more time:
