LOST...Season 6

[UConn James]

Here's a pretty cool screensaver that mimics the Swan hatch computer... Link.

[merij]

Surprised that no one has taken comment on my observation of Hurley's vision of "Dave" in the same-titled episode. That was another one of those so-called "loose ends" that now seems very tied up, once you think about it. My contention was... Dave, which was an entity that only Hurley saw in the real-world and on the island... was rooted in the Sideways world, and had figured out/knew that the Sideways existence was fake. How or why doesn't really seem important... it was an anomaly / unpredictable nature of the Island as it related to space-time. Dave was a much more comedic/carefree take on it, as opposed to Charlie's mopeyness or Jack's workaholic-ism.

 

That’s a big leap, logic-wise. I figured Dave represented true mental illness in Hurley’s real-world but was MIB on the island.

 

I wondered why MIB’s use of Dave didn’t break the rules about suicide or killing candidates. It illustrated to me just how easily one could parse the rules to find loopholes:

 

If Hurley had jumped off the cliff it would not have been a suicide, exactly, since Dave was telling him the island was not real. And it would not have been a direct kill by MIB either . . . something in between. Like when MIB tried to trick Jack into chasing his father off a cliff the day he found the cave.

 

Since Dave was never a real person, that episode clarifies to me that it wasn't dead people specifically -- buried or not, physically on the island or not -- that MIB was inhabiting, but rather characters' recollections of significant others (and horses) from their past. But I do wonder if Jacob sent the original horse to save Kate's bacon...

 

Did you all discuss whether MIB could project his illusions off-island? Was that MIB as Christian at the freighter and in Jack's hospital lobby, as Charlie in the mental hospital in 2007, as Claire in Kate's bedroom, etc? For some reason, I don't think they were Jacob. But maybe they were real ghosts bleeding in from LA X?

 

I want to rewatch the last two seasons, or at least read the Lostpedia episode recaps. That's as far back as I can easily buy that the writers had fleshed out the Jacob-MIB mythology.

 

If everything that happened in those two seasons was a part of the larger Jacob-MIB struggle, I feel a need to map out which actions were likely put in play by the one or the other. Both of them seemed to want the Oceanic Six to return to the island, for example. But if Widmore was not on team Jacob anyhow, why did MIB want Ben to kill all his operatives? Or were those not Widmore's people, after all? Were they Illana's? What about Abbadon?

 

I don't see a clear pattern yet.

[UConn James]

That’s a big leap, logic-wise. I figured Dave represented true mental illness in Hurley’s real-world but was MIB on the island.

 

I wondered why MIB’s use of Dave didn’t break the rules about suicide or killing candidates. It illustrated to me just how easily one could parse the rules to find loopholes:

 

If Hurley had jumped off the cliff it would not have been a suicide, exactly, since Dave was telling him the island was not real. And it would not have been a direct kill by MIB either . . . something in between. Like when MIB tried to trick Jack into chasing his father off a cliff the day he found the cave.

 

Since Dave was never a real person, that episode clarifies to me that it wasn't dead people specifically -- buried or not, physically on the island or not -- that MIB was inhabiting, but rather characters' recollections of significant others (and horses) from their past. But I do wonder if Jacob sent the original horse to save Kate's bacon...

 

Did you all discuss whether MIB could project his illusions off-island? Was that MIB as Christian at the freighter and in Jack's hospital lobby, as Charlie in the mental hospital in 2007, as Claire in Kate's bedroom, etc? For some reason, I don't think they were Jacob. But maybe they were real ghosts bleeding in from LA X?

 

I want to rewatch the last two seasons, or at least read the Lostpedia episode recaps. That's as far back as I can easily buy that the writers had fleshed out the Jacob-MIB mythology.

 

If everything that happened in those two seasons was a part of the larger Jacob-MIB struggle, I feel a need to map out which actions were likely put in play by the one or the other. Both of them seemed to want the Oceanic Six to return to the island, for example. But if Widmore was not on team Jacob anyhow, why did MIB want Ben to kill all his operatives? Or were those not Widmore's people, after all? Were they Illana's? What about Abbadon?

 

I don't see a clear pattern yet.

 

Sorry this has taken awhile to get back to. Have a few things here....

 

merij, I'm just falling on the side that says Hurley wasn't crazy / mentally ill. Hurley always had the "gift" to see ghosts (similar to Miles' ability since childhood to read the final thoughts of the dead), only it manifested later and when it did --- coupled with the grief of feeling responsible for the deck collapse, etc. --- Hurley doubted his own sanity. I'm going to stick to my guns on this. I don't think Dave was MIB. MIB was not every ghost we saw, as you say. I can dig that the ghosts Hurley saw as an O6 period were from the Sideways. Which gives a little more ammo to the Dave contention. Why could all the others speak to Hurley from the Sideways, yet Dave couldn't be from the Sideways? Yeah.

 

That last paragraph has something interesting, too. As much as these people took their pasts with them to the island, their island experiences affected their past. For many of the castaways, I think there was some "bleeding over" of their consciousness (likely through dreams) b/w pre- and post-crash. The most telling of these was that incident of Richard's visit and tests of Young John Locke.

 

It reminds me of Walt and how Tom said the Others' tests showed he was "special." And it's got me really looking forward to those 12-14 minutes of epilogues (by the by, these will be included in both the collector's set and the single-season 6 sets). My prediction, whether it's shown in those or not, is that Walt will take over as Protector after Hurley.

 

Also, Widmore was on Team Jacob, as he explained in the secret coat-room that shortly after the freighter exploded, Jacob came to him. And so, with Ben landing in 2005 after he turned the FDW, he (a little) misguidedly set out doing MIB's work, through Sayid. The other groups are all very loosely connected, if they're connected at all. Mostly, I think it was just Jacob positioning some pieces on the board, independent of one another, yet all linked to him.

[merij]

I won't bother quoting, since we may be the only two left standing!

 

It's almost weird to still be talking about Lost. So many people have argued convincingly that it all turned out to be meaningless -- the great recapper Fiona at Fishbisquitland being the latest I've read -- that I question why I bother. But, even so, I do bother.

 

1. Surely "Dave on the island" was MIB, no? Telling Hurley "this is not real, jump off the cliff, you'll see."

 

2. I like the idea that Hurley was never mentally ill. I'll have to ponder that.

 

3. Damon has made a number of comments to suggest that that Widmore was lying about having seen the error of his ways or having been contacted by Jacob.

 

I'll repost one of my comments from the Washingpost. It's long, and mostly a cut & paste of someone else's summary of the NYT broadcast. But read the last snippet about Widmore.

[merij]

NYT Times Talk

 

Here are excerpts from one person’s notes on that NYT event just before the finale. Bear in mind that it’s just one person’s memory of what was said. Perhaps by now there is an actual transcript. I got this version here:

 

http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2010/05/ny-times-talk-lost-live-event-writeup.html

 

Not my words from here on:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A really good question asked from the audience: “if MIB knew he couldn’t kill a candidate, why was he trying to do so by dragging Locke underground in season 1?” to which Damon replied: “ahh yes, but was he trying to kill him? You have to remember that Locke had just seen “the face of the island, and it was beautiful” and he was planning on going and giving a big speech to the castaways to give them hope and courage. MIB didn’t like this and was preventing him from doing so.”

 

How much was planned out? They had the end-game in mind during season 1. They know how they wanted it to end. Between the hiatus of season 1-2, they sat down and had time to write out the core mythology. But also, when each season started up in the writing bootcamp, they might change or modify or add things, knowing ultimately where they still had to go. The end-game has never changed in theme or purpose, but may have changed in small details and content.

 

Damon pointed out that the #1 and #2 questions most asked by fans is: 1) Was everything planned out? 2) how much input does the audience have on the show? Damon said you can’t have it both ways. Because if they planned EVERYTHING out and locked it away in some “LOST binder”, then obviously fans would not be allowed any input or effect on the show. An immediate response to the audience: people kept asking why Hurley wasn’t losing any weight… so they wrote in that he was stashing Dharma ranch dressing (and other things). An anticipated audience reaction dealt with pre-emptively: Nicki and Paulo.

 

Why Nicki and Paulo? Because in the third season they realized they were punting along and had to do something. Their rule was to introduce new characters at the beginning of each season, and as they saw they were introducing the Others characters at the cages (Juliet, etc.) they wanted to introduce new characters back at the beach camp. Thus, Nicki and Paulo. They admit it was a mistake and tried to be cruel in how they got rid of Nicki and Paulo to make the fans feel somewhat satisfied.

 

When Damon realized Walt was getting too tall (taller than Damon isn’t very tall, btw), they basically said “lets get Walt on that raft, pronto!” and remarked how you can notice during season 1’s arc that Walt’s voice cracks a bit ala Peter Brady on the Brady Bunch. They way they wrote this into the show was that Walt was so special that even he was freaking out the Others, and Ben wanted him off the island.

 

They listed a good rule for Widmore (and others). “If a character tells you something, you can doubt it. Like Widmore. He suddenly has this change of heart and says Jacob visited him? Did Jacob really visit him? On the other hand, if you SEE something happening, then it’s true and real. We witnessed Jacob visiting Ilana at the hospital, her all bandaged up. But all we know is Widmore relayed a story. So it might be false. You have to remember to not listen to what characters on LOST say, but what they actually DO. Keep this in mind when wondering if what Widmore said was true.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Back to me.

 

The actual broadcast is available on YouTube, for example, here:

http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/05/video-from-times-talks-live-lost-event.html

 

But I'm too impatient to sit through it! However I can brag that I was in Andy Borowitz's very first video back in junior HS. Back then, people recorded on this thing called "tape." I remember him splicing it by hand and thinking how cool that was.

[DrDawkinstein]

I won't bother quoting, since we may be the only two left standing!

 

no need to quote, but the rest of us are always here!

[ajzepp]

I can't wait for S6 to come out on BD/Netflix. I'm really eager to fire up the finale again, except this time on the big screen (projector). I've found myself really wanting to see it again for the last week or so....can't wait!

[merij]

Not alone after all!

 

Did any of you used to read fishbiscuitland's recaps? I didn't agree with her a lot of the time, but she was reliably brilliant. She was especially hard on Jack, but always with at least a grain of truth. And she was a very persuasive skater -- combining acid wit with screencaps and java doohickeys to make her case. She certainly convinced me.

 

If you're still interested in Lost, check out any of her recaps. They will definitely stimulate your Lost brain. Each is a visual feast, pulling images from all six seasons and whatever else she could find to make her points. The one below came near the end. She is beginning to suspect the worst. The images on the first few screens alone are worth the trip.

 

http://fishbiscuitlandblog.blogspot.com/20...fe-must-be.html

 

Anyhow, I'm embarrassed to admit that I always assumed she was a guy. In my mind, she writes like a guy. But apparently her name is Fiona. So I am proved an idiot, once again.

 

Reading her long-awaited take on the finale, I learned that she has major bad blood with Andy Page, aka Dark UFO. She and her friends apparently caught him in numerous petty lies, involving rigged polls and such.

 

I have to say I never liked the vibe of that place. Really depressing, in fact. But it had so much stuff, I often visited anyway. At least on Tuesday nights, since my Washington Post site was not available till mid-day Wednesday.

[duey]

no need to quote, but the rest of us are always here!

Damn right!

[DrFishfinder]

no need to quote, but the rest of us are always here!

FWIW......I'm here.....just in mourning.

[duey]

FWIW......I'm here.....just in mourning.

Me too. I was a bit short on words for a while there as I was dealing with my loss of...Lost.

 

This should inspire some discussion. Just checked EW.com and found the latest offering by our friend Doc Jensen...

 

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20313460_20393488,00.html

 

Let's all give it a read and share our thoughts...pretty interesting take on things.

[DrFishfinder]

Me too. I was a bit short on words for a while there as I was dealing with my loss of...Lost.

 

This should inspire some discussion. Just checked EW.com and found the latest offering by our friend Doc Jensen...

 

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20313460_20393488,00.html

 

Let's all give it a read and share our thoughts...pretty interesting take on things.

I'll have to look at this during some non-work time because of the length.

 

Actually, I feel like I need to let some time elapse, to distance myself from the ending of the show, before I start revisiting. The ending had more of an impact than I thought it would. Not the ending itself, but the fact that it was finito. And I've been intermittently wondering why?

 

In a word, connection.

 

I could connect with nearly every major character on the show. Good, bad, male, female (shaddap), it didn't seem to make a difference. There was something I connected with in each character. Which probably indicates some disturbing personality traits deep down, but there ya go. I average maybe an hour of TV a day, M-F. Not a whole lot more on the weekends, except during football season (which should go without saying). So it's not like I have a lot of exposure to a wide range of television programs. But honestly, before LOST, I don't remember every really connecting with characters in that way.

 

[/babbling]

[linksfiend]

no need to quote, but the rest of us are always here!

I'm still here also. Although I'm gonna be hard pressed to find some time to read Doc Jensen, let alone Fishbiscuit, in addition to the US Open, World Cup and Father's Day. I may not join in again until next week

[merij]

I'm still here also. Although I'm gonna be hard pressed to find some time to read Doc Jensen, let alone Fishbiscuit, in addition to the US Open, World Cup and Father's Day. I may not join in again until next week

 

Fishbiscuit recaps are very long, even though they are half pictures. And I can't recommend that anyone read her recap on the finale. It will kill your motivation to talk about Lost. She was very disillusioned and is highly persuasive that the writers took us for a ride. Which is sad, because she was one of the most intellectually interesting persons I used to read regarding this show. Doc is fun, but he goes so far sideways I find him more amusing than accurate.

 

But I will read his latest piece after work.

 

I felt so empty last week. It is a very odd thing.

[UConn James]

I'll have to look at this during some non-work time because of the length.

 

Actually, I feel like I need to let some time elapse, to distance myself from the ending of the show, before I start revisiting. The ending had more of an impact than I thought it would. Not the ending itself, but the fact that it was finito. And I've been intermittently wondering why?

 

In a word, connection.

 

I could connect with nearly every major character on the show. Good, bad, male, female (shaddap), it didn't seem to make a difference. There was something I connected with in each character. Which probably indicates some disturbing personality traits deep down, but there ya go. I average maybe an hour of TV a day, M-F. Not a whole lot more on the weekends, except during football season (which should go without saying). So it's not like I have a lot of exposure to a wide range of television programs. But honestly, before LOST, I don't remember every really connecting with characters in that way.

 

[/babbling]

 

Yeah, like when a boa swallows a whole antelope, the past three weeks has just been a digestion period for me.

 

Not strange that we feel connection to many of the characters. LOST is definitely on par with great classics of fiction that way. It is connection that is very hard to establish in the TV/movie medium b/c it's dependent on having spent a lot of time with that person and really knowing them. But that's not it... I mean, there's been how many seasons of Law & Order and for me, Sam Waterston or any of the badges are like automatons. Even worse for many other shows. It's not weird or disturbing, either. In fact, it's very human.

 

Fishbiscuit recaps are very long, even though they are half pictures. And I can't recommend that anyone read her recap on the finale. It will kill your motivation to talk about Lost. She was very disillusioned and is highly persuasive that the writers took us for a ride. Which is sad, because she was one of the most intellectually interesting persons I used to read regarding this show. Doc is fun, but he goes so far sideways I find him more amusing than accurate.

 

But I will read his latest piece after work.

 

I felt so empty last week. It is a very odd thing.

 

I really have a hard time reading people who were "disillusioned" / didn't "get" LOST. That wasn't my experience at all, and reading their complaints gets very boring and exasperating b/c I want to reach through my laptop screen and slap some sense into them in a "No, no, no. You are entirely wrong about X! Were we even watching the same show?!" I can't stand people who just have to piss in everyone else's cornflakes because they're not 100 percent happy.

 

Doc does meander quite a bit, but there is always some usable stuff. Not sure if I follow on his whole Island-as-Carrie thing, but I'll try. This has some teeth, tho:

Every hero needs a big problem to solve. In Lost, every character had the same essential problem: they each struggled to be free from the legacy of painful, unchangeable pasts that diminished their ability to flourish in the present and grow into the future. In a word, the problem was history. And this was the defining problem for Lost's central figure, the Island, although the conflict was exponentially greater and more complex for the Island.

 

Remember when I said Stephen King's Carrie had been warped by her influences and had to resort to monstrous means to be liberated from them? Well, Carrie the Island had been warped by influences, too — the influence of the castaways, who had basically snared her in a crippling time loop as a consequence of their time-traveling. As a result, Carrie's history became inextricably intertwined with the personal histories and collective history of the castaways. For at least 140 years, and probably for much longer, Carrie lived burdened with the knowledge that her future history had already been written. Worse, Carrie not only had to live out this history, but she had no choice but to actively help fulfill her predestined fate per the stated rule of Lost ''Whatever Happened, Happened.''

...

It means that 2,000 years ago, the Island became aware of its distant future. From Daniel Faraday, the Island would have learned of Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking, and Desmond Hume. From Miles, the Island would have learned about the Dharma Initiative. From Juliet, the Island would have learned about Ben, the Others, Jacob, the Monster, and the Baby Making Problem. From Sawyer and Jin, the Island would have learned about the crash of Oceanic 815 and the castaways' struggle for survival. From all of them, the Island would have learned the events that happened leading up to a point in 2004 when they would begin to time travel.

 

So some 2,000 years ago, the Island had the ultimate flash-forward — a vision of the events and people that would shape its history in the future, comprised of memories from each of the time-traveling castaways.

 

And that sequence on page 6&7 about the chronological order of the wells during the time flashes was illuminating. They flashed to ~2,500 years ago. Perhaps those first Romans who dug the wells found the rope that Sawyer had been holding and just dug. Hmm. Another piece just fit into the puzzle.

 

I would like to propose that the very character that embodied the alluring/frustrating ''problem'' of Lost also gave us the solution for it. What I'm arguing for is this: Desmond's function in the Lost story was to teach us how to read and understand the Lost story.

 

All of this is only evident in retrospect. It is now clear — at least to my eyes — that Desmond was a metaphor for the Island. Both were characterized as singular anomalies. The point was strongly made in ''Happily Ever After'' by establishing him as a quantum superman capable of superseding the laws of traditional physics (see: surviving Charles Widmore's electromagnetic subwoofers); and by Daniel Faraday in season 5 premiere ''Because You Left,'' when the frazzled egghead characterized Desmond thusly: ''Desmond... the rules... the rules don't apply to you. You're special. You're uniquely and miraculously special.'' He could have easily applied the same words to the Island. We should also note that Lost usually kept Desmond ''on an island,'' to use a TV writer term — which is to say, his stories were often solo adventure affairs that kept him separate and away from the castaways.

 

And this made a lot of sense during the show's run, but makes even more sense now.

 

For me the over-arching theme of LOST was the characters, as Darlton always said. It was their search for family. They didn't find their true family anywhere else they looked, in their flashbacks and flashforwards in the real world... As much as they may have wanted a relationship with someone there, almost all of the eps told about a search for connection/family that failed and reinforced that they had no real family off-island; they were Others who "walked among us, but are not one of us." You can see this any number of ways... but seen most poignantly through John Locke. Here was a character who was so spurned by so many groups and individuals it wasn't even funny. He had anger therapy, tried religio-commune life where he learned to "stop being so angry all the time," to Helen who he could have had if he'd only given up giving Anthony Cooper a fifth chance. All of the characters were like this, with the possible exception of Boone (tho, we didn't get much of his story, and none of his life unrelated to Shannon).

 

Another thing I forgot the other day, on DarkUFO, they had a poll of "What body of work was most influential to the writers of LOST?" I didn't want to sign up and have my real name on there... so I'll put it here. It wasn't among those listed, but I would say "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) only without as many musical numbers. I recently watched this on Netflix for the first time in a long time. But seriously, that was a story where 5 candidates were selected randomly to take over as head of Wonka. If the company was allowed to die or if the secrets were sold/stolen for the candy competitor (who was a plant by Wonka), children around the world would've been less happy. Now, LOST takes this concept and makes it a lot less benign, but I'd have to say it's closest.

 

Also, I totally missed it before, but... was the white shoe hanging from the tree right near where Jack woke up and died, one of Christian's?

[UConn James]

Also, I am pretty keen on making a copy of the Cerberus door in Ben's secret-room-within-the-secret-room. Maybe make it the bathroom door.

 

I think this is going to take years, tho.

 

They actually had a small video up on how it was made out a Styrofoam-like material.

[merij]

I really have a hard time reading people who were "disillusioned" / didn't "get" LOST.

The sad thing is that she "got" Lost better than just about anyone I know, up until the end. She went into radio silence the last few episodes, figuring that there was little point to adding her voice to the chorus of Cassandras. Her finale critique just came out and is pretty devastating. As Firesign Theatre once said, "Don't read it if you can!" Or maybe that was someone else.

 

Also, I totally missed it before, but... was the white shoe hanging from the tree right near where Jack woke up and died, one of Christian's?

Yes. The fact that it was aged was used by many to counter that initial reaction some people had that they died in the original 815 crash.

[DrDawkinstein]

I really have a hard time reading people who were "disillusioned" / didn't "get" LOST. That wasn't my experience at all, and reading their complaints gets very boring and exasperating b/c I want to reach through my laptop screen and slap some sense into them in a "No, no, no. You are entirely wrong about X! Were we even watching the same show?!" I can't stand people who just have to piss in everyone else's cornflakes because they're not 100 percent happy.

 

feel the same exact way.

 

Another thing I forgot the other day, on DarkUFO, they had a poll of "What body of work was most influential to the writers of LOST?" I didn't want to sign up and have my real name on there... so I'll put it here. It wasn't among those listed, but I would say "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) only without as many musical numbers. I recently watched this on Netflix for the first time in a long time. But seriously, that was a story where 5 candidates were selected randomly to take over as head of Wonka. If the company was allowed to die or if the secrets were sold/stolen for the candy competitor (who was a plant by Wonka), children around the world would've been less happy. Now, LOST takes this concept and makes it a lot less benign, but I'd have to say it's closest.

 

wow James, great comparison. Hadnt pieced that together before. Willy Wonka was one of those movies I wore out VHS tapes of as a kid, it was the first movie I bought on Bluray. No wonder I liked the show so much!

 

the use of the Tunnel song from the movie in the promo makes even more sense too

[DrFishfinder]

Yeah, like when a boa swallows a whole antelope, the past three weeks has just been a digestion period for me.

 

Not strange that we feel connection to many of the characters. LOST is definitely on par with great classics of fiction that way. It is connection that is very hard to establish in the TV/movie medium b/c it's dependent on having spent a lot of time with that person and really knowing them. But that's not it... I mean, there's been how many seasons of Law & Order and for me, Sam Waterston or any of the badges are like automatons. Even worse for many other shows. It's not weird or disturbing, either. In fact, it's very human.

I can connect to some degree with both Peter & Walter on Fringe, and Artie and Pete on Warehouse 13. But those shows are really more episodally stand-alone and certainly without the substance of LOST.

 

Law & Order? Fuggidaboudit.

[UConn James]

I can connect to some degree with both Peter & Walter on Fringe, and Artie and Pete on Warehouse 13. But those shows are really more episodally stand-alone and certainly without the substance of LOST.

 

Law & Order? Fuggidaboudit.

 

Yeah, emotionally stand-alone would describe most characters as well.

 

With LOST, it always seemed like we were right there, like we were one of the "socks" watching it all happen.