I Am DB

The day has come.

IN THEORY
Since last season’s finale, I have been attempting to do something that time and time again I prove to be no damn good at: coming up with a theory to explain this mindfuck show, or at least parts of it. There are who knows how many people out there writing about Lost every week. A lot. I can’t get sucked into all of that, so the one person I read regularly – after I’ve written the bulk of my own write-up, so as not to subconsciously (or completely consciously) steal from him – is Jeff “Doc” Jensen, a writer for Entertainment Weekly who covers the show both in the magazine’s pages and much more extensively on its website. As you know if you actually read these messages of mine, I reference him often. And through his own references, I’ve occasionally checked out other Lost fan sites. And these people spin theories like spiders spin webs. Complex, sometimes fun, sometimes cool, sometimes really stretching, sometimes absurd, but they keep spinning and spinning. And as much as I’d like to spin a little myself, I just trip up over myself.

For example, here are some things I’ve been trying to work out. So okay, Richard told Locke that to save the island he would need to leave, bring back all of his friends and die in the process. Christian Shepherd helps him get off the island, and tells him that Eloise Hawking can guide him back. Once off, Charles Widmore helps him track down Jack, Kate, Sayid and Hurley. So it all started with Richard, right? But consider – Richard told Locke what to do because that’s what Locke told Richard to do once he had come back to the island. And now we know that Locke wasn’t really Locke anymore. It would appear that Locke is now the Man in Black – or as I’m now going to refer to him in these instances, the Man in Locke (go ahead and giggle if you must). So it was the Man in Locke who told Richard to tell Actual Locke that he had to leave the island, bring back the Oceanic Six and die…a death that enables the Man in Black to become the Man in Locke. And that part where Christian tells Locke about Eloise Hawking is also important, because it is when Locke reveals his knowledge of Eloise to Ben that Ben suddenly jumps to action and chokes him to death…a death that enables the Man in Black to become the Man in Locke.

When Locke went to Jacob’s cabin at the end of Season Four and first met Christian (who was there with Claire), Christian said he could speak on Jacob’s behalf. But things we’ve seen since made me wonder in some Season Five write-ups if that was true. I’m thinking that Christian Shepherd’s body was somehow appropriated by the Man in Black for his nefarious scheme, the same way he has appropriated Locke’s body. Christian tells Locke to move the island because the Man in Black needs Locke off the island so that Locke can be killed, brought back and worn like a suit. And why can’t Man in Black just use Christian? Because only Locke – having been invited to lead the Others – can get close to Jacob. As for why Locke has been selected for leadership? Still don’t have that worked out. It goes to the question of why all these power players think he’s so “special.”

I think Eloise Hawking was using Ben to get the Oceanic Six back to the island. I think she’s trying to counteract whatever the Man in Black is trying to do. She’s with Jacob. Widmore is with the Man in Black. That’s why Bram tried to convince Miles not to go on Widmore’s freighter; ’cause he’s with Ilana, and Ilana – as saw in the season finale – is with Jacob. And Ben? Ben is clueless to the big picture. Whatever battle Ben thinks he’s engaged in, he will soon learn that there is a much larger game afoot, and he’s as much a pawn as the Flight 815 survivors and Desmond. When he finally comes to realize that, he’ll have to pick a side in the true war, and he’ll come down on the side of the good guys, fulfilling his conviction that that’s the side he was always on…and quite possibly dying a noble-ish death in the process.

I’m pretty impressed with myself for all of this spiffy theorizing until I realize that it doesn’t really get me anywhere, and has more holes than Sonny Corleone’s corpse.

Actually, I retract that statement. Nothing has more holes than Sonny Corleone’s corpse. They shot that poor bastard to bloody pieces. Damn you, Barzini!

Oh wait, I’ve got one last theory! Remember how Eloise told Jack that he needed to give Locke something that belonged to his father? Here’s why I think that. She’s trying to neutralize Christian Shepherd as an aid and a tool to the Man in Black. If the Man in Locke encounters Christian Shepherd while wearing the shoes of the real Christian Shepherd (who has not been wearing his own clothes, it would seem, since he began occupying Jacob’s cabin) then some kind of paradox will be created and Christian Shepherd as manipulated by the Man in Locke will be destroyed. It’s like that Van Damme movie Timecop! Wasn’t one of the rules in that movie that one could not occupy the same space as another version of oneself, or the person would die?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t spin theories. And for the record, I don’t really know that I believe anything I wrote above. I was just trying to play with the big kids.

BACK TO BASICS
Okay, to carry us through these final hours, here’s what I can offer. First, this updated version of Lost in 8:15, a mildly humorous but perhaps helpful summary of the entire series, whittled down to 8 minutes and 15 seconds.

I’ll supplement that with a brief recap of where we left everyone at the end of Season Five, in case your memory is hazy.

2007 – Ben and Locke went into the base of the statue to see Jacob. Jacob recognized that Locke was his old nemesis, the Man in Black. Now the Man in Locke, he had told Ben to kill Jacob, which Ben did. Before Man in Locke kicked Jacob’s body into the fire, Jacob said, “They’re coming.” This seemed to alarm Man in Locke. Outside the statue, Richard, Sun and a large group of others waited. Ilana and Bram and their people showed up, with Lapidus. They were carrying a large crate. Ilana asked Richard if he could answer the riddle, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” Richard answered, and relieved, Ilana and her gang spilled the contents of the box: it was Locke. Still dead. “I don’t understand,” Sun said. “If that’s Locke, then who’s in there?”

1977 – Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, Hurley, Sayid and Miles went to the Swan site to detonate the core of the hydrogen bomb. Sayid had been shot in the gut and was bleeding badly. He and Hurley remained just beyond the perimeter of the Swan while the others went to help Jack. The drill at the site hit the energy pocket, busting open a can of electromagnetic whoop-ass that proceeded to wreak havoc on the site and pull everything metal into the chasm. Jack dropped the bomb down the hole, but nothing happened. Then Juliet was struck by a length of chains, which caused her to get sucked into the hole. She landed at the bottom, broken and bloody. She saw the bomb just in her reach and bashed it with a rock until it exploded. The screen faded to white. The season ended. Millions of Lost fans screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Or maybe that was just me.

Supposedly, things tonight will pick up pretty much from there.

THE BOARD IS SET
Yesterday, I mentioned the scene from the pilot in which Locke talks to Walt about backgammon. It’s a great scene, and Doc Jensen recently asked Damon, who co-wrote the pilot with J.J. Abrams, about its relevance to the final season. Damon answered, “We can’t rewrite history and say that at the time the pilot was being constructed we were using phrases like ‘The Man In Black’ and ‘Jacob,’ but we can say that the overriding theme of The Island and what an endgame might look like — and that Locke was the character that was tapped into this almost instantly — was all sort of calibrated. Looking back on that scene, its intention at the time that it was written and its intention today is exactly the same, which is to basically set the stakes for the entire series. At the time that we wrote it, we didn’t think that there was going to be an episode two. At the time that we wrote it, it was a conversation about the good and evil internal in the people themselves. But obviously, as the show grew and blossomed out, that same conversation grew to encompass the nature of The Island and The Island’s effect on those people.”

Whether the scene is specifically referenced tonight or not I don’t know, but Jensen called it “the one scene you MUST watch before the premiere.” So here it is.

And with that, I bid you farewell until next week. Lost returns tonight with the requisite recap episode at 8:00, followed by the two hour season premiere at 9:00. Namaste…

Tonight’s Episode: LA X

The return of Lost is so close I can almost taste the spit-roasted boar. As we enter the final season, Damon and Carlton have their work cut out for them in resolving a complex narrative rife with befuddling mysteries. Will we get all the answers we want? I’m sure we’ll get the big ones, but for every major and obvious question like “What is the smoke monster?” there are others that may be one person’s obsession and another’s “who cares?”

In one of many recent interviews leading up to the season premiere, Damon and Carlton said this of the series end:

“I don’t think it would be Lost if there weren’t an ongoing and active debate … as to whether or not it’s a good ending,” Lindelof said.

“Not everything will be answered, so there will be people who are upset,” Cuse added. “But to explain everything … would be a mistake. Hopefully it will be a healthy cocktail of answers, character resolution and some surprises.”

In a separate interview, they particularly addressed the oft-asked question, “What is The Island?” Offering a definitive answer to that question would be too demystifying they say, likening it to Star Wars Episode I’s explanation of The Force. Don’t we all wish we’d never heard the word “midichlorian?”

So aside from that all-encompassing question, what do we hope this final season will answer? Last summer, Entertainment Weekly‘s Doc Jensen asked his readers to email him their top three burning questions; the ones they felt had to be answered. He compiled the responses to come up with this list of the top 15. (The first slide never seems to load for me, but I think it is about the whispers in the jungle).

Chances are that list captures a lot of the questions we all have. But for me, there are loads of others, which may or may not be among the same ones you have. A burning mystery that I was shocked not to find on that list is Christian Shepherd. What role does Jack’s deceased father have on the island? I have to assume that Christian’s presence is going be one of the major things this season deals with, especially given how much of Jack’s personality is shaped by his relationship with his father.

What else? Well, as I’ve re-watched the whole series there have been things big and small that have lodged in my brain. Here’s a rundown:

• What’s with the guitar case Hurley brought back to the island, which was “given” to him by Jacob?

• Why were pregnant women dying on the island?

• Whose eye have we seen in Jacob’s cabin?

• What is the significance of Jacob’s lists? At separate times during Season Three, we learn from the Others that neither Jack nor Kate was on the list.

• -How/why do people – and animals – materialize in the jungle out of nowhere? (Walt, Kate’s horse, Harper Stanhope – the Others’ therapist who appeared to Juliet and was also seen by Jack…)

• Will Claire finally get the Drive Shaft ring that Charlie left for her before his fateful trip to the Looking Glass? (This probably gets filed under the aforementioned “Who Cares?” list for most of you, but I remain crushed by Charlie’s death and the end of his romance with Claire. I hope for some resolution here. And a point was made last season of Sun finding the ring…)

• Who are the off-island people that helped Ben in his attempts to corral the Oceanic Six back to the island? There was butcher named Jill and some other names mentioned as well. I speculated last season that there might be a whole network of people off the island who are nonetheless involved in what goes on there. I wondered if Richard Malkin, the psychic who insisted Claire be on Flight 815, might be part of this group if it exists.

• Speaking of which, what is Aaron’s significance to the events on the island? Clues from over the years – some from the show itself and others from things I’ve read – suggest that Claire’s baby is an essential piece of the puzzle. Something I had forgotten about until re-watching the series was a dream Claire had in Season One, in which Locke is sitting at the table where she received her ominous psychic reading. He looks up at her, revealing one white eye and one black eye, and says, “He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.” Recall, of course, the scene from the series pilot in which Locke explained backgammon to Walt by holding up one white piece and one black piece and essentially laying the meta-theme for the entire series: “Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark.”

• What’s up with The Lamp Post, the Los Angeles church-based Dharma station manned by Eloise Hawking? Its features include a giant pendulum meant to calculate the island’s whereabouts in time. Hawking cryptically refers to a “clever fellow” who built the pendulum and came up with the way to locate the island.

• Why is Eloise Hawking even in that place? What does she – a former Hostile/Other – have to do with the Dharma Initiative? There are actually lots of questions around Eloise and her role in all of this. I think we have to go into a sub-list:

• She once told Desmond that pushing the button was essential to mankind’s survival. Why did it have such far-reaching consequences? Or was she just saying that?

•  Why is she trying to get the Oceanic Six back to the island? Is it because she knows that most of them will wind up in 1977, where her son Faraday will be able to make them detonate the hydrogen bomb? Is she trying to steer those events?

•  What happened to her just before she talked to Daniel as a child and told him he had to focus on studying physics and mathematics? She came into that conversation having just experienced something emotional, as if she knew she was setting him on a path to his death.

•  What is the nature of her relationship with Charles Widmore? If he has been trying so desperately to get back to the island, and she knows the way, why doesn’t he know that? Why hasn’t he asked her? Why hasn’t she offered to help him?

•  She says in The Lamp Post that the Dharma Initiative had gathered proof of the island’s existence, but couldn’t find it – until that “Clever Fellow” came along with his magic pendulum. By how did the DI even know about the island? How did they know to look for it?

• Why did the Oceanic Six really have to return to the island? It doesn’t seem that they were needed to save those left behind, as they were led to believe by Locke.

• Why didn’t modern day Rousseau recognize Ben as the man who kidnapped her child?

• What is in The Temple? When Keamy’s team is coming for Ben, why does Ben tell Alex that The Temple may be the last safe place on the island? Why does he say it’s only for the Others, denying Alex’s request to bring Claire and the other Flight 815 folks there?

• When Ben goes to Widmore’s apartment, Widmore asks if Ben has come to kill him. “We both know I can’t do that,” Ben answers. Why not? With what authority did Ben banish Widmore from the island? Why did the remaining Hostiles/Others follow Ben’s leadership?

• Ilana tells Bram that Lapidus might be “a candidate.” A candidate for what? Does she consider Sayid to be a candidate for the same thing? Is that why she brought him to the island?

• Why did some of the Ajira passengers end up in 1977 while others landed in 2007? In the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, Damon and Carlton say that the show will not explicitly say why Sun was the only member of the Oceanic Six to wind up in 2007, but that there will be clues to suggest the reason.

• Sun shows Richard the photo of the 1977 Dharma new recruits and asks if he remembers Jack, Kate and Hurley. Richard says he does remember them…because he watched them all die. Will the results of Juliet detonating Jughead shed light on Richard’s answer?

• How did The Purge come about? Ben claims that he acted on Jacob’s orders when he killed everyone in the Dharma Initiative. Is that true?

And the list probably goes on. And it will probably grow before it shrinks…but hopefully some of these answers will start falling into place sooner than later.

Until tomorrow…