Proof that time travel does exist: our lovable Hurley has given us a gift.  

Mega Millions Lottery Ticket Winner

Now I’m rewatching all the episodes of LOST in hopes of catching something equally as prophetic. Call it research.

Lost notes, live, as I see it.

That chick, I know her. She’s Richard Alpert’s woman, peg perego. Crap, no, that was Isabella. This lady before our eyes is Claudia; we haven’t met her before. And wait, Allison Janney? For real? Is Claidia’s baby going to turn out to be babies? Plural? Twins, perhaps? One fair haired, the other dark and wily? Jacob and the man in black? Cain & Abel? Gee, surprise surprise. Is it amazing that I know this shit, or does everyone, before it even happens?

Well, now didn’t see Allison Janney as the head bashing type. This reminds me of the whole premonition to Claire, how she mustn’t let anyone else raise Aaron. And, what’s that? Is Allison Janney looming/weaving? We’ve seen this type of thing before, at the foot of the statue, before our Senor Lockness tricks Ben Linus into killing Jacob. I’ve always believed in this Cain & Abel thing. It’s so very Adam + Eve, a mirror to season 1.

Ah, and here are the constant rules: "I’ve made it so you can never hurt each other" Ms. Janney tells them. And now, a coma victim’s vision: a light at the end of a tunnel. Man is greedy, she says, and man has a light inside him, a light he’s greedy for. A small piece of what you see in that tunnel. And he’ll come looking for it. And I can’t protect it forever. One of you will have to do it.

Then Claudia, the dead mother who was hit in the head by a rock by Allison Janney, shows up, visible only to Young Lockness monster. "Why can’t Jacob see you?" Because I’m dead, she says, admitting that he comes from across the sea, that she’s their mother, and those strange men Lockness sees are "their people."

Jacob asks Janney, did you really kill my mother? Yes, she admits, if I’d let her live, she’d have taken you to her people, and those people are bad. "Am I a good person?" he asks. Of course, she responds. "Then why do you love him more than you love me?" She plays the mama card, with the lie: "I love you in different ways." Then she’s relieved when he says, after she pleads, that he will stay with her.

Years later, he’s still looming/weaving and playing the black and white (evil and good) board game with Lockness monster. Lockness admits to Jacob that Janney was right. These "people" he was with all these 30 years are greedy and manipulative. They are, he says, "a means to an end." Hello Senor Niccolò Machiavelli. He thrusts a knife in the air, knowing it will lock into place, thanks to magnetic forces of the island.

Janney looks terribly nervous when she hears from Jacob that young Sir Lockness has found a way to leave the island. All I can think right now? It would be cool if Janney were God. She’s not, but I love the idea that they’d make a chick God. Okay, ball back in bowl.

Janney goes to see youngish Sir Lockness. He’s standing beside the Donkey wheel, prying a rock from the wall, exposing a crack of light. Explaining that he’s built the wheel to work with the water and the light. Oh boy, she’s gonna try to kill him. I see it happening. She’s gonna try. She is.

They embrace. She tells him not to leave, don’t do this. He says he must, that he doesn’t belong here. And then, she hugs him with an apology. Damn straight, woman, I know where this is going. What’s she apologizing for? She’s about to… yup, knocked him upside the head, just as she did to his mama.

Then, she wakes Jacob to say, "I had no choice, I had to say goodbye." Then she shows Jacob to the light, telling him that he must protect it, "Life, death, rebirth, the source, the heart of the island. Promise me, no matter what, that you’ll never go down there." Would I die? "It would be worse than dying, Jacob, much worse." She speaks in tongue, says a blessing over the wine, offers him a sip, signifying his promise to protect the island. Her time is done, and even though Lockness was her first choice, she says, it was always supposed to be Jacob, she sees that now, then begs him to take a sip. Now, she says, you and I are the same.

Senor Smoke it wakes, sees a blast of smoke in the distance. Gosh, we’ve seen this signal before (a crash, a signal). Look at this genocide. Sir Smokey’s people are dead, and he sees the board game he played with his brother Jacob, holding it up to the sky in rage. It’s war, alright.

Sorry, but, it looks like a SPIDER ejaculated on Allison Janney’s hair. What in the hell is that nest she’s wearing? She tells her boy Jacob to be careful while out collecting firewood, almost with a sense that she’ll never see him again. She knows what’s about to happen, just as Eloise knew what would happen with her son Daniel Faraday (the whispering creepy dude). Sir Lockness finds Janney, looking through the boys’ game, and she’s gutted by her "adopted" son, Sir Smokes a Lot. Jacob witnesses this, and once Janney dies, with the final words, "THANK YOU" to sir Smokes It, as if his killing her has finally set her free, with the black and white stones of the game near her lifeless hand, Jacob grabs Sir Smoke it, and thrusts him into that light place, the place Janney had warned him never to go inside. Jacob punches his brother out, face down in the stream, flowing into "the light" only to come out… wait for it… the birth of The Smoke Monster. Fook yeah!

Now that’s some good shite. I so know what’s happening next.

Jacob then finds the body of his brother, puts him down in his lair, tending to his dead mother, with the white and black rocks near her palm. Jacob picks them up, adding them to the satchel, linking the lifeless hands of his brother and mother’s bodies. And then, BAM, Kate and Jake, in flashback, find said satchel amid the remains of… Adam and Eve. Called it.

Only, if Janney made it impossible for Jacob and his bro to kill each other, it means that the body of "Adam" is just a body? One Sir Smoke It got back once he became the Lockness smoke monster? I don’t know what happens next. Except this theme, we’ve seen it before, which I’m sure, is the whole point.

KATE, CLAIRE, & DR. ETHAN: Let us recall that back on the Island, once upon a time, Kate was the one who helped Claire and delivered Aaron. Aaron’s birth had coincided with the death of Boon, so it will be interesting to watch if in this alternate go-round the same events happen (or at least the same ends), with Kate helping/being there to deliver Aaron, and with Boone dying… again.

This episode, in this "parallel timeline," our girl Kate kicked Peg Perego Claire out of the cab, refusing to let her grab her suitcase. Now Kate’s handcuff free, returning Claire her suitcase and offering her a ride. Claire at the doorstep: "Mrs. Baskim?" Nope, Mrs. is now a Ms. And Claire’s in labor. Early labor. 36 weeks, and ready to give up her baby, but she’s also already named him. "Aaron" just popped into her head, as if (cough cough) in an alternate life, she already met him and just "knew." And, well, well, lookie who’s there to monitor her pregnancy: It’s Dr. Ethan, son of Horace & Amy Goodspeed (born early, at 36 weeks himself), the very one who had kidnapped Claire back on the island, way back when. Ethan offers Claire the option of trying to stop the pregnancy, or moving forward with the delivery. She says she wants more time, and he asks for the drugs. Talk about parallel. Imagine him sticking her with a needle (to ward off "the infection"), just as he’d tried to do after kidnapping Claire seasons ago. In both versions, Ethan is eager to get his hands on that baby.

SAYID: Ah, "the infection." This brings us to Sayid, whose body was taken to the temple, after Jacob instructed Hugo to do so. Sayid was "baptized" in the healing waters of the temple (a wee bit drowned), then ressurected… as whom?

Sayid could be: 1) a warped "never the same again" version of Sayid, just like Little Ben. "There are consequences;" 2) pretending to be Sayid, but is really Jacob. Back in the torture chamber, Sayid’s body is getting a bit of a tickle: first some protective ash play, then some currant stimulation, finishing it off with a hot poker. Yes, yes, we get it, torture the torturer. Blah blah. Seemingly, it looks as if they’re testing to see if Sir Smoke It is in there, maybe a diluted amount, something dark. They tell him it was a test, that he’s passed. Sayid leaves, and Lennon says, "I just lied to him, didn’t I?" "Yes." So they’re testing for Jacob or for Smokey, or for a lingering Sayid, or a general lack of freshness.

What if the "Infection" they’re hoping to "cure" is Sayid’s spirit, his soul? And it’s lingering, and they want to kill it, because there’s no room, or place, for real souls on this island? See how fast Drago (or whatever his name is, Dogen?) sprung into action when Jack Sprat tried to swallow the manditory medicine he insisted Sayid take willingly? He made him spit. Then said it was poison in the pill. About Sayid, Dogen says, "We believe he’s been claimed. There’s a darkness growing in him, and once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone." How does he know this? Because it "happened to your sister." Claire is Jack’s sister, and last we saw her, we saw a flickering Claire in Jacob’s Cabin… Claire had mysteriously disappeared when she followed Christian Shepherd into the jungle (this could have been Sir Smokey Smokes A Lot, mascarading/inhabiting Christian’s body).

A note on "infections" and sickness: there was all that business of vaccines and quarentines long ago, and there was Danielle Rousseau who went on about her whole team being infected. She implied a severe mental change, as if people suddenly became crazy. Maybe, just maybe, when they were turning crazy, infected, they were moving on, going "home." And to someone who isn’t, it appears as crazy/"infected." Just a guess. More likely, though, it’s as Danielle had suggested, that once her team disappeared into the temple, they never returned quite the same. She was sure Smokey "The Monster" changed them in some way. Overall the sickness makes people act crazy.

Meanwhile, Kate’s off frolicking with a sad, guilty, Sawyer. Enough already with the guilt and blame. Our boy Jin escapes from one of the temple guards, who say they’re protecting them from the black smoke monster. Um, does anyone else remember that the black smoke monster could always be found when people got too close to the temple? That it was there to "guard the temple?" Just as guard Aldo is ready to shoot Jin, Claire shoots both men down, and seems surprised that Jin recognizes her. "Claire?" he asks more to himself than to her. She makes the confused actor squint face.

***Interesting to note that earlier Justin (one of the guards escorting Jin and Kate, helping them track Sawyer) says two things worth mentioning: 1) Aldo, the other guard tries to make like the booby-trappings are Rousseau’s. He’s the one who even suggests they’re put there by Rousseau, wanting Kate & Jin to believe they’re in another time. But Justin allows that these aren’t the French chick’s trappings, "Couldn’t be. She died years ago." So these trappings were placed here to look as if they were Rousseau’s? Then Jin asks about the second plane, the Ajira flight, hoping to find Sun. And again Justin pipes up, saying that flight already crashed on the island. As he says it, the other guard, Aldo, tells him to shut up. 2) Later, when Aldo aims at Jin, ready to kill him, Justin shouts, "Aldo, no. We can’t. He’s one of them." "Maybe, he’s one of them." Then he goes to shoot him, before he’s shot himself, by "Born again Claire."

L

ost, it seems, has a lot of coupling going on. There has always been an emphasis on duality: science vs. faith, good vs. evil, us vs. them "The Others," free will vs. destiny, illusion vs. reality, the common good vs. the individual. These themes have been staked out in our characters, with the arguments and issues they each bring to the island tiki table. Not to mention the coupling that comes from the whole "you are my constant, therefore I may not kill you" thing. How very Jerry Maguire. Not quite, "you complete me," but pretty close. With this rule in place, the emphasis becomes "we’re two opposing sides of the same coin, so I can’t get rid of you myself." (It’s why Ben can’t kill Widmore, as well). 

As far as structure goes, we’re literally split into dual realities now. It’s very Back to the Future Part II, the way Dr. Emmett Brown had described an alternate reality, with Biff at the Casino, crossing paths with their own future and past selves, etc. In this last season we’re seeing dual realities: 1) what would have happened if the plane never crashed and landed on the island (ALTERNATE REALITY); 2) what happens now on the Island, present day, now that they have successfully set off the nuclear bomb back in the 70s. If you’ve seen Sliding Doors, you get it. [I can tell you that personally, I'm still wishing that this island represented some form of purgatory, with everyone in the balance, jumping back, proving their worthiness to move onward, self-sacrificing just enough to move forward. But the creators don't make it that simple because once we have answers, we stop looking for them, and stop watching.]

I’m guessing that, just as it happened with our girl Gweneth in Sliding Doors, no matter which path, (the plane never crashing, or the successful nuclear explosion), the destiny, the final outcome will be the same, because in the end, no matter the circumstances, I’m speculating they’ll bring them to the same place, with that same free-will that was there all the time, within, just like Dorothy and her magic ruby slippers.

That prediction said, just to clear it up for my father, who’s been a bit groggy due to his polyp removal surgery, what the hell’s going on? Back to duality, remember the "Trading Places" season 5 finale, with the two dudes on the beach, one in white (Jacob), and one in black (we’ll call him Smokey, or Lockeness Lord Smoke It). It was very much like the Eddie Murphy Trading Places film, with those two dudes who were arguing nature vs. nurture. This is the same deal. Jacob and Lockeness Lord Smoke It are each other’s constant, so they cannot kill each other. When Ben strangled Locke last season and staged it to appear as if Locke hanged himself, Locke actually died, and the scruffy dude wearing black on the beach took over Locke’s body. Alexandra (Ben’s daughter) appeared to Ben in the basement of that Goonies of a temple area, telling him to listen to anything Locke told him to do (again, this could have been the black spirit at play). Ben agrees to do whatever Locke says, thinking it’s still John Locke in that body.

Then Ben was manipulated (a taste of his own medicine), reminded why he’d want to kill Jacob… so Ben, of his own free-will, makes the choice to kill Jacob. But just as the dude in black could inhabit Locke’s body, Sir Jacob can now inhabit Sayid’s body. Thus, Jacob appears to Hugo, and tells him to head to the Temple with Sayid’s body, knowing full-well that he’s going to take over Sayid’s body once the life has been drowned out of it. (Wait, you might ask, how did Jacob know all this was going to happen in advance? I mean, he gave Hugo that guitar case with that message long before Ben killed Jacob. The answer, my friends, is time travel. Again, think back to Back to the Future Part II: Marty had the Almanac, wanting to give it to his past self, so he could be wealthy, but Doc. Brown saw it, trashed it, and Biff found it in the trash, stole the DeLorean, and handed it to his past self, then returned to his present time, where he now had a casino, etc. All about planning steps ahead… much like a game of chess). And that’s exactly how this story is beginning to feel: like a game of chess, with light and dark, white and black, playing for positions of power. (I won’t say good v. evil, because I think that’s too simplistic, and we want to try to pin people down as one or the other to make it simple, but I strongly believe the creators won’t do this… they won’t simplify it in those terms. Just like the belief that "the others" are the "bad" guys… they turned it around when they referred to our main cast as "the others.")

It feels very much like purgatory chess, with Jacob and Sir Darkie Dark as "fallen angels" wanting to get to their home, proving their hypotheses about human nature, about destiny, about free-will, with our "survivors" of the crash as their pawns.

When alternate reality Locke, still in his wheelchair, speaks with Jack at baggage claim, he says, "They didn’t lose your father. They lost his body," we get it. It’s "on the nose." Ding ding ding. It would be interesting to watch earlier seasons where people who were already dead appear on the island to our characters and figure out who (Jacob or Dr. Lord Smoke It) was inhabiting that body, that illusion, and for what purpose, to analyze what the motivation would be for either of them, and what seeing that illusion/person/horse then drove our character to do. What was their action after the interaction with that illusion/person/being?

One last esoteric mention. Pretty sure this was an Olivia Newton John movie with John Travolta titled TWO OF A KIND: It’s up to both criminally-minded individuals to save the Earth from God’s destruction. And the plot summary, you ask? 

"Four angels — Charlie, Earl, Gonzales, and Ruth — have been in charge of Heaven for the last 25 years. They are playing a golf match in Heaven when their game is interrupted by God, who has now returned to the office and doesn’t like what he sees down on Earth. God wants to order up another flood and start all over again, but the angels persuade God to reconsider, reasoning that if a typical Earth man can reform, it would prove that all mankind is capable of it."

 * * *

Below are my live-blogging notes, as I watched the premiere:

Tonight I’ll be liveblogging during the premiere episode of the final season of LOST. There will be drinking involved. And avgolemono meatball soup (this is not a secret clue, but I will share the recipe this week). To catch up on my earlier nerdly LOST posts, head to the LOST ARCHIVE.

As I’ve said before, I believe "Adam & Eve" are Bernard & Rose, who were living in retirement. Locke’s new "body" is The Man In Black, who was sitting on the beach with Jacob (who was in white). Jacob, in white, who visited each of our cast members in their pasts, was the evil spirit, the "bad" spirit, "helping" each of our "survivors" by facilitating each of them to do "bad."

However many times the notion of fate is discussed, the theory of free-will, we all know how this will end. It will, undoubtedly be about free will. As William Jennings Bryan said, "Destiny isn’t a matter of chance. It’s a matter of choice. It’s not a thing to be waited for, it’s a thing to be achieved."

Now then. We last left off here, at Trading Places. Now we begin with Sliding Doors, a la deja vu. Following the path of what if. What if they never.

We see Jack on the airplane, beside Rose. Bernard is in the bathroom. He returns. Everything that was isn’t anymore. No crash. Jack heads to the loo, realizes he’s bleeding. And when he returns to his seat? Desmond is there. (Note: Des was never on the original flight).

Focused on Kate’s eye. All in the eyes. Kate’s hearing sucks, from the explosion of The Swann? We learn that they built the hatch anyway.

We’re back to the airplane, and all I can think is that it’s possible that this plane stuff we’re seeing is what happened before the crash? That or we’re dealing with an episode of Danny Devito & Schwarzenegger: twins.

Watching lost is like playing a game of chess. I just really hope Jacob & the man of black aren’t the ones playing, with our "players" its pawns. Again, it’s far too Trading Places.

So we learn that the gang’s all here, alive, Juliet too. Sayid is gasping through throat blood wondering what will be done with him, after the life he’s lived and those he’s tortured.

Boon. Boon and "Locke" are on the plane, then we have Locke with Ben, after Ben "killed" Jacob back in last year’s finale. Locke knows Richard will be outside and asks Ben to send Richard in.

Lapidis is speaking with Sun about Ilana and the big brute dude. They say they’re the good guys, said Jacob asked for them. Ben asks for Richard, lies, saying Locke & Jacob are inside, both are fine. Then Richard throws Ben down on the sand, so he can be face to face with the body in the box: the corpse of John Locke. Ben’s eyes widen. Dude’s not in Kansas anymore.

They’re digging for Juliet, but I wonder if it will be someone else they find. Someone unexpected. That would make things real interesting.

Hugo is speaking with Jacob. "Your friend Jin won’t be able to see me. I died an hour ago. I was killed by an old friend who grew tired of my company." Ah, the loophole. Can’t kill your constant, now can you. Jacob tells Hugo to get Sayid’s bod to the temple. Jin will know where it is.

Sawyer tells Kate he’s going to kill Jack if Juliet dies.

Jack is on the airplane, summoned to the loo. We KNOW who’s in there. Sir Charlie. Yup. Not breathing. Jack tries to save Charlie. His airpassage is blocked. Gee, wonder what he’s trying to smuggle down. Yup. Big sack of heroin. Key phrase here from Jack, "There was a pen in my pocket but it’s not there anymore."

Ben’s still the quirky dirky we love to love, all creepy. 

THAT WAS AWESOME. Black smoke monster is Jacob’s nemesis, the dude who was in black eating fish with Jacob last season. Here’s my question. The big tall brute of a dude with Ilana shoots a bullet into the body of Locke, whom I’ll refer to as the Lockeness Monster, and Locke is fine, disappears; the bullet is found on the floor, then the black monster appears. BUT why then was Ben able to "kill" Jacob? Granted Jacob still came back and spoke to Hurley.

I realize anyone reading this will NEVER want to watch this show now.

If Juliet is dead, just bring her by the temple with Sayid. And seriously, James, wanting vengeance on Jack… yawn. Whatever happened to "dead is dead?"

Shannan was another who was not on this flight. No Walt, no Michael.

Sawyer asks Miles to stick around while he puts his woman into the ground, seeing that Miles can hear the dead, and might be able to hear that important thing Juliet wanted to tell our boy James.

Back at the temple, we see the corpse of the dude with one arm, who was reading some book I’ll research later. The voices and whispers are here. It feels a bit like The Goonies. Then Kate disappears. Jack chases after her, then hears more voices, people are running, punch Jack out, escort him out. Where is Sayid’s bod during all this exactly? They spill out, guided by dudes with guns, to see "The Temple." I’m exhausted. James wants to know what Juliet wanted, but Miles could make up any old thing. "It worked." She wanted to tell him that it did, in fact, work. Setting off that hydrogen bomb worked.

Now it feels like a whole new show at the Temple, with the flight attendant part of the pious rag club. Hugo offers the guitar case as proof that Jacob sent them. And inside is a note saying so. "We’re in a lot of trouble if anything happens to your friend." (Speaking about Sayid).

They drown Sayid, so Jacob can come back in Sayid’s form?

Once the peeps at the temple learn from Hugo that Jacob is dead, they prepare, make a protective circle around the temple to keep Lockness Monster out (I still maintain this Lockness Monster isn’t the bad dude, that it’s Jacob who’s bad, too). I need to go breathe. I’ll write more tomorrow.

I KNEW IT. I knew Sayid would die so Jacob could come back in his body. Knew it.

I run into people in my life who have never seen Lost, but who’ve read about my obsession on this blog. There are others who read this blog just to hear my take on an episode. What I cannot stress enough is how above and beyond exceptional this show is.

Stop what you’re doing, and get thee to a DVD store for Season One. Start from the beginning. Not sure if it’s for you? Give it the benefit of the doubt.

I know. I know there were believers who ultimately lost faith, thinking the creators didn’t really know what they were writing toward. I’m sure they were right on that, but now they know there’s an end in sight- and with the end comes answers.

I cannot say it enough. I don’t care if Season One kinda bored you. That you tried but just couldn’t get past the first three episodes. I PROMISE YOU it is worth the emotional, intellectual time suck.

Maybe it got too convoluted for you, so you gave up. Pick that shit back up. Now is your chance to catch up, knowing there’s an end, so you can appreciate the smartest TV series ever. And if nothing else, you’ll be way less annoyed by all my LOST posts to come.
2 YEARS AGO: The Line Outside the Velvet Ropes of The Wiggle Room
3 YEARS AGO: Sorry
4 YEARS AGO: Passing Notes

Two years ago, I wrote on this blog about the TV series LOST, and its link to the book FlashForward

by Robert J Sawyer. Tonight ABC aired the premiere episode of FlashForward, inspired by the very same book I’d mentioned. I was recently asked if my theory on LOST has changed at all now that FlashForward is its own series. My answer: my theories are always changing. That’s the fun in it. I still maintain that some events and names on LOST were pulled from Robert J Sawyer’s book. Um, hello: Sawyer. For more, read what I’d posted two years ago.