Wednesday, June 11, 2008

TV: LOST Season Finale 4

As LOST grows more and more complicated even as it begins to give us answers, I keep hanging onto one key element. The writers claim that the skeletons called Adam and Eve in the first season will stand as proof (when the whole show is completely over) that they knew what they were doing the whole time. We at least have this “skeleton key.”

Another phrase that sticks in my mind is spoken by Hurley while he is playing the board game Risk. “The key is always Australia.” Given that Flight 815 left Australia, this seems to be a pretty significant clue.

The phrase “you’re not supposed to raise him” is also a likely clue. The words are just vague enough to allow some alternate interpretations. On the surface, it seems to be a warning that Jack is not supposed to act as Aaron’s father. But now it would apparently be relevant to someone actually trying to “raise” the dead (i.e. John Locke). Also, during Claire’s dream, she tells Kate, “Don’t you dare bring him back.” The assumption is that Claire is referring to Aaron, but this also could refer to dead Locke.

The finale itself was plenty cool. The fight between Sayid and Keamy (the bad guy) was great. The moves and the editing was movie quality. Sawyer calling the pilot “Kenny Rogers” was one of the best nicknames of the season. The helicopter dealing with a fuel leak was intense and made me feel the pressure of what looked like a no-win situation.

A cool detail one website mentioned had to do with the man Sayid killed outside the mental asylum. When Sayid asks him for the time, the man almost says 8:15 (the Oceania flight number). Inside in the mental asylum, Hurley is playing chess with an unseen Mr. Echo using black and white pieces. This brings to mind the black and white stones found with Adam and Eve and the occasional backgammon game seen in the show.

When Kate answers the phone in her dream, someone is speaking backwards. Forward, it says, “The Island needs you. You have to go back before it’s too late.” You can hear the forward version on the internet.

Desmond and Penelope’s reunion was sort of nice. Borderline soap, but it worked for me. I like their story. If you didn’t know this already, their story alludes to the Odyssey, right down to the fact that Penelope had 108 suitors.

Jeremy Bentham (the name used by Locke when he left the island) was the name of a philosopher who emphasized the greater good. He believed the ends justified the means.

On a LOST podcast, the writers indicated that the island is indirectly interfering with the lives of Jack and the other survivors even after they leave, determining whether or not they live or die. The island was somehow responsible for stopping Jack from committing suicide, distracting him with the automobile accident. This also is apparently relevant to the fact that Ben and Widmore cannot kill each other. The one thing that brought Juliet to the island was her husband being conveniently hit by a bus.

At one point Widmore says, “my island.” The writers openly admit this implies that Widmore has been on the island in the past. So has Charlotte Lewis for that matter. She also says to Daniel, when she decides to stay on the island, “Would it make any sense if I said I was still looking for where I was born?”

More than once, “the Casimir Effect” is mentioned in relation to the Dharma Stations. This is an actual concept in physics. One thing it is capable of in theory is stabilizing a wormhole.

Final Thoughts: Obviously time travel is significant. Ben asking what year it is, after he appears in the desert, clinches that idea. The constant appearance of the dead seems to suggest that the island has the capability of not only healing people like Locke and Rose, but even resurrecting those who have died (or maybe using time travel to pull them out before they die). The writers say next season will explain more about the Dharma Initiative, also answering the question of who is making the food and supply drops.

My Guesses: the group that Locke is now leading (the one with the guy who never ages), that group is from the future—the way future. The island will bring Locke back to life and it will be a bad thing. The Oceanic 6 travel 3,000 miles out of the way to trick the rest of the world about where they crashed. The idea is to protect those on the island, to make sure no one can find it. But the island has been moved so wouldn’t that be a useless effort on their part? Unless the island has not been moved through space, but only in time. Just like the rabbit in the video, the island has been “moved” into the future and will show up again in the same spot.

All in all, the best TV show ever made. When it ends in two more seasons, I'm going to turn off the television, take it outside, shoot it, and bury it.


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