LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 13-16 (Days 24-31)
When Boone gets frustrated with Locke’s obsession to get into the Hatch,Locke ties him up and drugs him. When Locke learns that Boone wants to tell their "secret" to Shannon, Shannon’s life is placed in sudden peril (showing a clue that Locke has secret powers of evil like Flocke), and the shocking truth about her past with Boone is revealed. Meanwhile, Kate is puzzled by Sun’s mysterious behavior, and a hungry Hurley must repay a debt to Jin.
Michael starts to build a raft to get his son rescued. Locke and Michael’s animosity is put aside when both of them must save Walt from a polar bear. Violence ensues and the smoke monsters re-appears when Michael and Locke clash over Walt’s upbringing. (Did Locke call upon his pet Cerebus to attack Michael for interfering with his new friendship?) Meanwhile, Charlie is tempted to read the missing Claire’s diary.
Locke and Boone find Claire in the jungle. She is suffering from amnesia. A survivor is killed, and Jack, Sayid and Locke plan a way to capture Ethan. Ethan returns and threatens to kill off the other survivors unless Claire is returned to him.
Kate and Sawyer’s outcast relationship continues to blossom while they are boar hunting. Kate and Sawyer divulge dark secrets to each other while tracking a renegade boar that Sawyer swears is purposely harassing him. (more smoke monster manipulation of matter to evoke human reaction?) Meanwhile, Hurley and Sayid worry that Charlie is losing it after his brush with death, and a shocking, prior connection between Sawyer and Jack is revealed (Sawyer met Jack’s father just before his death).
Science:
Compass works on magnetic field, a magnetized piece of metal suspended in air will point to true magnet north. However, some electromagnetic surges or anomalies can adversely affect compass readings. It is said that the Bermuda Triangle area has unusual EM properties that disrupts electronics and compass readings in airplanes (leading to mysteries of missing boats and planes).
Improbabilities:
Claire escaping Ethan after two weeks in the jungle.
Also, Ethan asking for her return when he infiltrated the camp and is stronger than any of the survivors.
Mysteries:
The “defective” compass that does not point North.
Sections of Rousseau’s maps that form a triangle, which may not even be part of this island, or the location of the “Black Rock.” We will learn that the Black Rock was an old slave ship that was shipwrecked on the Island, with all occupants killed except for one, Richard, who is spared by the smoke monster (MIB) but later becomes Jacob's immortal right hand man.
Themes:
Fate. Christian believes it is his fate to die an alcoholic in Hell, estranged from his son because he does not have the courage to pick up the phone and make things right.
Revenge. How difficult events tell what kind of man you really are. Sawyer is conned into killing the wrong man out of revenge. Charlie kills Ethan out of revenge for kidnapping Claire, the only person in his mind he can care for.
Christian tells Sawyer in the Sydney bar, “we’re in Hell.” Sawyer replies, “you’re here too.” Australia was founded as a penal colony. We don’t know if Christian is already “dead” in the bar when he has the discussion with Sawyer, or is about to die regretting that he never had the courage to pick up the phone and call his son to make things right. (In one way, Christian’s Sydney trip was his “island” journey; then his appearances on the island itself is like his own “sideways” world holding pattern until Jack’s soul catches up with his.)
Clues:
The compass malfunction and the map with a triangle can be considered a clue that the island is like the Bermuda or Devils triangles . . . areas of danger and mystery. Speculative science believes they may contain portals to other dimensions.
Locke tells a story about his family. He says a sibling dies, and his mother goes crazy in grief. Then a wandering dog comes into their house and sits by his mother for five years to her death. Locke says the dog was quiet; it was like her sister telling his mother that it was not her fault. The idea that Locke has a crazy mother is a clue to the future Island first family: MIB and Jacob's mother was crazy, too. It may point to Locke being possessed by MIB from the beginning. It also gives us a clue on Vincent, who may be the spirit of Walt's dead mother, looking after him.
Locke tells a story about his family. He says a sibling dies, and his mother goes crazy in grief. Then a wandering dog comes into their house and sits by his mother for five years to her death. Locke says the dog was quiet; it was like her sister telling his mother that it was not her fault. The idea that Locke has a crazy mother is a clue to the future Island first family: MIB and Jacob's mother was crazy, too. It may point to Locke being possessed by MIB from the beginning. It also gives us a clue on Vincent, who may be the spirit of Walt's dead mother, looking after him.
Discussion:
“ Life is a system of half-truths and lies. Opportunistic, convenient evasion. ”
— Langston Hughes
It is clear that Locke is orchestrating events on the island. He is leading characters into dangerous events and experiences. He is the puppet master manipulating their souls. We also see for the first time the expressed idea that somehow the characters are going to be divided into teams. Locke stops Boone from confronting Sayid by telling Boone “we want him on our side.” In the End, Sayid has gone completely to the dark side of MIB’s team. Flocke is already recruiting players for his game with Jacob. Locke has Boone clearly on his side after “giving him the experience” of the smoke monster killing Shannon (quite possibly near the site of the Light cave, where MIB himself was killed by his sibling). Here, illusion becomes reality and changes Boone’s path away from Shannon and becoming a pawn of Locke.
We will learn that Jacob and MIB played the game of Senet, two sides, one black and one white; and the object of that game is to get your pieces off the board first.
In another situation, Locke leads Michael in the search for Walt. But this is after Walt has come to Locke to learn about knives. Locke tells him to “see it before you do it,” which is like the magic box principle Ben will speak of; Walt does and throws the knife perfectly. Michael interrupts and threatens to kill Locke if he has any contact with them again. Michael burns the comic with the polar bear and the “moving” island that Walt has kept from the crash; they are about to grow irreversibly a part until Walt wanders off with Vincent. He is attacked by a polar bear, but finds shelter in the banyan roots. Locke and Michael do a aerial rescue of Walt, with Michael giving Walt a knife to protect himself. Afterward, Walt and Michael bond; but also there is a truce between the Locke-Michael feud.
Walt’s “talent” of seeing things first then making them happen is foreshadowed in a flashback where Walt reads about a bird, then kills one on the patio in order to get attention from his parents. This spooks out his adoptive father, Brian, who after his mother’s death, in 1 day he is in NYC giving Michael plane tickets from Sydney for Walt and himself. Of course the legal ramifications of this guardianship are all wrong in reality but maybe not in a child's world.
When Claire returns on her own from her ordeal, she is beat up and cannot remember anything. She is upset with Charlie that he kept the Ethan warnings from her. “I am already in the dark,” she scolds him. The question raised here is whether Claire has already met her demise by Ethan’s capture. Has Claire’s memory erase part of the “infection” or soul re-boot that the smoke monsters take over a human soul? We know in the final season, Claire turns feral and crazy in the jungle, as a member of Flocke’s team. Is this the point where Claire is recruited? Recall, Ethan was hanging out with Locke in jungle before the kidnapping. If he infiltrated the 815 camp, Ethan could have also infiltrated “Jacob’s camp” run by Ben.
The other interesting reveal that feeds some evidence in a theory about multiple island realms is the “I Never” game Kate and Sawyer play. It is clear that both had troubled childhoods. Kate never went to Disneyland. In the Sawyer memories, we see his father kill his mother and himself after being conned out of their savings. One theory during the original airing of the show was that Sawyer has “blocked” part of that reality, being killed by his own father, so as to be moved by Jacob into the next level of existence (alternative reality) at the “funeral.” We can also say the same about Kate, who runs out of a store stealing an item, and may have been hit by a car driven by Locke’s father. The theory was that all the characters died in their childhood, and the afterlife is giving them all second chances to “live” and “experience” a faux life in order to mature into fully developed human souls.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
A boar that harasses one man, Sawyer, is a comic relief element but also puts light on the idea that all the things on the island have magical properties. The boar may be a symbolic illusion for another person (memories into matter and events).
The Asian cultural idea that good spirits live in banyan tree roots which provide safe harbor from evil is also seen twice in these episodes: in Boone’s illusion of Shannon being attacked by Smokey and Walt being trapped inside while the polar bear attacked him.
Also, the Whispers now are heard by Sawyer. We know the Whispers are the voices of the trapped souls on the island, apparently giving the characters warnings. It may also be that when people begin to hear the whispers, they are slowly becoming spell bound by the Island or its guardians. Mental fatigue can lead to one’s personal defenses going down.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 13:
LOCKE: Yes. Time to let go. [Locke gets up and grabs his pack.] Follow me.
[Boone follows.]
EP 14:
[Claire emerges from the bushes looking awful.]
LOCKE: Claire?
EP 15:
CHARLIE: Goodnight, Claire.
EP 16:
SAWYER: No reason.
[Sawyer leaves. Jack snaps a log of wood with his foot.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Original fans always hoped that the Numbers would mean something special in the mythology of the series. The Numbers would up to be the designation of 815 characters Locke, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Jack, and Jin. No special formula like the Vanzetti equation that re-sets and saves the world from mass destruction. The Numbers were a planted red herring. An empty Easter egg found throughout the scripts.
Taking in the series a second time, and knowing what we know of the characters fates, one tries again to put a new “spin” on the Numbers. It would seem promising that the first number, 4, Locke, would be engulfed into the Island first. Whether Locke is possessed by the island or is actually Flocke from the crash forward (MIB in human cosplay), this may be the first turn in a combination to open the secrets of the Island safe. Hurley is next, but in the first season he is a background character. But in the end he takes the guardian “role” of the Island from Jack, like winning the silver medal. Sawyer makes the most dramatic change when he is sent time traveling in reverse, and finding new responsibilities and commitment with Juliet. Sayid is a character that makes the least change from his torture soldier roots. He is taken over by the darkness and follows Flocke in his evil plan against his friends. But in an odd, out of place, resolution, Sayid winds up in the church with Shannon (not Nadia). Jack learns to take leadership and responsibility of making tough decisions to save his friends, including “dying” in the process. The consensus is that Jack had to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone else; but in the sideway world he had constructed a better life than in his flashback memories. Jin was a secondary character, almost a Sayid-light. Jin was a self-centered individual whose entire life, in the end, resolved around Sun. The six named Number characters really have nothing in common; no common redemption moments; no final grand judgment on how their lives turned out.
But the Numbers (people) as a combination lock got me to rethink an earlier theory that the Island itself was the safe, and the movement in time and space were tumblers that the Numbers were supposed to release change upon its spirit world. What we know is that Crazy Mother shipwrecked Jacob and MIB’s mother on the Island. Crazy Mother then stole the children and killed their real mother, trapping Jacob and MIB on the Island for eternity: Jacob as the Life Force guardian and MIB as a smoke monster. It is the freedom from the Island (rescue) is what was an underlying motivation for both Jacob and MIB. Jacob was looking to retire from being a guardian, and MIB was tired of the humanity games of any castaways brought to the Island by Jacob. MIB wanted to leave the island as badly as Michael did (which is ironic, since Michael remains trapped on the island as Whisper).
After one month on the Island, it is apparent that the Island inhabitants (Jacob, MIB and Crazy Mother) are dividing up the survivors into teams. I include Crazy Mother because it is not certain that killing a guardian actually ends their existence. Jacob was stabbed and burned by Ben and Flocke, but later showed up to talk to Hurley and a dying Sayid. Jacob’s brother was “killed” by Jacob and tossed into the Light cave, only to fly out as the smoke monster. The assumption was that Jacob’s brother was transformed into the smoke monster, but it may be they were all immortal smoke monsters (spirits). For afterward, Jacob and MIB sit on the beach discussing all the humans Jacob brings to the Island to prove some unknown point in their ageless argument. We know that MIB can shape shift and transform memories into matter (Flocke, even without his actual body).
One telling situation was when Sawyer is eye to eye with his harassing boar. Kate is observing off in the brush. She is clearly waiting for Sawyer to kill his nemesis. But when Sawyer does not shoot, Kate is clearly disappointed that it did not play out. One wonders if the intelligent boar was another manifestation of Locke (or Flocke himself) and Kate is or being controlled by Crazy Mother, who was killed by MIB in the past and may hate the loss of her past human form. The other observation about the boar incident was that even beyond revenge motivation in Sawyer, the beach camp still needs food and there has been no boar meat in almost a month. Shouldn't Sawyer shot the boar just for survival?
One telling situation was when Sawyer is eye to eye with his harassing boar. Kate is observing off in the brush. She is clearly waiting for Sawyer to kill his nemesis. But when Sawyer does not shoot, Kate is clearly disappointed that it did not play out. One wonders if the intelligent boar was another manifestation of Locke (or Flocke himself) and Kate is or being controlled by Crazy Mother, who was killed by MIB in the past and may hate the loss of her past human form. The other observation about the boar incident was that even beyond revenge motivation in Sawyer, the beach camp still needs food and there has been no boar meat in almost a month. Shouldn't Sawyer shot the boar just for survival?
The diverse paths of the characters that wind up on 815, the Island, in flashbacks and flash-forwards, while at the same time “creating” a sideways purgatory soul holding life until Jack “awakens” from the Island realm are hard to explain. In the Olympic spirit of fair play, a diagram is in order to explain the possibility that the Island precursor to the afterlife may have just been one stop in a chain of “island” lives (like tumblers in a safe lock; each separate but connected to one final goal: opening the final door).
The characters may move through the various worlds, seemingly "living normal lives" even though it is one long journey through multiple layers of an afterlife existence. Each circle is a reboot or continuation of a soul's journey of experiences. As they move through them, they start to be sorted into like human characteristics and gathered together for a grand group "experience" on the Island. Their experiences and memories are the information feed stock in order for the next circle of existence to re-create events in order to determine whether each soul has any redemptive qualities or can change their behavior.
It is clear that the Island is not part of real Earth. The supernatural elements of the island cannot be explained away by science and normal human experience. It is understood now that the Island brought these people together in order to break them a part (into "teams") for a final showdown between the Island's two forces, Jacob and MIB.
