POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 41-44 (Days 60-63 )
These four episodes bring out the one in-story explanation of the Big Premise of the series, the Hurley-Dave relationship and the question of the Island being part of a complex mental episode or condition.
Sun discovers she is pregnant; Ana is recruited to help interrogate the Other in the Hatch. Ana, Charlie and Sayid journey into the jungle to confirm if Gale's crash story and the burial of his wife is the truth.
Locke’s obsession with his father’s betrayal causes great changes in his life, including the loss of his girlfriend, Helen. When the Hatch goes into Lockdown mode, Locke asks Ben to help him.
Ben’s deception is confirmed when Ana, Charlie and Sayid return from investigating Henry's balloon. Ben would have been killed by Sayid, except for Ana’s intervention at the last second.
Hurley is shaken to the core when he sees his imaginary friend from his days at the mental hospital, “Dave” on the island.
Bernard and Rose’s backstory is revealed. Bernard attempts to assemble an enormous SOS SIGN on the beach; Kate and Jack go into the jungle to propose a Henry Gale-for-Walt swap with the Others; but they find a dehydrated and crying Michael instead.
Science:
Group psychosis.
Psychosis is an abnormal condition or derangement of the mind, and is a generic medical term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality.” People suffering from psychosis are described as psychotic. Psychosis is given to the more severe forms of psychiatric disorder, during which hallucinations, delusions and impaired insight may occur.
Hallucinations are different from illusions or perceptual distortions, which are the misperception of external stimuli. Hallucinations may occur in any of the five senses and take on almost any form, which may include simple sensations (such as lights, colors, tastes, and smells) to experiences such as seeing and interacting with fully formed animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensations.
Auditory hallucinations particularly experiences of hearing voices, are a common and often prominent feature of psychosis. Hallucinated voices may talk about, or to, the person, and may involve several speakers with distinct personas. Auditory hallucinations tend to be particularly distressing when they are derogatory, commanding or preoccupying.
Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions may be understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity, religious beliefs, superstitious belief).
Hurley was diagnosed in a catatonic state after his “accident.” An abnormal condition variously characterized by stupor, stereotypy, mania, and either rigidity or extreme flexibility of the limbs. It is most often associated with schizophrenia. One of various forms of schizophrenia characterized by stupor, sometimes alternating with excited behavior and mechanical, repetitive behavior, accompanied by muscular rigidity. A variety of symptoms are associated with catatonia. Among the more common are echopraxia (imitation of the gestures of others) and echolalia (parrot-like repetition of words spoken by others). Other signs and symptoms include violence directed toward him/herself, the assumption of inappropriate posture, selective mutism, negativism, facial grimaces, and animal-like noises. Apparently, Hurley was treated with a a class of benzodiazepines which are medicines that help relieve nervousness, tension, and other symptoms by slowing the central nervous system.
Improbabilities:
Libby and Hurley being in the same institution, being on the same plane from Australia, and surviving a high altitude break up over the Island.
In the flashback, John Locke as a home inspector for a single Nadia, who most likely did not survive in first Iraq war as a traitor.
Locke going into his father’s safety deposit box. Unless he was on the signature card, he would never get legal access to the box.
Mysteries:
What is the goal of the Others spying on the survivors? When Ben takes the role of Henry Gale in order to infiltrate the survivors camp, was he doing it to gain information, or to set the seeds of internal dissent and distrust?
Who created the Blast Door Map? We would learn that it was Desmond’s prior Hatch watchers who created it during forced Lockdown food drops.
What were the food drops? Apparently, the destroyed Dharma Island facility continued to receive periodic food drops from a Dharma warehouse in America. We do not know how or why these food drops “find” the moving Island. However, was it truly the Lockdown event cycle, or as a subconscious reaction from Hurley after he destroyed his secret food stash?
Themes:
Trust and Change. How can Hurley trust Libby when Libby is also being medicated in mental institution? How can Hurley trust Dr. Brooks when Dave tells him he is not helping him? Sun is told she can’t have children, but that is a lie by her doctor because he is afraid of her father and Jin’s reaction if Jin was the known cause of infertility. When Sun becomes aware that she is pregnant on the island, she knows it is not Jin’s baby. But Jin believes “it is a miracle.”
Likewise, John Locke in his flashback cannot change. He destroys his relationship with Helen because she concludes John needs his father’s love more than her love. If anything, Locke can never change - - - he is a bad judge of character. He believes Henry Gale’s story in the Hatch Lockdown incident, and trusts him to help him. But it is quickly revealed that Henry is a liar and one of the Others.
Also, Bernard needs “to do something,” to fix Rose’s cancer, but Rose knows he just has to let go and let things pass. This is the same issue Jack has in “fixing” all his patients.
Clues:
The Long Con. Locke’s ability to give up his father’s betrayal causes him to lose the one good thing in his life, Helen. In future episodes we will find Locke “rebooting” his relationship with Helen after his father again takes something away from him, his ability to walk. That whole re-boot in retrospect is wrong; it can only be the imagination of Locke.
Mental fantasy. Hurley meets and talks to his imaginary friend, Dave, in the jungle, who tells him “none of this is real.” With the revelation that Libby is also a mental patient who intervenes when Hurley is at the edge of the Truth, puts clear evidence of mental disorder as a premise to the show.
In Bernard’s back story, he states he “dreamed of a woman” like Rose, and Rose appears randomly in his life. She only has a year to live, so he proposes anyway.
The same is true with Hurley, who believes a woman like Libby would never be interested in him. Libby is he fantasy girl, the one he could get in his own Island world.
When Ben asks Jack what is the difference between a martyr and a prophet, Jack tells him they both wind up dead. “That’s the spirit,” Ben replies. There were many more references to the dead in these episodes, including fake death of Anthony Cooper.
When Ben is being tortured, he yells out that he does not care because “I’m dead already!”
Ben also tells Locke that God cannot see or find this place. One could infer that God can see all matters on earth, and send messengers to help people. But God would not need to see or care about Hell.
The Blast Door Map. The fan frenzy of a huge clue with intense writing on it was one the biggest Easter eggs in the series. From the configuration of the Hatches, it could considered as a layout of prison cellblocks, or to hospital wards. The mention of Cerberus as guarding the place, the place being Hell.
Rose’s knowledge that Locke’s paralysis and her cancer have been “healed” by the Island. This shows that Rose understands that she is no longer connected to the Earth,
that she made her blessing and peace with her life before going to the outback. All she needs to have a content (after)life is to change Bernard from a man needing to “fix things” (just like Jack) to a man who can let things go.
When Bernard tries to recruit Eko to build his SOS so he can save the survivors, Bernard is upset that the people had “given up their lives” to settle in to this existence. Eko tells him that “people are saved in different ways,” meaning spiritually and not physically.
If Hurley has been on the Island two months without his medications, he would have gone back into a catatonic or dream state, as Dave tells him. Dave tells him that the only way he can get out of the hospital (the island is all made up in his head and subconscious) is to throw himself off the cliff and “wake up.” In the End, people in the sideways world need to “be awakened” in order to move on in the after life. Or it could still be a Hurley dream state because in The End, Hurley is one left on the Island as the guardian, since it was the world he created in the first place.
Discussion:
“ I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere. ”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Many fans uses Hurley’s character as their substitute for what was going on the Island; Hurley was their proxy. So when the story arc of “Dave” appears in the island narrative,
all hell breaks loose on message boards because it creates an impression that “this is all a dream” premise like the Bobby Ewing “death” on Dallas.
However, Dave’s appearance gives the most detailed analysis of what is happening to Hurley on the island. It is not a fan theory, but an explanation within the actual story. It merits detail reconstruction.
The flashbacks show Dave as Hurley’s imaginary friend at Santa Rose Mental Health Institute. Dave is a friendly guy who keeps on egging on Hurley to do things that are probably not in his best interest like eating snacks to avoid is diet restrictions. Hurley believes Dave is real. When his doctor, Dr. Brooks, takes a picture of Dave and Hurley, only Hurley appears in the photograph. It is supposed to be a revelation to Hurley to help him cope with his mental illness, but Dave continues to pop up at the institution and later, on the island.
Dr. Brooks tells Hurley that Dave was a bad influence who tried to keep Hurley from losing weight or changing. Dave may also be a “transference” of the traits of his missing father as a coping mechanism. Dave appears Hurley, offering him more food and encouraging him to break out of the facility. Hurley refused, and his later refusals to listen to Dave led to a “breakthrough” in his therapy and his eventual release.
During the Hatch Lockdown event, the Island experiences “a food drop” where a pallet of supplies miraculously falls to the island on a parachute. As the survivors rush to gather the food, Hurley sees Dave on the Island. He chases Dave into the jungle. Dave loses a slipper and Hurley picks it up. But LIbby, who is watching him for a distance, sees no slipper. This was meant to tell the audience that Hurley’s “imaginary” friend does not exist because survivor Libby, a clinical psychologist who helped Claire remember her abduction, cannot confirm it for the viewers. However, we later learn that Libby is not a doctor, but a mental patient with Hurley at Santa Rosa. Her eyes are not credible for the truth in the interaction between Hurley and Dave.
Dave tries to convince convincing Hurley that he'd never left Santa Rosa and was currently hallucinating his experiences on the Island. Dave gives Hurley evidence of his position by saying the Numbers in Hatch countdown computer are based on the numbers he got from Leonard Simms, that after two months on the island he has not lost any weight and that he is hallucinating Libby, a woman too attractive to actually be interested in a person like Hurley. Hurley resists those notions.
To prove his point, Dave jumps off a cliff, telling Hurley that doing the same would WAKE HIM from his hallucination. Hurley nearly follows suit, but Libby arrived and talked him out of it. If Libby, a possible another hallucination under the guise of a primal defense mechanism in Hurley’s mind, stops him from the Truth, the series would have come to a crashing halt at the cliff. But the Truth of Dave’s statements cannot be ignored when one tries to make a rational connection between the contradictions of the flashbacks, the Island events and the sideways world reveal.
As with last week’s clues, when Libby is trying to calm down an upset Claire who is starting to remember, Libby tells her that “she is combining experiences before the crash with things on the island” which upsets her. The same could be said now for Hurley, who was institutionalized with Libby, that he is combining her prior mental illness experiences with her island (hospital therapy treatments) to create a vivid new fantasy.
The Dave-Hurley interaction was the longest narrative in the series that actually sets forth a plausible explanation of the Big Premise of LOST. It is so important from an understanding of what may be happening to the characters on the island, a detailed examination of the actual words used by the writers is in order so you can review for yourself the significance of these episodes. From lostpedia.com, the key transcripts from these episodes:
[We see Hurley walking through the jungle carrying the slipper. He suddenly sees a box of DHARMA "fish crackers" on the ground and after a moment's hesitation he opens it and starts shoving them in his mouth. He looks up and sees Dave standing there in pajamas and a bathrobe.]
HURLEY: You're not here!
[Dave picks up a coconut and throws it at Hurley, hitting him in the stomach and making him spit out fish crackers. Dave picks up another coconut and looks like he's going to throw it, but he turns and runs. Hurley follows.]
HURLEY: Hey, wait!
[We see Hurley running after Dave through the jungle.]
HURLEY: Wait, Dave!
[Dave disappears and Hurley runs out onto the beach where Eko and Charlie are working.]
CHARLIE: Are you okay, Hurley?
HURLEY: Did either of you see a guy run through here -- in a bathrobe, with a coconut?
CHARLIE: No. Saw a polar bear on roller blades with a mango.
EKO: I did not see anything, Hurley.
HURLEY: [exiting] Yeah, me either.
--------
[Flashback - We see Hurley playing Connect 4 with Lenny.]
LENNY: 4, 8, 15... [He repeats the Numbers over and over throughout the scene.]
HURLEY: Uh, dude.
DAVE: Pretty sneaky, Leonard. [Lenny wins and gathers the red pieces to his side.] You're using those magic numbers of yours as a psyche-out, are you man? Oh, yeah, that's right, you just play dumb. I'm on to your juju, man.
HURLEY: [eating some celery] They're just numbers, man.
DAVE: [referring to the celery] Hey. What the hell is that?
HURLEY: It's my mid-afternoon snack.
DAVE: Dude, that's celery. Celery is not a snack. Leonard's got graham crackers, man. You should snag one. He won't notice. What's he going to do -- call you a 23? [mocking Lenny] 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, hike!
[Hurley and Dave laugh. Hurley grabs a graham from Lenny's plate.]
NURSE: Here, Hugo. Here's your meds.
HURLEY: Thank you, nurse Lazenby.
[Hurley starts to swallow his pills.]
DAVE: Dude, you want to get out of here with me? Don't take the horse tranquilizer.
HURLEY: What do mean, get out of here?
DAVE: I mean escape, man. Me and you, A-S-A-P. They're getting to you, dude. We've got to split.
HURLEY: Dr. Brooks says...
DAVE: Dr. Brooks does not care about you, man. He's the one prescribing that crap. What the hell is it, anyway?
HURLEY: Clonazepam.
DR. BROOKS: [entering] Hugo, something wrong with your meds, there?
HURLEY: No, me and Dave were just, you know, talking about stuff.
DR. BROOKS: Right, well, sorry to interrupt. Hello there, Dave.
DAVE: Hello there, Dr. Brooks.
DR. BROOKS: And how are you today?
DAVE: Never been saner.
DR. BROOKS: I've been taking some pictures for the bulletin board. I've got everyone except you 2. Would you guys mind?
HURLEY: Okay.
[Hurley moves his chair over next to Dave.]
DR. BROOKS: Okay. Why don't you two get a little bit closer.
DAVE: Are you going to make us look at the ducky, too?
[Hurley puts his arm around Dave and poses.]
DR. BROOKS: [taking a Polaroid] Say cheese.
HURLEY: Cheese.
DAVE: Queso.
DR. BROOKS: Great. Okay, you -- you need a little water with that?
HURLEY: Nope, I'm good.
[Hurley tilts the pills into his mouth.]
DR. BROOKS: Okay, well fine. See you later guys, thanks for the photo op.
[Brooks exits. Hurley turns to Dave and sticks his tongue out, showing that he didn't take the pills.]
DAVE: Dude.
HURLEY: Dude.
DAVE: The revolution has begun, man. Lay low -- when the time is right we fly.
--------
[Hurley is walking in the jungle. Suddenly his pack rips open and the peanut butter jar is split open on the ground. Hurley uses a leaf to scoop some up and eat it. He hears footsteps and sees Dave's feet with one slipper.]
HURLEY: You're not here. You were in the hospital. You can't be here.
DAVE: Sorry, dude. I am here.
----------
[Flashback - We see Hurley in Dr. Brooks' office. He's reading from a list.]
HURLEY: I like that I have a good relationship with my mom. I like making my grandpa, Tito, laugh. I like chicken.
DR. BROOKS: Well, that last one wasn't about you, Hugo.
HURLEY: I like that I like chicken?
DR. BROOKS: So, tell me, how did it feel writing that? Was that difficult?
HURLEY: Kind of -- I think I messed up some spelling.
DR. BROOKS: I notice that you didn't say anything about the way you look. Are you comfortable with your appearance?
HURLEY: It's not like... I can't really do anything about it, right? [Dr. Brooks just stares at him.] If I, uh -- if I w -- wasn't so fat, they never would have died.
DR. BROOKS: There were 23 people on that deck. It was built to hold 8. And it would have collapsed whether you went out there or not.
HURLEY: Yeah, but I did walk out there. And it did collapse. I killed them.
DR. BROOKS: It was an accident.
HURLEY: That was my fault.
DR. BROOKS: Look, after those people died, you were in a practically catatonic state. You stopped talking, you stopped going out, you stopped sleeping. But you never stopped eating because that's how you punish yourself.
HURLEY: Dave's right about you. You know, you're nothing but a quack.
DR. BROOKS: Dave doesn't want you to lose weight, does he?
HURLEY: You know, Dave cares about me. He's my friend.
DR. BROOKS: Let me show you something.
[Brooks gets the Polaroid out of Hurley's file.]
DR. BROOKS: It may upset you. This is the photo I took for the bulletin board.
[Hurley looks at the picture with surprise and shock.]
DR. BROOKS: Dave isn't your friend, Hugo, because Dave doesn't exist.
[We see the photo is a picture of Hurley sitting next to an empty chair with his arm around nothing.]
--------
[We see Hurley in bed sleeping. Dave enters.]
DAVE: Psst. Hey, wake up, dude. Finally, you could sleep through a damn NASCAR race, man.
HURLEY: Wait, you're not -- you're a hallucination. [Dave slaps him.] Ow.
DAVE: Was that a hallucination?
HURLEY: Maybe I just imagined you slapped me? [Dave slaps him again.] Ow! Damn it.
DAVE: We can do this all night.
HURLEY: Dr. Brooks showed me a picture from the rec room. My arm was around, like, nothingness.
DAVE: Uh, Kinko's, Photoshop? What, you think they really blew up the Death Star?
HURLEY: No.
DAVE: Then stop talking crazy, man. Come on, we're on a clock here.
[Dave starts to leave, but Hurley doesn't follow.]
DAVE: Hey, you in or you out, dude?
[Hurley follows Dave into the hall.]
DAVE: Okay, come on, come on. [They see a plate of food on a cart.] Yo, check it out, Marcus didn't finish his lasagna. That is a waste, man. One for the road?
[Hurley picks up the plate and starts eating. They stop at an area where they can see a guard below them.]
DAVE: Shhh. Wait for it -- wait.
[The guard leaves, and they continue on.]
DAVE: Tippy-toes, big guy. Vamanos.
[They make their way into the rec room, and go to the window which is padlocked.]
DAVE: Okay, man. You've got the keys, hombre. You took them off Brooks' desk earlier.
[Hurley looks surprised when he finds them in his pocket.]
DAVE: [giggles] Come on, man. Open it, open it.
[Hurley unlocks and opens the window.]
DAVE: Oh, oh, oh -- can you taste that? That is freedom, baby. You know what tastes even better than freedom? Cheeseburgers.
[Dave jumps down out of the window.]
DAVE: [laughs] Come on, man, chili-fries on me. [giggles]
HURLEY: I don't think I can do this. I'm sorry.
DAVE: Sorry? What, are you kidding me?
HURLEY: You're not real. You're trying to get me to run away and get cheeseburgers because I want cheeseburgers.
DAVE: Did you take those pills, man?
HURLEY: No, man. I'm just not coming. Look, you don't want me to get better. You don't want me to change.
DAVE: You don't need to change, man. You are fine. You're great.
HURLEY: No, I'm not. You just want me to stay fat. You don't want me to get better. You wouldn't care if I ate myself to death.
DAVE: Do not do this, man. If you don't come with me right now, you will never get out of here.
HURLEY: Bye, Dave.
[Hurley closes the window.]
---------
[On-Island - We see Hurley with his eyes closed. He opens them and sees Dave. He closes them again, but Dave is still there when he opens them.]
DAVE: You wouldn't happen to have my slipper, would you?
[Hurley hands him his slipper.]
DAVE: Thank you. Oh, man, you got peanut butter on it. Okay, look, I know you're freaking out right now, and I'm, I'm sorry. But it's going to get a little worse before it gets better.
HURLEY: Worse?
DAVE: Yeah, kind of. You ready, dude? [Hurley nods.] You remember that night you closed that window on me? [Hurley nods.] You remember what you did after that night?
HURLEY: Yeah, I realized you were imaginary.
DAVE: Mmmmhmmm.
HURLEY: And that was a breakthrough. And a little while later Brooks let me out, and I went home to live with my mom, and I got my job at Mr. Clucks back. And I got better.
DAVE: Okay, good, great, yeah -- except see, here's the thing -- uh -- none of that ever happened.
HURLEY: What?
DAVE: You're still at Santa Rosa, man. You never left the hospital.
HURLEY: That's -- not possible.
DAVE: It's hard, I know, but I mean -- all this? You, me, this island, that peanut butter -- none of it's real, man. None of it's happening. It's all in your head, my friend. The second you closed that window your brain popped a gasket. You went back into your little coma thing. And that's where you are right this very second. In your own private Idaho, inside Santa Rosa.
HURLEY: No. I had my mom, my friend Johnny -- I won the lottery.
DAVE: Whoa, wow, awesome, dude! What numbers did you play? Leonard's numbers, right -- from the hospital? What a coincidence. You, uh, seen them around anywhere else?
HURLEY: The Hatch?
DAVE: Bingo! The Hatch -- with the button that you've got to push every 108 minutes or the world ends. Oh, oh, oh, and what's the code for the button? Oh yeah, the Numbers.
HURLEY: But I got better. I changed.
DAVE: Changed? What, are you kidding me? Take a look at yourself. You've been on a deserted island for over 2 months and you haven't dropped 10 pounds. How is that even possible, man?
HURLEY: I just destroyed my stash, and I've been exercising. Libby says it won't happen over night.
DAVE: Oh, right, right, right, Libby -- the mega cute blonde chick who magically appeared from the other side of the Island. Oh, oh, oh, yeah -- and who just happens to have the hots for you. Come on, man, let's take a walk.
----------
[We see Dave and Hurley walking through the jungle.]
HURLEY: So this is all in my brain?
DAVE: Every rock, every tree. Every tree frog. Even me. The real me -- the one they told you was imaginary? He went out the window, man. Right now he's probably bouncing from hot chick to hot chick, unlike me, who's really you, who's got more important things to do.
HURLEY: So I'm making you up?
DAVE: Well, sort of. I'm part of your subconscious, man. All the people on this island are.
HURLEY: What part of me are you?
DAVE: I'm the part of you that wants to wake up, man. Follow me.
[We see them arrive at a high cliff above the ocean.]
DAVE: This is it, dude.
HURLEY: It?
DAVE: The big finale. The answer to all your problems. A way for you to wake up, snap out of it.
HURLEY: I don't want to kill myself.
DAVE: Who said anything about killing yourself, man? This is going to bring you back to life. The only way for you to bust out is to tell your mind that you don't believe any of this.
HURLEY: So, if I -- all this will be gone? I'll just wake up?
DAVE: That's right. And when you do wake up, come find me. I'm sure I miss you. See you in another life, Hurley.
[Dave backs up to the edge of the cliff and lets himself fall backwards, laughing all the way down.]
HURLEY: Dave!!
------
[Back at the cliff, we see Hurley looking down into the surf.]
HURLEY: Dave!
LIBBY: [appearing] Who's Dave?
HURLEY: What are you doing here?
LIBBY: What are you doing here?
HURLEY: How'd you know where I was?
LIBBY: Jin saw you while he was fishing.
HURLEY: Hah! Jin doesn't speak English!
LIBBY: Sun was with him. She translated. Hurley, what is going on?
HURLEY: No! You're just a part of me that's scared. You don't want me to wake up. Well, guess what? I'm not scared.
[Hurley takes a couple steps back toward the edge of the cliff.]
LIBBY: Okay, okay, Hurley, you're having some sort of panic attack. I get that. But this isn't like you.
HURLEY: Like me? You don't know me.
LIBBY: I was starting to.
HURLEY: Yeah, well did you know I'm so fat that I killed 2 people? And that I have an imaginary friend?
LIBBY: Hurley, please, you're going to hurt yourself.
HURLEY: No, I'm not, because this isn't happening! None of it! I'm just imagining it! This isn't real life!
LIBBY: Why would you say that?
HURLEY: Because in real life -- no girl like you would ever like me. Remember when I said I knew you from somewhere? Well, maybe it's because I made you up?
LIBBY: What was the man's name who broke his leg? The day of the crash on the other side of the Island, Eko brought a man with a broken leg to me for help. What was his name?
HURLEY: I don't know.
LIBBY: You don't know. You know why? Because it happened to me. His name was Donald, and I buried him. I buried a lot of people, Hurley. So don't tell me that that wasn't real. And don't tell me you made me up. It's insulting.
HURLEY: When you saw me on the beach this morning was I holding a slipper?
LIBBY: Not that I can remember, no. [She holds Hurley's face in her hands.] Hurley, look at me. I am real. You're real. The way I feel about you -- that's real.
[She kisses him.]
LIBBY: And that was real.
HURLEY: Maybe you should do it one more time just to be sure.
LIBBY: Ready to go back?
[They start walking back.]
HURLEY: Do you really think I can, you know, change?
LIBBY: Yeah, yeah I do.
[Flashback - The scene when Dr. Brooks takes the picture of Hurley and Dave repeats with some changes.]
DR. BROOKS: Why don't you get a little closer together.
[We see Hurley put his arm around nothing.]
DR. BROOKS: Say cheese.
HURLEY: Cheese.
DR. BROOKS: Great. So, you need some water to go with that?
HURLEY: Nope. I'm good.
[We see a woman patient's profile, apparently watching Hurley.]
DR. BROOKS: See you later, guys. Thanks for the photo op.
[The camera pans around and we see that woman is very disheveled, out-of-it, Libby.]
NURSE: Here's your pill, Libby.
----
That final reveal of the “true” Libby leads one to believe that the Island could be a layered multi-person group delusion and/or Hurley combining his memories of other people in the hospital and his life into a vivid mental illusion of the Island events.
The statement Dave makes that rings true is the idea that for Hurley to get out his mental fantasy world of the Island, he has to “wake up” and kill himself - - - and in the End, the characters need to be “awakened” in the sideways world in order to reunite and move on in the after life. Not being “awake” has a direct connection to the mechanics of the Island and the sideways world concepts.
The fantasy loop centers around Hurley’s inability to change. He has hidden himself in a shell because of the guilt of deck accident. And it is Hurley “just making” the plane as the starting point for his “journey” is the polar bear comic in Spanish that Walt would later find to the end point where Hurley must “stay” on the Island as its new guardian. Why? It is a mental bridge in order to Hurley himself to “wake up.”
Hurley will wind up as the guardian of Island. Why? Because he made up everything about the Island. Remember, it is Hurley who knows all the campers names (he has to correct Bernard several times in his quest to recruit people for the SOS sign). Hurley as the last main character standing on the Island, to put in his own “rules” and to basically shut it down is like a patient finally working through his issues, having a breakthrough, such as to go back to reality. But in Hurley’s world, his post-Island time frame is the sideways world, which Christian says is the afterlife. But is it? Or is it a continuation of Hurley’s Island delusions but now in time-space or heaven?
When he talks for the last time to Ben outside the church, he remarks that Ben was a good number two man, but Ben has things to “work out” before leaving that existence. This could also be a clue to a layered effect of multiple mental patients possibly tied to group therapy or a connected brainwave network (Dharma Institute was trying experimental investigations, including mental procedures and mind games). It is possible that Dharma hooked up catatonic patients into a neuro-network and allowed them to have some “virtual life” in their delusional states. It would play with the characters showing many signs of psychosis or possible group psychosis.
What is psychosis?
Psychosis is usually a symptom of a mental disorder. Psychosis means there is a loss of contact with reality. One important and puzzling feature of psychosis is usually an accompanying lack of insight into the unusual, strange or bizarre nature of the person's experience or behavior. Even in the case of an acute psychosis, sufferers may seem completely unaware that their vivid hallucinations and impossible delusions are in any way unrealistic. This is not an absolute; however, insight can vary between individuals and throughout the duration of the psychotic episode. Affected persons may show pressure of speech (speaking incessantly and quickly), derailment or flight of ideas (switching topic mid-sentence or inappropriately), thought blocking, and rhyming or punning.
Sawyer use of puns and cut-downs such as “deep dish” or “Jabba” to Hurley, could be pure meanness or could be a symptom of psychosis.
How does it occur?
The exact cause of psychosis is not known. It may be caused by something physical. This is called organic psychosis. Organic psychosis can be brought on by brain tumors, epilepsy, head injuries, a severe lack of sleep, or infections such as meningitis. Too much or too little of certain brain chemicals called neurotransmitters may lead to psychosis.
Psychosis may also be the result of a mental disorder such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression.
All the characters have back stories of injuries, being beaten up or involved in major crash crashes.
What are the symptoms?
The main symptoms are:
Hallucinations: People may hear voices that no one else can hear, see people or objects that are not there, or feel something that is not there. Hearing voices is usually a sign of a psychiatric problem. Hallucinations that involve seeing, feeling, smelling, or tasting are more likely to be a sign of a medical problem.
Delusions: People with psychosis have false beliefs or ideas that are not true. For example, they might believe there is a plot against them by powerful people, or that they have special powers no one else has.
Changed feelings: People may feel strange and cut off from the world, with everything moving in slow motion. Mood swings are common, so they may feel very excited or depressed. Or people may feel less emotion or show less emotion to those around them.
Changed behavior: People with psychosis behave differently than the way they usually do. They may be very active, or just sit around all day. They may get angry without apparent cause.
Disorganized thinking: Everyday thoughts become confused. Sentences don't make sense. A person may have trouble concentrating, following a conversation or remembering things. Thoughts may seem to speed up or slow down.
More and more characters see visions of their pasts in the jungle, including Kate’s horse, Hurley’s Numbers, Jack’s dead father, etc. The survivors seem content on the beach knowing that they are in danger; but are quick to violence.
How is it treated?
The treatment of a psychosis depends on the cause. Medicines are usually the most important part of the treatment. Many medicines are available. These medicines can cause some side effects, but you and your healthcare provider will watch for them closely. Peer support can be very helpful in the healing process. A group facilitator can use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help people cope with the negative thoughts and symptoms of psychosis. Group therapy could be helpful in certain circumstances. Human beings are essentially social. If the individual is the basic biological unit, the basic psychological unit is the small group. In our culture the family provides this primary role. This widens to the extended family, the community and then into society as a whole. We arrive at a sense of ourselves through our interaction with others. We also derive meaning and significance from personal and social relationships. The notion of someone having a sense of themselves in isolation from others is ultimately untenable. The individual must be placed within the context of his or her natural group.
Loners worst fear is being alone. Many episodes conclude with bonding moments between two people, or the isolation of one person like Charlie on the beach after kidnapping Aaron, or Sawyer after Hurley beats him up alone in his tent until Vincent comes by.
There has always been a question of whether Ben knew about the Hatch. You would think that if he grew up in the Dharma collective, he would have been aware of the various stations. But maybe not. The Hatch was in the territory of the Others. Ben will be surprised to learn about Desmond, the man who manned the Hatch prior to the 815 survivors. But during the Lockdown event, it appears Ben knows about the Numbers and the computer interface. We don’t see him actually input the Numbers and stop the event - - - which calls into question, what is really the event: the imaginary perils of Locke or a real dangerous event cycle?
Ben devious smile happens only when Locke goes nearly mad, needing to know whether Ben actually pushed the button during the Lockdown event.
There was also a question of why as the leader of the Others, Ben allowed himself to get captured by Rousseau in the first place and then taken to the survivors camp. It is possible that the Others in the Barracks were upset that Ben’s two spies got killed by plane crash survivors. He had to “man up” and do his own recon. He may have also wanted to start baiting the mental traps in each of the main characters - - - the distrust issues, the power issues, the secrets - - - in order to weaken the group as a whole.
He certainly put paranoia and confusion in the mind of Locke. He also stirred the conflict between Locke and Jack on who is in charge of their group. Those conflicts will continue to effect the group decision making process, leading to more splintering of loyalties.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
The appearance of Dave, an alleged “imaginary friend” on the Island, who can physically interact with Hurley. Example, throwing a coconut at him or Hurley picking up his slipper.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 41:
GALE: Wow, you guys have some real trust issues, don't you? Guess it makes sense she didn't tell you. I mean, with the two of you fighting all the time. Of course, if I was one of them -- these people that you seem to think are your enemies -- what would I do? Well, there'd be no balloon, so I'd draw a map to a real secluded place like a cave or some underbrush -- good place for a trap -- an ambush. And when your friends got there a bunch of my people would be waiting for them. Then they'd use them to trade for me. I guess it's a good thing I'm not one of them, huh? You guys got any milk?
EP 42:
SAYID: We did find your balloon, Henry Gale, exactly how you described it. We also found the grave you described -- your wife's grave. The grave you said you dug with your own bare hands. It was all there. Your whole story -- your alibi -- it was true. But still I did not believe it to be true. So I dug up that grave and found that there was not a woman inside. There was a man. [Sayid shows him a driver's license] A man named Henry Gale.
EP 43:
[The camera pans around and we see that woman is very disheveled, out-of-it, Libby.]
NURSE: Here's your pill, Libby.
EP 44:
[Suddenly they hear movement and see a torch coming through the jungle. Someone is running toward them making frightened gasping sounds. He falls almost at their feet and they turn him over.]
KATE: Michael?
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Hurley was deemed by many fans as the viewer's surrogate on the Island. The one character who would ask the right questions and observe the tension and events of the other characters. He was the one character to bring some light moments to an otherwise dark situation. Many people could relate to Hurley's character.
When Hurley talked about transference, it could also relate to the concept of the show’s mental institution theories. When we talk about transference in the setting of a hospital mental institution, with its floors and “stations,” one could argue that there are similar pieces on the island. When you have institutional group sessions and group rooms, the island also has their own “groups.” If these groups have vivid fantasies, then they could create the island dynamic as it pits them against authority. Dave is Hurley’s alter-ego against such authority. When Dr. Brooks asks Hurley to make LISTs, that idea is transferred through to the Others who also demand “lists” or work off “lists of names.” The idea of the Numbers, lists, food - - neurotic triggers of Hurleys mind - - - being of importance and repeating on the Island is because those elements are repeated because Hurley’s subconscious continues to repeat them in his fantasy world.
This leads to the possibility that the big premise of Lost is contained in Hurley’s dream world. Dave’s explanation to Hurley that all of this is in his mind is the most detailed character driven rationale in the entire series. Where else can the surreal nature of the smoke monsters, polar bears in the jungle, whispers in the brush, and hostile natives all function except in the vivid fantasy world in someone’s creative mind. People have said that their night visions are so “real” that they wake up in a panic, thinking the events are happening to them in real time. What if they are so real, a catatonic patient cannot wake up from his nightmares? Dave’s solution is that you need to kill yourself in your nightmare in order to wake up in the real world.
Hurley has an opportunity to end his mental trap, but some part of him does not want to deal with reality. In his reality, he blames himself for the death of two people in a deck collapse, because of his weight. In an Albert Brooks movie tangent, the idea that Hurley was in an accident that killed two people, one of those people may have been himself. Like in Defending Your Life, a dead Hurley boards a plane to the afterlife with fellow souls, except for some reason, these people don’t believe they are dead. The plane crash was a fiction for these lost souls to work out their sins, issues and character flaws in order to pass on to the next level of existence.
Hurley choses to continue his fantasy over a chance at getting back at reality. If you believe that the flashbacks are “real,” then Hurley would have known about Libby at the mental institution: they shared the same day room. Her photograph would have been on the bulletin board. She was only a few feet away from him when Leonard is playing Connect Four. Hurley’s memories of people we know he saw or who he could have saw if it is a criminal mental institution create all of his Island “characters.” That makes sense on all the backstory “coincidences” of the Island characters, such as Desmond telling Jack at the stadium, “see you in another life,” just as Dave tells Hurley he will “see him in another life.” How would Hurley know Desmond’s line to Jack unless Hurley himself had a memory or subconscious use of it.
These episodes dynamically reinforce the theories about mental illness creating a fantasy world that the characters are trying to get through, via quests, religious ritual or missions of survival. It seems that some characters must reach their personal “rock bottom” in order to change, in order to be saved.
Any form of dream state could explain away all of the inconsistencies, continuity, legal errors, medical errors and supernatural elements of the show. For in a dream you can do anything you want, including reviving the dead.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
REBOOT - EPISODES 37-40
POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates
on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will
occur later in the week.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 37-40 (Days 54-59 )
Charlie begins to have dreams and visions about Aaron, leading him to attempt to kidnap the baby in order to protect him.
Charlie tries to get closer to Claire, but Claire asks for some space, for now. He leaves, telling Aaron to take care of his mom.
After being an outcast, Charlie teams up with Sawyer to con Locke out of the vault guns.
Hurley asks Sawyer and Kate about the Tailies, including Libby (for which he may have a vague recollection of meeting). Sawyer asks if Hurley has a love connection growing there. Hurley denies this and leaves, embarrassed. Kate and Sawyer both see Ana and Jack coming out of the jungle, talking to each other. Sawyer mentions it's the third time that he has seen them together. It doesn't make either of them particularly comfortable. Later, Sawyer gives Hurley a small push towards a relationship with Libby, and the two of them do laundry together in the hatch. Hurley asks if he knows her from somewhere. She distracts him by changing her shirt in his presence. She tells him that he stepped on her toe on the plane when he boarded last.
Rousseau leads the survivors to a man she has captured, who calls himself Henry Gale, a crashed balloonist from Minnesota. Rousseau warns them that he is a liar. They take him to the hatch where Sayid reverts to his torture mantra to extract information from Gale, specifically that he is an Other. Afterward, Gale begins to turn the psychological pressure on the Hatch occupants.
When Aaron has a fever, Claire is upset that something truly is wrong with her baby. When they go to the hatch for medical help, Claire believes she needs to remember what happened to her, whether the Others did something to her baby. She gives Sun her baby as she heads out with Kate and Rousseau to find the medical station. In the station, Claire finds the nursery room and examination room, where Ethan injected her with something. She then remembers a teenager helping her, and also Rousseau taking her back to the camp after her escape. But Claire is worried that they did not find “a cure” for what ails Aaron.
Science:
Dreams
Dreams are the subconscious manifestations of elements, events, people, places or things seen by a person during sleep. Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many ancient societies, such as those of Egypt, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by people with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.
One of the earliest written examples of dream interpretation comes from the Babylonian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh, whose story was referenced in earlier LOST analysis. In that story, Gilgamesh dreamt that an axe fell from the sky. The people gathered around it in admiration and worship. Gilgamesh threw the axe in front of his mother and then he embraced it like a wife. His mother, Ninsun, interpreted the dream. She said that someone powerful would soon appear. Gilgamesh would struggle with him and try to overpower him, but he would not succeed. Eventually they would become close friends and accomplish great things. She added, "That you embraced him like a wife means he will never forsake you. Thus your dream is solved.” While this example also shows the tendency to see dreams as mantic (as predicting the future), Ninsun's interpretation also anticipates a contemporary approach. The axe, phallic and aggressive, symbolizes for a male who will start as aggressive but turn into a friend. To embrace an axe is to transform aggression into affection and camaraderie.
Ancient Egyptian priests also acted as dream interpreters. Dreams have been held in considerable importance through history by most cultures. Some believe it was direct communication with the gods or deceased ancestors.
Sigmund Freud first argued that the motivation of all dream content is wish-fulfillment, and that the instigation of a dream is often to be found in the events of the day preceding the dream, which he called the "day residue." In the case of very young children, Freud claimed, this can be easily seen, as small children dream quite straightforwardly of the fulfillment of wishes that were aroused in them the previous day (the "dream day"). In adults, however, the situation is more complicated—since in Freud's submission, the dreams of adults have been subjected to distortion, with the dream's so-called "manifest content" being a heavily disguised derivative of the "latent" dream-thoughts present in the unconscious. As a result of this distortion and disguise, the dream's real significance is concealed: dreamers are no more capable of recognizing the actual meaning of their dreams than hysterics are able to understand the connection and significance of their neurotic symptoms.
In waking life, Freud asserted, these so-called "resistances" altogether prevented the repressed wishes of the unconscious from entering consciousness; and though these wishes were to some extent able to emerge during the lowered state of sleep, the resistances were still strong enough to produce "a veil of disguise" sufficient to hide their true nature. Freud's view was that dreams are compromises which ensure that sleep is not interrupted: as "a disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes," they succeed in representing wishes as fulfilled which might otherwise disturb and waken the dreamer.
Freud listed the distorting operations that he claimed were applied to repressed wishes in forming the dream as recollected: it is because of these distortions (the so-called "dream-work") that the manifest content of the dream differs so greatly from the latent dream thought reached through analysis—and it is by reversing these distortions that the latent content is approached.
Freud considered that the experience of anxiety dreams and nightmares was the result of failures in the dream-work: rather than contradicting the "wish-fulfillment" theory, such phenomena demonstrated how the ego reacted to the awareness of repressed wishes that were too powerful and insufficiently disguised. Traumatic dreams (where the dream merely repeats the traumatic experience) were eventually admitted as exceptions to the theory.
Improbabilities:
A balloon piloted by a Minnesota businessman crash landing deep in the Pacific Ocean island.
The vision of the drug smuggler’s plane crashing on the Island actually being seen by Charlie in his present day.
Kate’s father and Desmond’s Hatch mate both being in the U.S. army in the first Iraq war, and having the same contact with Sayid. It would have been highly unlikely that Sayid, if he helped the American forces, to continue in the Republic Guard. He would have been killed as a traitor.
Mysteries:
Who was the real Henry Gale? A balloon crash lands on the island sometime in 2003, its pilot was a black man named Henry Gale. At some point he died of a broken neck, and Ben Linus took on his identity. Henry was buried in a grave near the balloon, although Ben claimed (in the guise of Henry as a captive in the Hatch) that his wife was buried there Sayid, after torturing him does not trust what Ben has said, so he digs up Henry's corpse, uncovering Ben's ruse. In Henry's wallet was a Minnesota driver's license and a $20 with a note to his wife written on it. The balloon was sponsored and/or manufactured by Widmore Corporation, owned by Ben’s nemesis and former Other leader, Charles Widmore . It was also sponsored byMr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, where Hurley once worked, and Noss-A-La Cola.
Themes:
Power and control. Who is in charge, as Locke gets unnerved by Jack’s orders. He is egged on by the Others leader/spy, Ben, posing as Henry Gale. When Ana is accused of mock abduction of Sun in order to build her army and get access to the guns, Sawyer and Kate are pitted against Jack who believes the Others did it. Locke says it cannot be because they have a “truce” with the Others, so he hides the guns from Jack.
Violence. Sayid tortures Gale (Ben) in order to get information to confirm he is an Other. It is a reversion to Sayid’s former self, the thing that he has been really running away from since leaving Iraq.
Tests. When Charlie is having visions, he thinks that the Island is a personal test. And his test is to “save the baby” from unknown danger. He believes that everyone on the Island is being tested. This brings in religious and after life connotations, as Charlie believes the only way to “save” Aaron is to baptize him so he can get into heaven. And that would infer that subconsciously, Charlie has made the connection that the Island is Hell, testing their souls to make the right decisions.
Trust. When Charlie goes off and takes Aaron the second time, the entire camp turns against him. He is alone, which is his greatest fear. He is told by Locke that trust is easily lost, and that trust is hard to regain. Jack and Locke also have their trust issues with the locked gun closet, to have that trust used against them in Sawyer’s long con. Charlie “trusted” Sawyer’s plan to make Locke and Jack fools in front of their fellow campers. Further, Ben plants the seed of doubt into Locke when he asks Locke “I don’t know why you let the Doc call all the shots.”
Deception. There have been so many lies and deceptions from individuals that there is a shortage of truth on the Island. The atmosphere breeds assumptions and knee-jerk reactions that can be easily manipulated. Sawyer’s gun con is the prequel to the more elaborate Ben Linus con of the survivors. As we have said before, knowledge is power on the Island. But a little knowledge can be a dangerous weapon.
Clues:
The sponsors of the balloon appear to be a composite of character memories, Ben with Widmore and Hurley with Mr. Clucks.
Charlie realizing that the Island is “testing” everyone. Is it a personal test, a medical test, a psychological test or an afterlife redemption test toward judgment?
When Libby is trying to calm down an upset Claire who is starting to remember, Libby tells her that “she is combining experiences before the crash with things on the island” which upsets her. The same could be said for Libby, who was institutionalized with Hurley, that she is combining her prior mental illness experiences with her island (hospital therapy treatments) to create a vivid new fantasy.
Whether memory loss is a symptom of “the sickness?” Sayid is concerned that Jack and Locke are not on board with Rousseau’s warning about Ben being an Other. Sayid is convinced he is lying because when he demands answers about Gale burying his wife, he is not clear what he did - - - because Sayid knows how it would feel because he buried Shannon.
The tree frog taunting Sawyer. In some cultures, frogs have mythical significance. In Japan, frogs are symbols of good luck. Also they are believed to be their ancestors. The economy of ancient Egypt was centered on the Nile River, which teemed with frogs. The frog was particularly identified with Heket, a deity of fertility and childbirth. When the waters of the Nile receded, innumerable frogs would be heard croaking in the mud, the sort of event that may have influenced many myths. In one Egyptian creation myth, Heket and her ram-headed husband, Khnum, made both gods and human beings. According to another Egyptian creation myth, the original eight creatures were frogs and snakes that carried the cosmic egg. The tree frog on the Island could symbolize life, but with Sawyer crushing it - - - it could mean a place of death.
When the Hatch timer goes past zero, Egyptian symbols appear that I have translated to state "He escapes place of death." The alarm does have meaning because without the Numbers, the alarm sounds and blast doors seal off the Hatch. The station is constructed for the purpose of containing something or someone (the Devil?) from destroying the world.
When Claire remembers Ethan at the medical station, she is given water from his canteen. But Claire says it tastes "sour." Sour water is defined as water, usually waste, that contains sulfur compounds. Sulfur is associated with fire, brimstone and the underworld.
Discussion:
Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. - - - Saadi
In a dream, young Charlie comes down a flight of stairs in his slippers. It's Christmas morning and his brother Liam is already hard at work ripping open his presents. But while Liam continues to unwrap gift after gift, Charlie finds nothing at all for him. That is, until his mother leads him over to a brand new piano.. Charlie is thrilled, but before he can even begin to enjoy the gift, he learns it comes with a price, with his mother wanting him to become successful so he can “save them." Charlie, now fully grown, plays the piano, though it's now on the beach. Suddenly, he hears Aaron’s cries from inside it. Charlie tries to open it up, but can't. The incoming tide then tips the piano over onto its back and it begins to drift away, apparently carrying Aaron out to sea. Charlie wakes up and checks to make sure Claire and Aaron are alright, and finds them with Locke.
While Charlie plays his guitar on the beach, he hears the faint cries of a baby and follows the sound to the ocean, where he sees Aaron’s cradle being tossed on the waves. He struggles to swim out and bring Aaron back to shore, where he discovers both Claire and his mother kneeling on the beach in robes, in angelic poses from a religious painting. Charlie is seeing a version of a religious painting from Charlie's childhood home. The angelic Claire and Charlie's mother repeat in unison: "The baby is in danger" and that Charlie "has to save him". A plane, Eko’s brother’s Beechcraft, crashes in the background. A dove flies out of the sky, through the jungle, and past him out to sea. Hurley approaching him in biblical robes. Charlie wakes up standing in the ocean holding the baby, realizing it was a vivid dream. He tries to explain to Claire (and everyone else) that he was only trying to save him, but Claire slaps him across the face.
Charlie creates his own problems when Locke suspects Charlie is using heroin again. That breach of trust, even though Locke makes the wrong assumption, it later allows Locke to beat Charlie after his second taking of Aaron. Locke says trust is a hard thing to win back, and Claire needs her time.
After unsuccessfully trying to enlist Locke, Charlie goes to Eko, who is marking trees because he "likes them". Eko suggests that Charlie's dreams mean something and could be a sign that he has to protect the baby. Eko suggests that the baby be baptized. Charlie goes to Claire with the idea, but is dismissed by Kate. Locke stands close by, watching Charlie, just like he did in during his first days on the Island (lie the Others observing and collecting data). In the jungle, Charlie finds his stash of heroin, but Locke appears. Charlie claims he came to finish the job and get rid of them all. But Locke doesn't believe him. He takes away all of the statues.
Claire asks Locke whether she and Aaron can sleep in the hatch but Locke offers to move his things closer to her tent for a while. She asks him about baptism and how much he knows about it. Locke tells her his view, calling it "spiritual insurance" so the baby will go to heaven. He says that there is no danger to her or the baby. In the religious context, Claire is also not baptized, so she could not be in heaven with her baby. Claire’s greatest fear is to be separated from her baby. But we do not know whether Island Aaron is a prop, like Jack’s son in the sideways world, or a real soul “reborn” in the church in The End.
Charlie starts a fire to distract Claire from Aaron's crib. While an attempt is made to put out the fire, Charlie grabs Aaron and runs with him to the ocean to baptize him. Locke and several other survivors run over after they hear Claire's cries. Locke tries to convince Charlie to hand him the baby, but Charlie refuses, saying, "Aaron's not your responsibility. Where were you when he was born? Where were you when he was taken? You're not his father. You're not his family." Locke replies that neither is he.Charlie gives Locke the baby, who hands him to Claire. Charlie tries to apologize but Locke punches him three times in the face. Charlie stumbles and falls into the water. Everyone leaves Charlie in disgust. All Charlie “wishes” is that “everything would go back to the way it was” with Claire and his island situation. But he ruined that. This problem mirrors his flashback life where he wished his brother, Liam, would get his act together in order to save the band. In that situation, Liam was kicked out of his house when his wife felt he was dangerous due to his drug addiction. On the island, Charlie has been kicked out of his “new” family because his erratic behavior from trying to kick his drug addiction. Charlie’s wish will only come true after he dies on the Island and is “reunited” with Claire in the sideways world church.
There are several scenes where Locke, observing from the jungle tree line, seems to be planning and calculating how to get people over to his side. In the Flocke theory, the opening to push Charlie away from Claire is Locke’s opportunity to make Claire dependent on him for protection and advice. We will learn that after Aaron leaves the island, Claire turns into evil darkness and Flocke is her best jungle friend.
The next day, while Jack is nursing Charlie's wounds, Eko agrees to baptize Claire and her baby, to make sure that they will always be protected together. Locke puts the seven Virgin Mary statues in the hatch gun closet and changes the lock combination again.
Charlie sits on the beach alone and pulls his hoodie over his head. We do not know that Charlie’s addiction withdrawal from heroin, and the mistrust that his actions have had a lasting effect on his friendships, are twisted into an obsession to “save” Aaron from unknown dangers. As a result, he puts the baby into danger. As an outcast, he is any easy mark for Sawyer to regain his status as beach hoarder. Using the innocent picture of Ana and Jack together, with the paranoia that the Others will attack the campers again, Sawyer lets Kate imagination make assumptions that Ana attacked Sun in the garden in order to recruit survivors for Jack’s army. With the attack, for which Jack believes the Others were responsible, Jack is going to arm his group and goes to the Hatch to collect weapons. Sawyer gets there first and convinces Locke to hide the weapons in the jungle so Jack can’t get them. Jack’s plan violates the trust arrangement Locke had with him, so in a pre-emptive move, Locke leaves Sawyer manning the computer. An altercation happens in the beach camp that night when Jack and Locke are at each other for breaking their “truce,” when Sawyer shows up with the guns. He proclaims he is the “new sheriff in town” (which is a prequel to his role in time travel 1977 Dharma). It makes Jack and Locke look like fools, which was Charlie’s goal in this con. Afterward, Charlie asks Sawyer to make sure his role, especially him attacking Sun, is never told to anyone. So Charlie trusts the man who is the biggest liar he knows with his darkest island secret.
With Jack back from the Hatch, Claire argues with him that something could be terribly wrong with Aaron's health. Though she tells Jack she's OK, she still seems extremely worried. The next morning, Claire seeks Libby. As a psychologist, she believes Libby can help cause some kind of memory regression, allowing her to remember what happened in the jungle after Ethan abducted her. As the two women sit meditating, flashes of memory once more overcome Claire's psyche, causing her to scream, shouting that she remembers Ethan. Ordering Libby to do the technique again, she is warned that her memory could simply be combining experiences of other memories in the past blended together, but is adamant that what she saw was real, and that she was drugged and given something. Now fully convinced that Aaron is sick, Claire proclaims that she needs to find the room in her flashback. She asks that Kate help her.
This abduction quest leads Claire and Kate to Rousseau. In turn, they find the Dharma medical station. Claire remembers the examination room, the needles in her stomach to protect the baby, the nursery, and her knitting while drugged by Ethan. As they leave, Claire remembers that Rousseau did not attack her, but tried “to save her.” Claire may have lost some memories, but Rousseau has still lost her daughter.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 37:
EKO: Not if I baptize you both.
EP 38:
SAWYER: I'm not a good person, Charlie. Never did a good thing in my life.
EP 39:
SAYID: That you were strung up by your neck and left for dead. That Claire was taken and kept for days during which god only know what happened to her. That these people -- these Others -- are merciless, and can take any one of us whenever they choose. So tell me, Charlie, have you forgotten?
EP 40:
GALE: Right, okay. -- My mistake.
[Locke leaves the armory, starts to do the dishes, and then loses his temper, swiping all the dishes on the counter to the ground. Gale in the armory is smiling.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
It has always been bothersome that the 815 survivors never moved to the safety of the Hatch, or that the communication/computer savvy Sayid would not have used the Hatch computer’s communication to send an SOS or at the very least, gather intel on the Others. It appears that the survivors “do what they are told” like children, more easily than adults. If you believe in the “mental institution” theories on the premise of the show, young children are often berated to follow certain behavior, and operate in lock-step with their peers. There is a sense in the show that undercurrent is present in the actions or more importantly non-actions of the survivors.
When Hurley talked about transference, it could also relate to the concept of the show’s mental institution theories. When Walt looks at a bird book and then a bird appears at his window, he is called special. When Locke is born, he is called special because of his miracle birth. Is it their thoughts that create actions in their fantasy worlds. When we talk about transference in the setting of a hospital mental institution, with its floors and “stations,” one could argue that there are similar pieces on the island. When you have institutional group sessions and group rooms, the island also has their own “groups.” If these groups have vivid fantasies, then they could create the island dynamic as it pits them against authority. In the first instance, it was the Others against the scientific Dharma (doctors and institutional authority of the island). Now, it is the survivors against the Others who have displaced (in their own minds) the higher authority (which still resides in Jacob).
The PBS science show, NOVA, had a recent special on dreams. Some scientists believe that dreams are simulated threats that prepares a person for them in their waking existence. It goes back to primordial survival techniques that help individuals cope with real life dangerous situations if they have some “experience” with them in their dreams. In modern humans, the idea of being attacked by wild animals (a real possibility in stone age tribes) is replaced by real stressful situations like events in school or at work. In dreams, fearful visions have a basis in reality and may be used as coping mechanism when a person has to face that reality. In essence, dreams are a subconscious brain tool to help control life events in reality.
This leads to the possibility that the big premise of Lost is contained in a dream world. The surreal nature of the smoke monster is consistent with monsters and wild animal attacks in nightmares. People have said that their night visions are so “real” that they wake up in a panic, thinking the events are happening to them in real time.
The keystone factor that puts the dream theory into play is that at the End of Season 6, we are told constantly that characters need to be “awakened” in the sideways world, to remember their Island time, in order to “move on” in the afterlife since everyone in the sideways realm are dead. To become awake means to stop deep REM and subconscious dreaming, to end the events in one’s mind. This leads to a curious question: can dead souls dream?
What are the series flashbacks? Old dreams of the characters or real world events?
Is the Island setting a “dream world” where each character can create their own vision of their path - - - such as Locke being able to walk and be the Outback hunter?
Is the sideways world the purgatory waiting area for the souls to wake up from their island dream state? And what happens to a person living in one of these dreamscapes - - - when they “die?” Is that a reference to them “waking up” in another reality? Or is the solution to one’s fears in real life in the dream world enough to effectively release one’s soul to move on (such as Jack’s defeat of Flocke and saving his friends).
And whether is this a collective dream or a collective nightmare is unknown. But the idea that the island with his science stations mimics a hospital setting is clear. If the characters are patients, and the island is the mental hospital to study their various mental illnesses through tests, therapy, group interaction, and drugs, that could explain the hallucinations, the visions, the dreams and the delusions that come up again and again with various characters on the Island.
A layered dream existence for the characters is a mirror to the Egyptian theory that the characters souls are on a journey through the underworld. Ancient Egyptians believed that man’s soul is divided at death into various elements, and travel separate paths to be reunited after judgment.
This phase of the story line contains the guest actor turned into major character transformation. Michael Emerson’s performance as Henry Gale was so good that TPTB kept his character on as the super-evil Others leader, Ben Linus. Since the series first season renewal and critical acclaim, TPTB needed something to string alone the characters for the remaining four seasons. Emerson provided an opportunity to flesh out the enemy. It also lead to some mild criticism because it also clouded the initial storyline with filler and another rash of secondary red-shirt characters. For if one looks backward from the End, all the story lines surrounding the Others are not material to the alleged resolutions of the main characters in the church.
One of the dynamics in the forefront is a good versus evil conflict. Sawyer, after taking back his sheriff-hoarder crown, tells Charlie “I am not a good person - - - never done a good thing in my life.” After Claire remembers the examination room, she recalls Ethan telling her that “we’re (the Others) are good people.” But Sayid tells outcast Charlie, “have you forgotten?” what the Others did to Claire and himself. Sayid explains that he knows Gale (Ben) is lying because “I know because I feel no guilt” about beating him up to get answers. And Ben knew what was coming, because he did not have any fearful expression. He was more afraid when Eko took out his long knife during their Eko’s “confession” about killing two Others (in order to keep on “his righteous path”). In Ben’s expressions, we know he knows much about the 815 survivors, including Sayid being a torturer, but there are things that he does not know - - - for example, the Hatch and its last occupant, Desmond. Ben’s trip to Jack was done on purpose; he ran across Rousseau’s path so she would shoot him with the arrow. And he knew they would take him to their doctor because they are “good people.” Ben would then get information on Jack, as a prelude to capturing him so Jack could do spinal surgery on Ben to save his life. In a way, Ben’s early story arc was a mirror of Sawyer’s con to get the guns. People think that they are doing what they believe is right, but those decisions have already been made by a puppet master to get the results he wants from them.
These episodes continue to reinforce the theories about mental illness creating a fantasy world that the characters are trying to get through, via quests, religious ritual or missions of survival. It seems that some characters must reach their personal “rock bottom” in order to change, in order to be saved.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 37-40 (Days 54-59 )
Charlie begins to have dreams and visions about Aaron, leading him to attempt to kidnap the baby in order to protect him.
Charlie tries to get closer to Claire, but Claire asks for some space, for now. He leaves, telling Aaron to take care of his mom.
After being an outcast, Charlie teams up with Sawyer to con Locke out of the vault guns.
Hurley asks Sawyer and Kate about the Tailies, including Libby (for which he may have a vague recollection of meeting). Sawyer asks if Hurley has a love connection growing there. Hurley denies this and leaves, embarrassed. Kate and Sawyer both see Ana and Jack coming out of the jungle, talking to each other. Sawyer mentions it's the third time that he has seen them together. It doesn't make either of them particularly comfortable. Later, Sawyer gives Hurley a small push towards a relationship with Libby, and the two of them do laundry together in the hatch. Hurley asks if he knows her from somewhere. She distracts him by changing her shirt in his presence. She tells him that he stepped on her toe on the plane when he boarded last.
Rousseau leads the survivors to a man she has captured, who calls himself Henry Gale, a crashed balloonist from Minnesota. Rousseau warns them that he is a liar. They take him to the hatch where Sayid reverts to his torture mantra to extract information from Gale, specifically that he is an Other. Afterward, Gale begins to turn the psychological pressure on the Hatch occupants.
When Aaron has a fever, Claire is upset that something truly is wrong with her baby. When they go to the hatch for medical help, Claire believes she needs to remember what happened to her, whether the Others did something to her baby. She gives Sun her baby as she heads out with Kate and Rousseau to find the medical station. In the station, Claire finds the nursery room and examination room, where Ethan injected her with something. She then remembers a teenager helping her, and also Rousseau taking her back to the camp after her escape. But Claire is worried that they did not find “a cure” for what ails Aaron.
Science:
Dreams
Dreams are the subconscious manifestations of elements, events, people, places or things seen by a person during sleep. Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many ancient societies, such as those of Egypt, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by people with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.
One of the earliest written examples of dream interpretation comes from the Babylonian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh, whose story was referenced in earlier LOST analysis. In that story, Gilgamesh dreamt that an axe fell from the sky. The people gathered around it in admiration and worship. Gilgamesh threw the axe in front of his mother and then he embraced it like a wife. His mother, Ninsun, interpreted the dream. She said that someone powerful would soon appear. Gilgamesh would struggle with him and try to overpower him, but he would not succeed. Eventually they would become close friends and accomplish great things. She added, "That you embraced him like a wife means he will never forsake you. Thus your dream is solved.” While this example also shows the tendency to see dreams as mantic (as predicting the future), Ninsun's interpretation also anticipates a contemporary approach. The axe, phallic and aggressive, symbolizes for a male who will start as aggressive but turn into a friend. To embrace an axe is to transform aggression into affection and camaraderie.
Ancient Egyptian priests also acted as dream interpreters. Dreams have been held in considerable importance through history by most cultures. Some believe it was direct communication with the gods or deceased ancestors.
Sigmund Freud first argued that the motivation of all dream content is wish-fulfillment, and that the instigation of a dream is often to be found in the events of the day preceding the dream, which he called the "day residue." In the case of very young children, Freud claimed, this can be easily seen, as small children dream quite straightforwardly of the fulfillment of wishes that were aroused in them the previous day (the "dream day"). In adults, however, the situation is more complicated—since in Freud's submission, the dreams of adults have been subjected to distortion, with the dream's so-called "manifest content" being a heavily disguised derivative of the "latent" dream-thoughts present in the unconscious. As a result of this distortion and disguise, the dream's real significance is concealed: dreamers are no more capable of recognizing the actual meaning of their dreams than hysterics are able to understand the connection and significance of their neurotic symptoms.
In waking life, Freud asserted, these so-called "resistances" altogether prevented the repressed wishes of the unconscious from entering consciousness; and though these wishes were to some extent able to emerge during the lowered state of sleep, the resistances were still strong enough to produce "a veil of disguise" sufficient to hide their true nature. Freud's view was that dreams are compromises which ensure that sleep is not interrupted: as "a disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes," they succeed in representing wishes as fulfilled which might otherwise disturb and waken the dreamer.
Freud listed the distorting operations that he claimed were applied to repressed wishes in forming the dream as recollected: it is because of these distortions (the so-called "dream-work") that the manifest content of the dream differs so greatly from the latent dream thought reached through analysis—and it is by reversing these distortions that the latent content is approached.
Freud considered that the experience of anxiety dreams and nightmares was the result of failures in the dream-work: rather than contradicting the "wish-fulfillment" theory, such phenomena demonstrated how the ego reacted to the awareness of repressed wishes that were too powerful and insufficiently disguised. Traumatic dreams (where the dream merely repeats the traumatic experience) were eventually admitted as exceptions to the theory.
Improbabilities:
A balloon piloted by a Minnesota businessman crash landing deep in the Pacific Ocean island.
The vision of the drug smuggler’s plane crashing on the Island actually being seen by Charlie in his present day.
Kate’s father and Desmond’s Hatch mate both being in the U.S. army in the first Iraq war, and having the same contact with Sayid. It would have been highly unlikely that Sayid, if he helped the American forces, to continue in the Republic Guard. He would have been killed as a traitor.
Mysteries:
Who was the real Henry Gale? A balloon crash lands on the island sometime in 2003, its pilot was a black man named Henry Gale. At some point he died of a broken neck, and Ben Linus took on his identity. Henry was buried in a grave near the balloon, although Ben claimed (in the guise of Henry as a captive in the Hatch) that his wife was buried there Sayid, after torturing him does not trust what Ben has said, so he digs up Henry's corpse, uncovering Ben's ruse. In Henry's wallet was a Minnesota driver's license and a $20 with a note to his wife written on it. The balloon was sponsored and/or manufactured by Widmore Corporation, owned by Ben’s nemesis and former Other leader, Charles Widmore . It was also sponsored byMr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, where Hurley once worked, and Noss-A-La Cola.
Themes:
Power and control. Who is in charge, as Locke gets unnerved by Jack’s orders. He is egged on by the Others leader/spy, Ben, posing as Henry Gale. When Ana is accused of mock abduction of Sun in order to build her army and get access to the guns, Sawyer and Kate are pitted against Jack who believes the Others did it. Locke says it cannot be because they have a “truce” with the Others, so he hides the guns from Jack.
Violence. Sayid tortures Gale (Ben) in order to get information to confirm he is an Other. It is a reversion to Sayid’s former self, the thing that he has been really running away from since leaving Iraq.
Tests. When Charlie is having visions, he thinks that the Island is a personal test. And his test is to “save the baby” from unknown danger. He believes that everyone on the Island is being tested. This brings in religious and after life connotations, as Charlie believes the only way to “save” Aaron is to baptize him so he can get into heaven. And that would infer that subconsciously, Charlie has made the connection that the Island is Hell, testing their souls to make the right decisions.
Trust. When Charlie goes off and takes Aaron the second time, the entire camp turns against him. He is alone, which is his greatest fear. He is told by Locke that trust is easily lost, and that trust is hard to regain. Jack and Locke also have their trust issues with the locked gun closet, to have that trust used against them in Sawyer’s long con. Charlie “trusted” Sawyer’s plan to make Locke and Jack fools in front of their fellow campers. Further, Ben plants the seed of doubt into Locke when he asks Locke “I don’t know why you let the Doc call all the shots.”
Deception. There have been so many lies and deceptions from individuals that there is a shortage of truth on the Island. The atmosphere breeds assumptions and knee-jerk reactions that can be easily manipulated. Sawyer’s gun con is the prequel to the more elaborate Ben Linus con of the survivors. As we have said before, knowledge is power on the Island. But a little knowledge can be a dangerous weapon.
Clues:
The sponsors of the balloon appear to be a composite of character memories, Ben with Widmore and Hurley with Mr. Clucks.
Charlie realizing that the Island is “testing” everyone. Is it a personal test, a medical test, a psychological test or an afterlife redemption test toward judgment?
When Libby is trying to calm down an upset Claire who is starting to remember, Libby tells her that “she is combining experiences before the crash with things on the island” which upsets her. The same could be said for Libby, who was institutionalized with Hurley, that she is combining her prior mental illness experiences with her island (hospital therapy treatments) to create a vivid new fantasy.
Whether memory loss is a symptom of “the sickness?” Sayid is concerned that Jack and Locke are not on board with Rousseau’s warning about Ben being an Other. Sayid is convinced he is lying because when he demands answers about Gale burying his wife, he is not clear what he did - - - because Sayid knows how it would feel because he buried Shannon.
The tree frog taunting Sawyer. In some cultures, frogs have mythical significance. In Japan, frogs are symbols of good luck. Also they are believed to be their ancestors. The economy of ancient Egypt was centered on the Nile River, which teemed with frogs. The frog was particularly identified with Heket, a deity of fertility and childbirth. When the waters of the Nile receded, innumerable frogs would be heard croaking in the mud, the sort of event that may have influenced many myths. In one Egyptian creation myth, Heket and her ram-headed husband, Khnum, made both gods and human beings. According to another Egyptian creation myth, the original eight creatures were frogs and snakes that carried the cosmic egg. The tree frog on the Island could symbolize life, but with Sawyer crushing it - - - it could mean a place of death.
When the Hatch timer goes past zero, Egyptian symbols appear that I have translated to state "He escapes place of death." The alarm does have meaning because without the Numbers, the alarm sounds and blast doors seal off the Hatch. The station is constructed for the purpose of containing something or someone (the Devil?) from destroying the world.
When Claire remembers Ethan at the medical station, she is given water from his canteen. But Claire says it tastes "sour." Sour water is defined as water, usually waste, that contains sulfur compounds. Sulfur is associated with fire, brimstone and the underworld.
Discussion:
Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. - - - Saadi
In a dream, young Charlie comes down a flight of stairs in his slippers. It's Christmas morning and his brother Liam is already hard at work ripping open his presents. But while Liam continues to unwrap gift after gift, Charlie finds nothing at all for him. That is, until his mother leads him over to a brand new piano.. Charlie is thrilled, but before he can even begin to enjoy the gift, he learns it comes with a price, with his mother wanting him to become successful so he can “save them." Charlie, now fully grown, plays the piano, though it's now on the beach. Suddenly, he hears Aaron’s cries from inside it. Charlie tries to open it up, but can't. The incoming tide then tips the piano over onto its back and it begins to drift away, apparently carrying Aaron out to sea. Charlie wakes up and checks to make sure Claire and Aaron are alright, and finds them with Locke.
While Charlie plays his guitar on the beach, he hears the faint cries of a baby and follows the sound to the ocean, where he sees Aaron’s cradle being tossed on the waves. He struggles to swim out and bring Aaron back to shore, where he discovers both Claire and his mother kneeling on the beach in robes, in angelic poses from a religious painting. Charlie is seeing a version of a religious painting from Charlie's childhood home. The angelic Claire and Charlie's mother repeat in unison: "The baby is in danger" and that Charlie "has to save him". A plane, Eko’s brother’s Beechcraft, crashes in the background. A dove flies out of the sky, through the jungle, and past him out to sea. Hurley approaching him in biblical robes. Charlie wakes up standing in the ocean holding the baby, realizing it was a vivid dream. He tries to explain to Claire (and everyone else) that he was only trying to save him, but Claire slaps him across the face.
Charlie creates his own problems when Locke suspects Charlie is using heroin again. That breach of trust, even though Locke makes the wrong assumption, it later allows Locke to beat Charlie after his second taking of Aaron. Locke says trust is a hard thing to win back, and Claire needs her time.
After unsuccessfully trying to enlist Locke, Charlie goes to Eko, who is marking trees because he "likes them". Eko suggests that Charlie's dreams mean something and could be a sign that he has to protect the baby. Eko suggests that the baby be baptized. Charlie goes to Claire with the idea, but is dismissed by Kate. Locke stands close by, watching Charlie, just like he did in during his first days on the Island (lie the Others observing and collecting data). In the jungle, Charlie finds his stash of heroin, but Locke appears. Charlie claims he came to finish the job and get rid of them all. But Locke doesn't believe him. He takes away all of the statues.
Claire asks Locke whether she and Aaron can sleep in the hatch but Locke offers to move his things closer to her tent for a while. She asks him about baptism and how much he knows about it. Locke tells her his view, calling it "spiritual insurance" so the baby will go to heaven. He says that there is no danger to her or the baby. In the religious context, Claire is also not baptized, so she could not be in heaven with her baby. Claire’s greatest fear is to be separated from her baby. But we do not know whether Island Aaron is a prop, like Jack’s son in the sideways world, or a real soul “reborn” in the church in The End.
Charlie starts a fire to distract Claire from Aaron's crib. While an attempt is made to put out the fire, Charlie grabs Aaron and runs with him to the ocean to baptize him. Locke and several other survivors run over after they hear Claire's cries. Locke tries to convince Charlie to hand him the baby, but Charlie refuses, saying, "Aaron's not your responsibility. Where were you when he was born? Where were you when he was taken? You're not his father. You're not his family." Locke replies that neither is he.Charlie gives Locke the baby, who hands him to Claire. Charlie tries to apologize but Locke punches him three times in the face. Charlie stumbles and falls into the water. Everyone leaves Charlie in disgust. All Charlie “wishes” is that “everything would go back to the way it was” with Claire and his island situation. But he ruined that. This problem mirrors his flashback life where he wished his brother, Liam, would get his act together in order to save the band. In that situation, Liam was kicked out of his house when his wife felt he was dangerous due to his drug addiction. On the island, Charlie has been kicked out of his “new” family because his erratic behavior from trying to kick his drug addiction. Charlie’s wish will only come true after he dies on the Island and is “reunited” with Claire in the sideways world church.
There are several scenes where Locke, observing from the jungle tree line, seems to be planning and calculating how to get people over to his side. In the Flocke theory, the opening to push Charlie away from Claire is Locke’s opportunity to make Claire dependent on him for protection and advice. We will learn that after Aaron leaves the island, Claire turns into evil darkness and Flocke is her best jungle friend.
The next day, while Jack is nursing Charlie's wounds, Eko agrees to baptize Claire and her baby, to make sure that they will always be protected together. Locke puts the seven Virgin Mary statues in the hatch gun closet and changes the lock combination again.
Charlie sits on the beach alone and pulls his hoodie over his head. We do not know that Charlie’s addiction withdrawal from heroin, and the mistrust that his actions have had a lasting effect on his friendships, are twisted into an obsession to “save” Aaron from unknown dangers. As a result, he puts the baby into danger. As an outcast, he is any easy mark for Sawyer to regain his status as beach hoarder. Using the innocent picture of Ana and Jack together, with the paranoia that the Others will attack the campers again, Sawyer lets Kate imagination make assumptions that Ana attacked Sun in the garden in order to recruit survivors for Jack’s army. With the attack, for which Jack believes the Others were responsible, Jack is going to arm his group and goes to the Hatch to collect weapons. Sawyer gets there first and convinces Locke to hide the weapons in the jungle so Jack can’t get them. Jack’s plan violates the trust arrangement Locke had with him, so in a pre-emptive move, Locke leaves Sawyer manning the computer. An altercation happens in the beach camp that night when Jack and Locke are at each other for breaking their “truce,” when Sawyer shows up with the guns. He proclaims he is the “new sheriff in town” (which is a prequel to his role in time travel 1977 Dharma). It makes Jack and Locke look like fools, which was Charlie’s goal in this con. Afterward, Charlie asks Sawyer to make sure his role, especially him attacking Sun, is never told to anyone. So Charlie trusts the man who is the biggest liar he knows with his darkest island secret.
With Jack back from the Hatch, Claire argues with him that something could be terribly wrong with Aaron's health. Though she tells Jack she's OK, she still seems extremely worried. The next morning, Claire seeks Libby. As a psychologist, she believes Libby can help cause some kind of memory regression, allowing her to remember what happened in the jungle after Ethan abducted her. As the two women sit meditating, flashes of memory once more overcome Claire's psyche, causing her to scream, shouting that she remembers Ethan. Ordering Libby to do the technique again, she is warned that her memory could simply be combining experiences of other memories in the past blended together, but is adamant that what she saw was real, and that she was drugged and given something. Now fully convinced that Aaron is sick, Claire proclaims that she needs to find the room in her flashback. She asks that Kate help her.
This abduction quest leads Claire and Kate to Rousseau. In turn, they find the Dharma medical station. Claire remembers the examination room, the needles in her stomach to protect the baby, the nursery, and her knitting while drugged by Ethan. As they leave, Claire remembers that Rousseau did not attack her, but tried “to save her.” Claire may have lost some memories, but Rousseau has still lost her daughter.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 37:
EKO: Not if I baptize you both.
EP 38:
SAWYER: I'm not a good person, Charlie. Never did a good thing in my life.
EP 39:
SAYID: That you were strung up by your neck and left for dead. That Claire was taken and kept for days during which god only know what happened to her. That these people -- these Others -- are merciless, and can take any one of us whenever they choose. So tell me, Charlie, have you forgotten?
EP 40:
GALE: Right, okay. -- My mistake.
[Locke leaves the armory, starts to do the dishes, and then loses his temper, swiping all the dishes on the counter to the ground. Gale in the armory is smiling.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
It has always been bothersome that the 815 survivors never moved to the safety of the Hatch, or that the communication/computer savvy Sayid would not have used the Hatch computer’s communication to send an SOS or at the very least, gather intel on the Others. It appears that the survivors “do what they are told” like children, more easily than adults. If you believe in the “mental institution” theories on the premise of the show, young children are often berated to follow certain behavior, and operate in lock-step with their peers. There is a sense in the show that undercurrent is present in the actions or more importantly non-actions of the survivors.
When Hurley talked about transference, it could also relate to the concept of the show’s mental institution theories. When Walt looks at a bird book and then a bird appears at his window, he is called special. When Locke is born, he is called special because of his miracle birth. Is it their thoughts that create actions in their fantasy worlds. When we talk about transference in the setting of a hospital mental institution, with its floors and “stations,” one could argue that there are similar pieces on the island. When you have institutional group sessions and group rooms, the island also has their own “groups.” If these groups have vivid fantasies, then they could create the island dynamic as it pits them against authority. In the first instance, it was the Others against the scientific Dharma (doctors and institutional authority of the island). Now, it is the survivors against the Others who have displaced (in their own minds) the higher authority (which still resides in Jacob).
The PBS science show, NOVA, had a recent special on dreams. Some scientists believe that dreams are simulated threats that prepares a person for them in their waking existence. It goes back to primordial survival techniques that help individuals cope with real life dangerous situations if they have some “experience” with them in their dreams. In modern humans, the idea of being attacked by wild animals (a real possibility in stone age tribes) is replaced by real stressful situations like events in school or at work. In dreams, fearful visions have a basis in reality and may be used as coping mechanism when a person has to face that reality. In essence, dreams are a subconscious brain tool to help control life events in reality.
This leads to the possibility that the big premise of Lost is contained in a dream world. The surreal nature of the smoke monster is consistent with monsters and wild animal attacks in nightmares. People have said that their night visions are so “real” that they wake up in a panic, thinking the events are happening to them in real time.
The keystone factor that puts the dream theory into play is that at the End of Season 6, we are told constantly that characters need to be “awakened” in the sideways world, to remember their Island time, in order to “move on” in the afterlife since everyone in the sideways realm are dead. To become awake means to stop deep REM and subconscious dreaming, to end the events in one’s mind. This leads to a curious question: can dead souls dream?
What are the series flashbacks? Old dreams of the characters or real world events?
Is the Island setting a “dream world” where each character can create their own vision of their path - - - such as Locke being able to walk and be the Outback hunter?
Is the sideways world the purgatory waiting area for the souls to wake up from their island dream state? And what happens to a person living in one of these dreamscapes - - - when they “die?” Is that a reference to them “waking up” in another reality? Or is the solution to one’s fears in real life in the dream world enough to effectively release one’s soul to move on (such as Jack’s defeat of Flocke and saving his friends).
And whether is this a collective dream or a collective nightmare is unknown. But the idea that the island with his science stations mimics a hospital setting is clear. If the characters are patients, and the island is the mental hospital to study their various mental illnesses through tests, therapy, group interaction, and drugs, that could explain the hallucinations, the visions, the dreams and the delusions that come up again and again with various characters on the Island.
A layered dream existence for the characters is a mirror to the Egyptian theory that the characters souls are on a journey through the underworld. Ancient Egyptians believed that man’s soul is divided at death into various elements, and travel separate paths to be reunited after judgment.
This phase of the story line contains the guest actor turned into major character transformation. Michael Emerson’s performance as Henry Gale was so good that TPTB kept his character on as the super-evil Others leader, Ben Linus. Since the series first season renewal and critical acclaim, TPTB needed something to string alone the characters for the remaining four seasons. Emerson provided an opportunity to flesh out the enemy. It also lead to some mild criticism because it also clouded the initial storyline with filler and another rash of secondary red-shirt characters. For if one looks backward from the End, all the story lines surrounding the Others are not material to the alleged resolutions of the main characters in the church.
One of the dynamics in the forefront is a good versus evil conflict. Sawyer, after taking back his sheriff-hoarder crown, tells Charlie “I am not a good person - - - never done a good thing in my life.” After Claire remembers the examination room, she recalls Ethan telling her that “we’re (the Others) are good people.” But Sayid tells outcast Charlie, “have you forgotten?” what the Others did to Claire and himself. Sayid explains that he knows Gale (Ben) is lying because “I know because I feel no guilt” about beating him up to get answers. And Ben knew what was coming, because he did not have any fearful expression. He was more afraid when Eko took out his long knife during their Eko’s “confession” about killing two Others (in order to keep on “his righteous path”). In Ben’s expressions, we know he knows much about the 815 survivors, including Sayid being a torturer, but there are things that he does not know - - - for example, the Hatch and its last occupant, Desmond. Ben’s trip to Jack was done on purpose; he ran across Rousseau’s path so she would shoot him with the arrow. And he knew they would take him to their doctor because they are “good people.” Ben would then get information on Jack, as a prelude to capturing him so Jack could do spinal surgery on Ben to save his life. In a way, Ben’s early story arc was a mirror of Sawyer’s con to get the guns. People think that they are doing what they believe is right, but those decisions have already been made by a puppet master to get the results he wants from them.
These episodes continue to reinforce the theories about mental illness creating a fantasy world that the characters are trying to get through, via quests, religious ritual or missions of survival. It seems that some characters must reach their personal “rock bottom” in order to change, in order to be saved.
Friday, September 14, 2012
REBOOT EPISODES 33-36
POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates
on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will
occur later in the week.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 33-36 (Days 48-53 )
After Shannon being shot, Ana panics, putting everyone's safety in danger. Meanwhile, Eko takes Sawyer to with him to find Jack. Thus, the current survivors of Flight 815 are united for the first time.
Kate begins to believe that she is going mad after she sees a black horse, similar to the one in her childhood and hearing her father when speaking to Sawyer. Meanwhile, Eko shows Locke a piece of film he found in the other station, which warns not to misuse the computer terminal as it could cause another incident.
When Eko learns that Charlie as a Virgin Mary statue, he demands that he take him to where he found it at once. Elsewhere, Michael defies the orientation rules and continues to communicate on the computer without the other survivors knowing.
Jack is faced with a decision when a gun-toting Michael leaves to find his son. Jack gets Locke and Sawyer to help bring back Michael before he is killed by the Others. He tells Kate to stay at the Swan to push the button, but at an encounter with the Others, Kate disobeyed Jack and she is captured hostage.
Science:
Delusions. A symptom of a mental disorder, a delusion is the belief in something that rationally is not present. When Kate sees something from her childhood in the jungle, this is like Jack seeing his dead father. It should not exist on the Island, but in their minds it is clear as day.
Medical literature defines delusions as an unshakable belief in something untrue. These irrational beliefs defy normal reasoning, and remain firm even when overwhelming proof is presented to dispute them. Delusions are often accompanied by hallucinations and/or feelings of paranoia, which act to strengthen confidence in the delusion.
Hallucinations are are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions. These sensory impressions are generated by the mind rather than by any external stimuli, and may be seen, heard, felt, and even smelled or tasted. Delusions are distinct from culturally or religiously based beliefs that may be seen as untrue by outsiders.
The survivors continue to manifest signs of mental disorders as the days pass on the island. Whether these delusions or hallucinations are from pre-existing disorders and/or are the product of stress of being stranded on a dangerous island is up for debate. But in a literary sense, it may be a clue to support the theory that the premise of the show is a series of manifested events of a mentally deranged person(s), such as known mental patients Leonard, Hurley, Locke or Libby, or the criminal mental instability of Kate, Sawyer, or Ben, or the transference of what one wants to be to avoid reality that could explain Jack’s or other characters relationships with their fathers.
Hurley asks Jack, who is chopping wood like Sawyer used to, if he was “transference” with Sawyer. Jack asked him if he was making a medical diagnosis. In medical terms, transference means the displacement of affect from one person or one idea to another; in psychoanalysis, generally applied to the projection of feelings, thoughts, and wishes onto the analyst, who has come to represent some person from the patient's past. In a world being re-created from the memories, night mares and phobias of a few characters, transference could mean the elaborate fiction of the island as a means of one or a few coping with their psychotic minds (like last week’s theory of Leonard Sims).
Improbabilities:
Kate’s entire criminal back story is so fraught with errors it makes the whole story arc
unbelievable and unreal. First, if she was charged with murder in Iowa, it would be a state crime. The U.S. Marshals do not hunt down state criminals. A warrant and alert to other states is given, and if she is arrested, she does not have an arraignment but an extradition hearing to go back to Iowa for trial. But her unbelievable trial lands in LA, which is also a farce, legally and procedurally. This mess up in basic legal framework turned many Lost observers against TPTB.
The idea that the Hatch is now open, and it is roomy with showers, fresh water, food and security, why are the survivors still camping on the beach? It makes no sense when they know that there are people who have attacked them. Especially Claire, who had herself kidnapped and Charlie tortured - - - why would they stay in the open on the beach when the safety of the Hatch is available?
Mysteries:
Why some people with fatal wounds, like Sawyer live, while other characters, like Shannon, “die.” Yes, there were different wounds, but Sawyer went into septic shock for days without treatment. Later, Sayid would be shot in the time travel incident.
How does Walt get access to a computer terminal and re-connect with Michael? Or is it a ruse to make Michael react and run off into the jungle on the war path to find Walt?
What do the others want with the children, especially Walt?
Why the smoke monster “scanned” Eko instead of killing him?
Themes:
Religion.
One Episode is entitled “The 23rd Psalm.”
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
For some Lost fans, this is the map for the show’s foundation. Jack lying down in the green jungle after the crash, being led to leadership over his new flock, to Devine intervention of finding life giving fresh water in the caves, to restore their “souls.” Jack’s trip to the Black Rock and the Dark Territory, and the foreboding conflicts with the Others is in the shadow of death with his enemies, to be resolved in Jack’s case by his goodness and mercy that frees him to move on in the next life. In the End, the characters do end up in a church, the house of the lord, dead - - - awaiting an after life journey.
Clues:
The Island is a mish-mash of culture and technology from past eras. Each group of castaways brought to the island, brings with them collective memories that Jacob and the Island use to re-create elements as illusions, visions, structures or delusions. When the 815ers arrive at the Island, they are put into a situation where the stations appear to be 1980 technology, some 20 years removed from their present day. Which shows the isolation, the “bubble” as Desmond will call it, of the Island realm.
The 23rd Psalm. Jack Shepard is the center of the survivors hope. He is the provider of life (medical training, finding the caves and fresh water, and inspiring the group). The psalm may be a metaphor for the Island itself: the fore-hell of their personal existences. The green pastures are the Island jungle and groves. The still waters are the caves. The valley of the shadow of death is the Dark Territory, the evil that lurks in the smoke monsters. Once you do not fear the evil, you will be awakened to the next realm, heaven.
Locke is working on a crossword puzzle when Eko arrives with Sawyer. 42 down clue is “Enkidu's friend.” Enkidu was formed from clay and saliva by Aruru, the goddess of creation, to rid Gilgamesh of his arrogance. In the story he is a wild man, raised by animals and ignorant of human society until he is bedded by Shambat. Thereafter a series of interactions with humans and human ways bring him closer to civilization, culminating in a wrestling match with Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Enkidu embodies the wild or natural world, and though equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, acts in some ways as an antithesis to the cultured, urban-bred warrior-king. Enkidu then becomes the king's constant companion and deeply beloved friend, accompanying him on adventures until he is stricken ill. The deep, tragic loss of Enkidu profoundly inspires in Gilgamesh a quest to escape death by obtaining godly immortality.
Discussion:
“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured, or well-bred, is merely a popinjay.” —Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
A “popinjay” a vain or conceited person. Many Lost fan-critics felt that the creators and writers let them down by dishing up story lines with science fiction elements that were never explained or led to mere arc dead ends. The idea of creating a mystery and not solving it on purpose let a bitter taste in some fans. Continuity and consistent canon was something that is lacking, even in the little character traits like with Locke.
There is an odd change with Locke. Outside, in the jungle, he has the wry smile of an all-knowing super hunter (which we have inferred in previous articles that he may already be Flocke/MIB). But once he is inside the hatch, Locke’s personality and character changes. He is no longer the forceful outback survivalist. He is more comfortable as an office computer jockey.
There is also a mirror story line present in these episodes. In Kate’s case, her father tells her “he does not have murder in his heart” in regard to Wayne, her step father. It infers that Kate does when she blows up the house. In Ana’s case, the person who shot her and killed her unborn child, is released because she refuses to ID him. She uses his release to stalk and hunt him down to kill him. In Ana’s case, it was revenge against the criminal who killed her baby and ruined her personal life. In Kate’s case, her motive was to “save” her mother from an abusive relationship. Which is worse? For in Ana’s case, she will not survive the island or join the 815ers in the afterlife. But for Kate, she finds happiness in the End with Jack.
The great unsolved mystery of Lost continues to be “what is the smoke monster?” In the 23rd Psalm episode, the smoke monster appears to Charlie and Eko. Charlie screams “run!” But Eko holds his ground and literally stares down Smokey. In this encounter, we hear growling and mechanical sounds, flashes of light and screens as if the smoke monster is “scanning” Eko. Then Smokey quickly leaves. When Charlie asks why Eko did not run, Eko replied “he was not afraid.” Is that the simple emotive state that keeps Smokey at bay? That is doubtful.
But this encounter led to many theories of what was the smoke monster. There was one group that believed the smoke monster was an evil spirit, in essence, a wild animal reaper of human souls. Another group believed that the smoke monster was a mechanical machine, made possibly of nano-technology robots that swarm. And as a machine, it was programmed or created to gather information about human beings. Another group believed that the smoke monster was a fantasy beast which was the “security system” or guard dog of the island. Another group who believed that this was not a physical monster at all, but in the context of a mental patient being treated by electro-shock and other stimuli devices, Smokey’s appearance is the manifestation of negative emotions in a patient’s mind.
The great story line “holes” through the entire series still bothers fans to this day. It is not enough to have fans “figure things out on their own” when the writers are supposedly carving out an epic mystery tale, where in the End no one knows for sure what the last 6 years was all about. Just answering the simple question of what is the smoke monster (alien, super nano-machine, evil spirit, Satan) would greatly explain the other gaps, including the Big Premise of the series. Without such context, the ending of the series still remains a hollow exercise in trying to figure things out.
In the last of these episodes, we find that Michael is going nuts over finding Walt. He has knocked out Locke in the armory so he can get a gun and go find Walt. Michael locks Jack and Locke up even though Jack offers to him. By doing so, Michael is endangering the Hatch station since no one is around to put in the Numbers. Michael claims he must get Walt back by himself, it is his right as a father.
When Kate takes Sawyer to the Hatch for medical treatment, they find their locked in friends. Jack and Locke will go to bring back Michael, and the still healing Sawyer (in a moment of bravado) joins them. Kate wants to come too, but Jack orders her to stay at the computer.
During the hunt for Michael, couples begin to fray: Jack and Kate tiff, and at the beach Jin wants to join the party, but Sun says no.
During the jungle trek, Locke remarks that they may not have the “right” to tell anyone what they can or cannot do. They debate the statement. Later, Locke says he knows Sawyer’s real name is James Ford (how did he know that? Who told him? Or did he “scan” the information?) After they hear several gunshots, they rush to the area to find just bullet casings. Jack asks Sawyer if he is out in the field to help Michael, or to get revenge on the Others for shooting him (a mirror story line to Ana’s hunting down her shooter in her flashback).
“Mr. Friendly” from the raft appears that night, knowing all their names. Sawyer attempts to fire at him, but a bullet from the jungle grazes his ear. He says Michael will never find them and that Walt is fine, and that he is “special.” He also scolds the survivors for going into someone’s else’s place, eating food that is not theirs, and having no business “opening doors.” When the survivors challenge Mr. Friendly, he yells “light em up,” and Jack’s crew is suddenly surrounded by Others. They are warned by the Other’s commander that there is a line in the jungle that they cannot cross (similar to the “truce” with Dharma?) which they must accept because the Others “let them” live on their Island. To prove the point, the Others bring out hostage Kate. Jack is enraged; he hesitates about turning over their guns, but relents. Kate is freed and the Others disappear into the jungle.
Once Jack gets back to the beach, the healer himself “turns commando” and asks Ana what it would take to raise an army. The first face to face encounter with the Others immediately changes Jack into warrior mode. It may be his anger for Kate’s action of disobeying him being channeled against the Others who have told him “what to do” which he disagrees with; Jack vows to himself to get Michael and Walt back from the Others, truce or no truce. Jack in a way has turned into Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, now acting like a cultured, urban-bred warrior-king. Jack needs to find his own Enkidu, a person who embodies the wild or natural world, and equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing (which may be Kate in The End.)
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Kate’s Black horse from her past shows up on the island. The last time, it is also seen by weak Sawyer. Kate actually goes over an touches the horse before it moves off into the jungle.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 33:
[Kate with Sawyer who is shivering.]
KATE: Hey! Hey, can you hear me? You're going to be okay. You're going to be alright. You're home.
EP 34:
MONITOR: Dad?
[Michael stares at the monitor and begins to mouth the word "Walt".]
EP 35:
CLAIRE: Charlie, I don't want you sleeping anywhere near us, okay?! Just go.
EP 36:
JACK: How long do you think it would take to train an army?
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
The last line of the four episodes convey a clear message: change. When Kate tells Sawyer that he is “home,” that means a change from running away from his childhood revenge motivations. It is also a prequel to the flashback to 1977 and his domestication with Juliet. When the computer screen says “Dad?” to Michael’s attempts to communicate, he becomes a changed man - - - from frightened father to angry warrior. This transformation will lead to his soul being trapped on the island when his friends awaken and leave. Claire has begun to change as well, rejecting the envelope that Charlie has begun to spin on their relationship, to one more closely aligned with Locke. If Locke is really Flocke, then maybe the dark “infection” has begun to take over Claire’s spirit which in the final season leads to pure mental collapse and evil intent. And finally, Jack the Healer turns into crusader as he begins to organize an army against the Others.
The conclusion of the show harped upon a character “awakening” in the sideways world (purgatory) in order to remember the most important things in that life time. It is possible that some transformative “change” in the Island sphere is necessary in order for a person to be able to “move on” to the next level of the after life (as the group awaited in the church). Is it as simple as Locke’s crossword clue? That the characters needed a new creation in order to rid themselves of their own arrogance?
But some changes on the Island were the opposite of religious redemption; both Claire and Sayid turn ghastly evil but in the End are welcomed in the church. It may be the flash point recognition in Claire that Charlie was the only man who truly cared for him allows her to move on with him in the next world. It may be that Sayid never truly loved Nadia (she was a fiction, an obsession, a guilt trip for torturing or killing her) but did have his first true relationship with Shannon. So any religious context of redemption is pretty much nullified since change on the Island and sideways world is not redemptive of one’s sins, but a mere realization of what is personally best for each individual.
But change can also mean realization. When Kate asks herself if she is crazy, she is believing it with her vision of the black horse (which saved her from the marshal). When she tells Sayid her story, Sayid admits that he saw Walt just before Shannon was killed. He asks, “does that make me crazy?” Yes, yes it does.
For if we take the canon of Kate’s criminal story line as “true,” then we can only conclude that her flashback and off-island experiences are “false” and unreal. So this is evidence that the flashbacks may not be true, and the island time frame also unreal. And we know that the future sideways world is also not real, but a purgatory like waiting room for the characters to awaken. So one can conclude that all three time periods are false, in the sense that the events in each is not believable.
Now with the clues that many of the characters believe that they are crazy, a theory could arise that this the real truth of the series. Like the Leonard Sims theory that this is all about his Numbers psychosis, each of the characters could have deep seeded issues and each story arc (flashback, island time and sideways world) are merely levels of group therapy to work out their issues in an interactive mental fantasy land. (Even The Simpsons have used this genre several times by hooking up the brains of the family and throwing them into bizarre adventures).
Transference or projection of personality traits is an element of child’s play. Little kids grow up playing combat, cowboys and indians, hide ‘n seek in their yards with their friends. The same could be true for the Lost characters. Example, we have been shown that Jack is a medical doctor, but if the flashback world is not real, then it is a young Jack transferring his father’s medical talent on himself in his own make believe world.
If Lost can be explained as a massive, multi-level group therapy session from a third person view point, what is the end point? Does each character need to prove something to himself or herself? Do they have to work out relationship issues, fears, phobias or self loathing in order to get better? To free themselves of the therapy loop of being trapped inside’s one’s own mental games? It is an interesting and feasible premise.
The key to Lost could be summed up in the unsolved mystery of the Smoke Monster.
One theory is that the smoke monster is imprisoned on the Island, which is Hell. When MIB was thrown into the Light Cave, he was still alive. He was dead in the stream not by the light, but by unsealing the cork like Desmond did. But in his case, the cork released the evil spirit which killed Jacob’s brother, stealing his form and mental thoughts. The Smoke Monster, as a evil spirit, was able to take the form of the dead and chose to take the form of MIB because he knew it would help him. By pretending to be MIB, he could get in close with Jacob. (He later says that he took the form of Locke because it would help him get in close with Jacob.) But one would think that Jacob would know the difference between his brother and the smoke monster pretending to be his brother. For if Jacob was immortal, why was not his brother? Or is only the smoke monster immortal?
If the Smoke Monster is evil incarnate and came from Hell, then the Island’s defenses have been arranged to keep this Evil at bay. The whole idea of the Swan station and the Numbers is to keep an electromagnetic build up that would create another “incident.” If the numbers are not put into the computer on time, the Hatch timer turns into Egyptian symbols that state: “He escapes place of death.”
Many of the characters said that if the Monster left the Island, it would bring about the end of the world. If you accept this premise, that the smoke monster is Satan, it seems that the Island was either a test or a prison set up by God to see if anyone could defeat the Smoke Monster or keep him at bay. That is why the smoke monster had to be killed in “human form” in order to be defeated. But we never truly know if Flocke “died” a traditional death during that fall, or whether his demise merely “resealed” him in the pit under the Light Cave to start the whole prison situation over again. The reward for those who could defeat Satan, or re-seal him in his prison cave, would reach Heaven/Nirvana/Paradise.
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 33-36 (Days 48-53 )
After Shannon being shot, Ana panics, putting everyone's safety in danger. Meanwhile, Eko takes Sawyer to with him to find Jack. Thus, the current survivors of Flight 815 are united for the first time.
Kate begins to believe that she is going mad after she sees a black horse, similar to the one in her childhood and hearing her father when speaking to Sawyer. Meanwhile, Eko shows Locke a piece of film he found in the other station, which warns not to misuse the computer terminal as it could cause another incident.
When Eko learns that Charlie as a Virgin Mary statue, he demands that he take him to where he found it at once. Elsewhere, Michael defies the orientation rules and continues to communicate on the computer without the other survivors knowing.
Jack is faced with a decision when a gun-toting Michael leaves to find his son. Jack gets Locke and Sawyer to help bring back Michael before he is killed by the Others. He tells Kate to stay at the Swan to push the button, but at an encounter with the Others, Kate disobeyed Jack and she is captured hostage.
Science:
Delusions. A symptom of a mental disorder, a delusion is the belief in something that rationally is not present. When Kate sees something from her childhood in the jungle, this is like Jack seeing his dead father. It should not exist on the Island, but in their minds it is clear as day.
Medical literature defines delusions as an unshakable belief in something untrue. These irrational beliefs defy normal reasoning, and remain firm even when overwhelming proof is presented to dispute them. Delusions are often accompanied by hallucinations and/or feelings of paranoia, which act to strengthen confidence in the delusion.
Hallucinations are are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions. These sensory impressions are generated by the mind rather than by any external stimuli, and may be seen, heard, felt, and even smelled or tasted. Delusions are distinct from culturally or religiously based beliefs that may be seen as untrue by outsiders.
The survivors continue to manifest signs of mental disorders as the days pass on the island. Whether these delusions or hallucinations are from pre-existing disorders and/or are the product of stress of being stranded on a dangerous island is up for debate. But in a literary sense, it may be a clue to support the theory that the premise of the show is a series of manifested events of a mentally deranged person(s), such as known mental patients Leonard, Hurley, Locke or Libby, or the criminal mental instability of Kate, Sawyer, or Ben, or the transference of what one wants to be to avoid reality that could explain Jack’s or other characters relationships with their fathers.
Hurley asks Jack, who is chopping wood like Sawyer used to, if he was “transference” with Sawyer. Jack asked him if he was making a medical diagnosis. In medical terms, transference means the displacement of affect from one person or one idea to another; in psychoanalysis, generally applied to the projection of feelings, thoughts, and wishes onto the analyst, who has come to represent some person from the patient's past. In a world being re-created from the memories, night mares and phobias of a few characters, transference could mean the elaborate fiction of the island as a means of one or a few coping with their psychotic minds (like last week’s theory of Leonard Sims).
Improbabilities:
Kate’s entire criminal back story is so fraught with errors it makes the whole story arc
unbelievable and unreal. First, if she was charged with murder in Iowa, it would be a state crime. The U.S. Marshals do not hunt down state criminals. A warrant and alert to other states is given, and if she is arrested, she does not have an arraignment but an extradition hearing to go back to Iowa for trial. But her unbelievable trial lands in LA, which is also a farce, legally and procedurally. This mess up in basic legal framework turned many Lost observers against TPTB.
The idea that the Hatch is now open, and it is roomy with showers, fresh water, food and security, why are the survivors still camping on the beach? It makes no sense when they know that there are people who have attacked them. Especially Claire, who had herself kidnapped and Charlie tortured - - - why would they stay in the open on the beach when the safety of the Hatch is available?
Mysteries:
Why some people with fatal wounds, like Sawyer live, while other characters, like Shannon, “die.” Yes, there were different wounds, but Sawyer went into septic shock for days without treatment. Later, Sayid would be shot in the time travel incident.
How does Walt get access to a computer terminal and re-connect with Michael? Or is it a ruse to make Michael react and run off into the jungle on the war path to find Walt?
What do the others want with the children, especially Walt?
Why the smoke monster “scanned” Eko instead of killing him?
Themes:
Religion.
One Episode is entitled “The 23rd Psalm.”
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
For some Lost fans, this is the map for the show’s foundation. Jack lying down in the green jungle after the crash, being led to leadership over his new flock, to Devine intervention of finding life giving fresh water in the caves, to restore their “souls.” Jack’s trip to the Black Rock and the Dark Territory, and the foreboding conflicts with the Others is in the shadow of death with his enemies, to be resolved in Jack’s case by his goodness and mercy that frees him to move on in the next life. In the End, the characters do end up in a church, the house of the lord, dead - - - awaiting an after life journey.
Clues:
The Island is a mish-mash of culture and technology from past eras. Each group of castaways brought to the island, brings with them collective memories that Jacob and the Island use to re-create elements as illusions, visions, structures or delusions. When the 815ers arrive at the Island, they are put into a situation where the stations appear to be 1980 technology, some 20 years removed from their present day. Which shows the isolation, the “bubble” as Desmond will call it, of the Island realm.
The 23rd Psalm. Jack Shepard is the center of the survivors hope. He is the provider of life (medical training, finding the caves and fresh water, and inspiring the group). The psalm may be a metaphor for the Island itself: the fore-hell of their personal existences. The green pastures are the Island jungle and groves. The still waters are the caves. The valley of the shadow of death is the Dark Territory, the evil that lurks in the smoke monsters. Once you do not fear the evil, you will be awakened to the next realm, heaven.
Locke is working on a crossword puzzle when Eko arrives with Sawyer. 42 down clue is “Enkidu's friend.” Enkidu was formed from clay and saliva by Aruru, the goddess of creation, to rid Gilgamesh of his arrogance. In the story he is a wild man, raised by animals and ignorant of human society until he is bedded by Shambat. Thereafter a series of interactions with humans and human ways bring him closer to civilization, culminating in a wrestling match with Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Enkidu embodies the wild or natural world, and though equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, acts in some ways as an antithesis to the cultured, urban-bred warrior-king. Enkidu then becomes the king's constant companion and deeply beloved friend, accompanying him on adventures until he is stricken ill. The deep, tragic loss of Enkidu profoundly inspires in Gilgamesh a quest to escape death by obtaining godly immortality.
Discussion:
“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured, or well-bred, is merely a popinjay.” —Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
A “popinjay” a vain or conceited person. Many Lost fan-critics felt that the creators and writers let them down by dishing up story lines with science fiction elements that were never explained or led to mere arc dead ends. The idea of creating a mystery and not solving it on purpose let a bitter taste in some fans. Continuity and consistent canon was something that is lacking, even in the little character traits like with Locke.
There is an odd change with Locke. Outside, in the jungle, he has the wry smile of an all-knowing super hunter (which we have inferred in previous articles that he may already be Flocke/MIB). But once he is inside the hatch, Locke’s personality and character changes. He is no longer the forceful outback survivalist. He is more comfortable as an office computer jockey.
There is also a mirror story line present in these episodes. In Kate’s case, her father tells her “he does not have murder in his heart” in regard to Wayne, her step father. It infers that Kate does when she blows up the house. In Ana’s case, the person who shot her and killed her unborn child, is released because she refuses to ID him. She uses his release to stalk and hunt him down to kill him. In Ana’s case, it was revenge against the criminal who killed her baby and ruined her personal life. In Kate’s case, her motive was to “save” her mother from an abusive relationship. Which is worse? For in Ana’s case, she will not survive the island or join the 815ers in the afterlife. But for Kate, she finds happiness in the End with Jack.
The great unsolved mystery of Lost continues to be “what is the smoke monster?” In the 23rd Psalm episode, the smoke monster appears to Charlie and Eko. Charlie screams “run!” But Eko holds his ground and literally stares down Smokey. In this encounter, we hear growling and mechanical sounds, flashes of light and screens as if the smoke monster is “scanning” Eko. Then Smokey quickly leaves. When Charlie asks why Eko did not run, Eko replied “he was not afraid.” Is that the simple emotive state that keeps Smokey at bay? That is doubtful.
But this encounter led to many theories of what was the smoke monster. There was one group that believed the smoke monster was an evil spirit, in essence, a wild animal reaper of human souls. Another group believed that the smoke monster was a mechanical machine, made possibly of nano-technology robots that swarm. And as a machine, it was programmed or created to gather information about human beings. Another group believed that the smoke monster was a fantasy beast which was the “security system” or guard dog of the island. Another group who believed that this was not a physical monster at all, but in the context of a mental patient being treated by electro-shock and other stimuli devices, Smokey’s appearance is the manifestation of negative emotions in a patient’s mind.
The great story line “holes” through the entire series still bothers fans to this day. It is not enough to have fans “figure things out on their own” when the writers are supposedly carving out an epic mystery tale, where in the End no one knows for sure what the last 6 years was all about. Just answering the simple question of what is the smoke monster (alien, super nano-machine, evil spirit, Satan) would greatly explain the other gaps, including the Big Premise of the series. Without such context, the ending of the series still remains a hollow exercise in trying to figure things out.
In the last of these episodes, we find that Michael is going nuts over finding Walt. He has knocked out Locke in the armory so he can get a gun and go find Walt. Michael locks Jack and Locke up even though Jack offers to him. By doing so, Michael is endangering the Hatch station since no one is around to put in the Numbers. Michael claims he must get Walt back by himself, it is his right as a father.
When Kate takes Sawyer to the Hatch for medical treatment, they find their locked in friends. Jack and Locke will go to bring back Michael, and the still healing Sawyer (in a moment of bravado) joins them. Kate wants to come too, but Jack orders her to stay at the computer.
During the hunt for Michael, couples begin to fray: Jack and Kate tiff, and at the beach Jin wants to join the party, but Sun says no.
During the jungle trek, Locke remarks that they may not have the “right” to tell anyone what they can or cannot do. They debate the statement. Later, Locke says he knows Sawyer’s real name is James Ford (how did he know that? Who told him? Or did he “scan” the information?) After they hear several gunshots, they rush to the area to find just bullet casings. Jack asks Sawyer if he is out in the field to help Michael, or to get revenge on the Others for shooting him (a mirror story line to Ana’s hunting down her shooter in her flashback).
“Mr. Friendly” from the raft appears that night, knowing all their names. Sawyer attempts to fire at him, but a bullet from the jungle grazes his ear. He says Michael will never find them and that Walt is fine, and that he is “special.” He also scolds the survivors for going into someone’s else’s place, eating food that is not theirs, and having no business “opening doors.” When the survivors challenge Mr. Friendly, he yells “light em up,” and Jack’s crew is suddenly surrounded by Others. They are warned by the Other’s commander that there is a line in the jungle that they cannot cross (similar to the “truce” with Dharma?) which they must accept because the Others “let them” live on their Island. To prove the point, the Others bring out hostage Kate. Jack is enraged; he hesitates about turning over their guns, but relents. Kate is freed and the Others disappear into the jungle.
Once Jack gets back to the beach, the healer himself “turns commando” and asks Ana what it would take to raise an army. The first face to face encounter with the Others immediately changes Jack into warrior mode. It may be his anger for Kate’s action of disobeying him being channeled against the Others who have told him “what to do” which he disagrees with; Jack vows to himself to get Michael and Walt back from the Others, truce or no truce. Jack in a way has turned into Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, now acting like a cultured, urban-bred warrior-king. Jack needs to find his own Enkidu, a person who embodies the wild or natural world, and equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing (which may be Kate in The End.)
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Kate’s Black horse from her past shows up on the island. The last time, it is also seen by weak Sawyer. Kate actually goes over an touches the horse before it moves off into the jungle.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 33:
[Kate with Sawyer who is shivering.]
KATE: Hey! Hey, can you hear me? You're going to be okay. You're going to be alright. You're home.
EP 34:
MONITOR: Dad?
[Michael stares at the monitor and begins to mouth the word "Walt".]
EP 35:
CLAIRE: Charlie, I don't want you sleeping anywhere near us, okay?! Just go.
EP 36:
JACK: How long do you think it would take to train an army?
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
The last line of the four episodes convey a clear message: change. When Kate tells Sawyer that he is “home,” that means a change from running away from his childhood revenge motivations. It is also a prequel to the flashback to 1977 and his domestication with Juliet. When the computer screen says “Dad?” to Michael’s attempts to communicate, he becomes a changed man - - - from frightened father to angry warrior. This transformation will lead to his soul being trapped on the island when his friends awaken and leave. Claire has begun to change as well, rejecting the envelope that Charlie has begun to spin on their relationship, to one more closely aligned with Locke. If Locke is really Flocke, then maybe the dark “infection” has begun to take over Claire’s spirit which in the final season leads to pure mental collapse and evil intent. And finally, Jack the Healer turns into crusader as he begins to organize an army against the Others.
The conclusion of the show harped upon a character “awakening” in the sideways world (purgatory) in order to remember the most important things in that life time. It is possible that some transformative “change” in the Island sphere is necessary in order for a person to be able to “move on” to the next level of the after life (as the group awaited in the church). Is it as simple as Locke’s crossword clue? That the characters needed a new creation in order to rid themselves of their own arrogance?
But some changes on the Island were the opposite of religious redemption; both Claire and Sayid turn ghastly evil but in the End are welcomed in the church. It may be the flash point recognition in Claire that Charlie was the only man who truly cared for him allows her to move on with him in the next world. It may be that Sayid never truly loved Nadia (she was a fiction, an obsession, a guilt trip for torturing or killing her) but did have his first true relationship with Shannon. So any religious context of redemption is pretty much nullified since change on the Island and sideways world is not redemptive of one’s sins, but a mere realization of what is personally best for each individual.
But change can also mean realization. When Kate asks herself if she is crazy, she is believing it with her vision of the black horse (which saved her from the marshal). When she tells Sayid her story, Sayid admits that he saw Walt just before Shannon was killed. He asks, “does that make me crazy?” Yes, yes it does.
For if we take the canon of Kate’s criminal story line as “true,” then we can only conclude that her flashback and off-island experiences are “false” and unreal. So this is evidence that the flashbacks may not be true, and the island time frame also unreal. And we know that the future sideways world is also not real, but a purgatory like waiting room for the characters to awaken. So one can conclude that all three time periods are false, in the sense that the events in each is not believable.
Now with the clues that many of the characters believe that they are crazy, a theory could arise that this the real truth of the series. Like the Leonard Sims theory that this is all about his Numbers psychosis, each of the characters could have deep seeded issues and each story arc (flashback, island time and sideways world) are merely levels of group therapy to work out their issues in an interactive mental fantasy land. (Even The Simpsons have used this genre several times by hooking up the brains of the family and throwing them into bizarre adventures).
Transference or projection of personality traits is an element of child’s play. Little kids grow up playing combat, cowboys and indians, hide ‘n seek in their yards with their friends. The same could be true for the Lost characters. Example, we have been shown that Jack is a medical doctor, but if the flashback world is not real, then it is a young Jack transferring his father’s medical talent on himself in his own make believe world.
If Lost can be explained as a massive, multi-level group therapy session from a third person view point, what is the end point? Does each character need to prove something to himself or herself? Do they have to work out relationship issues, fears, phobias or self loathing in order to get better? To free themselves of the therapy loop of being trapped inside’s one’s own mental games? It is an interesting and feasible premise.
The key to Lost could be summed up in the unsolved mystery of the Smoke Monster.
One theory is that the smoke monster is imprisoned on the Island, which is Hell. When MIB was thrown into the Light Cave, he was still alive. He was dead in the stream not by the light, but by unsealing the cork like Desmond did. But in his case, the cork released the evil spirit which killed Jacob’s brother, stealing his form and mental thoughts. The Smoke Monster, as a evil spirit, was able to take the form of the dead and chose to take the form of MIB because he knew it would help him. By pretending to be MIB, he could get in close with Jacob. (He later says that he took the form of Locke because it would help him get in close with Jacob.) But one would think that Jacob would know the difference between his brother and the smoke monster pretending to be his brother. For if Jacob was immortal, why was not his brother? Or is only the smoke monster immortal?
If the Smoke Monster is evil incarnate and came from Hell, then the Island’s defenses have been arranged to keep this Evil at bay. The whole idea of the Swan station and the Numbers is to keep an electromagnetic build up that would create another “incident.” If the numbers are not put into the computer on time, the Hatch timer turns into Egyptian symbols that state: “He escapes place of death.”
Many of the characters said that if the Monster left the Island, it would bring about the end of the world. If you accept this premise, that the smoke monster is Satan, it seems that the Island was either a test or a prison set up by God to see if anyone could defeat the Smoke Monster or keep him at bay. That is why the smoke monster had to be killed in “human form” in order to be defeated. But we never truly know if Flocke “died” a traditional death during that fall, or whether his demise merely “resealed” him in the pit under the Light Cave to start the whole prison situation over again. The reward for those who could defeat Satan, or re-seal him in his prison cave, would reach Heaven/Nirvana/Paradise.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
REBOOT: EPISODES 29-32
LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 29-32 (Days 47-48)
Hurley worries that his new job will make him the most unpopular person in camp. Sawyer, Jin and Michael learn that their captors are actually survivors from the tail section of the plane. Claire finds the message bottle from the raft, making her and Sun fear the worst. Sayid’s exploration of the Hatch raises suspicions.
The Tail Survivors trek back to the Island’s South Beaches but encounter trouble as Michael breaks off by himself to find his son, Walt. Meanwhile, at the main camp, Sun is heartbroken as she realizes that she has lost her wedding ring.
When Shannon sees Walt in her tent, she becomes convinced that he needs her help. Meanwhile, Sawyer’s bullet wound starts to become infected, prompting the tail-section group to pick up their pace, and risk cutting across the jungle where the Others attacked the Tailies before. Michael, Jin, Sawyer and Ana Lucia’s group journey towards the 815 camp. Shannon sees Walt and she is shot and dies in the arms of Sayid.
In “The Other 48 Days,” the story of the tail section survivors, from the moment of the crash to the "present day" on the Island is reviewed. Ana Lucia, realizing that she survived a plane crash, becomes the de facto leader of an eclectic group of survivors. However, the newly formed community is put through extreme stress as they become targeted in attacks by other people living on the Island.
Science:
Clinical psychology. Libby lies to at least two people about her background while at the Tail section camp. She said she was a clinical psychologist, and later a drop out psychology student. She was neither in the flashbacks, but a mental patient with Hurley.
Although modern, scientific psychology is often dated at the 1879 opening of the first psychological laboratory, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before. The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical and/or medical perspectives. In the early 19th century, one could have his or her head examined, literally, using phrenology, the study of personality by the shape of the skull. Other popular treatments included the study of the shape of the face—and mesmerism, a treatment by the use of magnets. Spiritualism and "mental healing" were also popular.
By the second half of the 1800s, the scientific study of psychology was becoming well-established in university laboratories. Although there were a few scattered voices calling for an applied psychology, the general field looked down upon this idea and insisted on "pure" science as the only respectable practice. This changed when Lightner Witmer treated a young boy who had trouble with spelling. His successful treatment was soon to lead to Witmer's opening of the first psychological clinic at Penn in 1896, dedicated to helping children with learning disabilities. Ten years later in 1907, Witmer was to found the first journal of this new field, The Psychological Clinic, where he coined the term "clinical psychology," defined as "the study of individuals, by observation or experimentation, with the intention of promoting change.”
The island itself is intentionally trying to promote change in the characters by pushing them toward events and mysteries to solve. The connection with the electromagnetic energy of the island, the experimental stations and the perception that the survivors are being “observed” by the Others, are all classic elements of clinical psychology.
Improbabilities:
Sawyer surviving septic shock from infected gunshot wound in the jungle with no antibiotics or treatment for days.
Mysteries:
The “Other” Others. When Eko and Jin hide in the underbrush when a party of 12 “natives” crosses their path while searching for Michael, the rag cloth and barefoot Others included children, with the last one dragging along 815 survivor Emma’s teddy bear. There has been a debate of whether these people were part of Ben’s group or a splinter group since they were patrolling part of the island far away from the safety of the Barracks.
Cindy the Flight Attendant. Was she an Other on the plane, or was she taken hostage then brainwashed or infected to become an Other? She appeared to be genuinely happy when Bernard found the radio (means of rescue). And if she was a pre-crash Other, why did Ben said Goodwin as a spy? Why did she lie when she said Nathan was not on the plane, when he was? Was Cindy the one who created “the list?” For several seasons, fans then questioned where was Cindy and the captured children?!
Themes:
Crazy. Several mentions in these episodes of characters saying they are not “crazy.” But in flashbacks, we know several were crazy, including Hurley and Libby.
Change. “Change is good,” says Island Locke. But in his past life, change and acceptance was extremely hard for Locke.
Mirror universe. The Tail Section story line is a mirror image of the 815 story line (which some fans believed was the beginning of major filler episodes). Ana and Nathan’s power struggle is like Jack and Locke. Goodwin and Nathan as being spies in the camps.
Clues:
Apollo candy bars are a talismans of the Island magic. an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune or something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects.
Some characters showing ESP traits like Rose knowing Bernard is safe and alright. It may foreshadow the TPTB concept of “mental time travel” where a person’s mind, like Desmond’s, sees the future which affects his decisions in the present.
Ana tells Eko that there is “no survivors - - - this is our life, get used to it!”
Visions. Shannon sees “ghost” Walt numerous times, which she interprets as a warning of impeding danger, but in her end runs toward the danger.
When Kate takes a shower, she says the water had sulfur in it. Sulfur has been equated to the fire and brimstone symbolism of hell.
Discussion:
“Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.”
-- Thomas Fuller
Every main character on Lost was running away from something in their flashback past life. How characters faced adversity in the past was by quitting, as in the backstories of Hurley at Mr. Cluck’s or Jin as the doorman. Negative reinforcement brings about negative results as part of self-loathing by a person.
The hard lesson to be learned by these individuals that change can be good, as Island Locke told Claire. If one separates flashbacks as its own life cycle realm, the island as its own life cycle realm, and the flash forward/sideways world (purgatory) as its own life cycle realm, one can see that the character’s inability to meet their fears in their flashback lives is being re-created on the island to see if the character can change. In Shannon’s example, when her father was killed in a car crash, she was left alone and felt worthless. On the island, after Boone is killed, she is left alone and feels worthless until Sayid makes a connection with her and she helps the survivors with the radio message. But when on the island she accepts the change of being Sayid, she is killed. It appears in the island time, once you answer your fear, you die - - - game over. In Sayid’s case, when Shannon is killed, his revenge and anger from his flashback life are amplified against Ana.
The Sayid-Nadia relationship was the hardest thing most fans had to deal with when in The End, Sayid wound up with Shannon in the after life. In reviewing the reruns, and separating each time as a separate existence, we can see why Sayid winds up with Shannon. In the first time period, Sayid as a boy has no real connection with Nadia, as she is in a higher class family. Sayid as an adult had no feelings for Nadia when she is captured and tortured, it is more a Nadia crush on him (or manipulation for freedom). So when Sayid is searching for Nadia in the Island time period, it is guilt not affection. In the sideways world, the past lives are re-created in purgatory as a “holding” life until the characters are “awakened” to the knowledge of their Island lives. In the sideways world, Sayid still does not have Nadia; he is on the outside looking in. But when he is awakened, he realizes the only woman he physically loved was Shannon, and that is the connection that allows both of them to move on together.
The idea that elements of a person past is being re-created and re-worked from the flashback world, to the island world to the sideways world is like moving characters through a maze of levels in a computer game (one theory of the Lost premise.) Or it is the journey of a “lost” soul which needs to meet and conquer the deepest fear in order to be enlightened and “change” in order to move forward to the next life (Egyptian after life type theory). In either case, the Island is the testing ground for the mental aspect of a person’s life.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Vincent. He is Walt’s yellow Labrador Retriever. Vincent originally belonged to Brian, Walt's adoptive father. After the crash, Walt’s concern was for his dog - - a strong emotional memory. Shortly after the crash, Vincent, who had been in the luggage compartment, was searching the jungle.. Whilst doing this, he heard a whistle. It was Christian, who told the dog to go wake up his son, Jack. As Vincent ran off towards Jack to do this, Christian stated that Jack "had work to do.” Vincent then continued running until he found Jack, who had just regained consciousness. As Jack awoke, he saw Vincent running towards him through the jungle and stopping to look at Jack. Vincent then continued exploring the jungle.
Vincent has led survivors into highly emotional and dangerous situations. Vincent woke up the survivors with his barking. Michael and Walt didn't know what had caused this but it was revealed to be the boars invading the camp; they were attracted to the scent of the dead corpses in the plane.(A symbolic theme of life from death)
Whilst trekking through the jungle, Vincent detected something and started to bark. As the sound of rustling in the jungle got louder, Vincent suddenly barked madly. Walt was unable to keep hold of Vincent, and he ran away. Walt chased after him, dropping the dog’s leash in the process. When Walt got rescued by his father and Locke from a polar bear later on, Walt told Locke that Vincent had run away. However Locke assured him that he would come back, just as he did before.
Vincent was chased by Michael in the jungle yet another time, which caused Michael to find Sun burying her secret driver’s license. When Michael tried to comfort her, they nearly kissed, which would upset the Sun-Jin dynamic, but Vincent showed up barking just at that moment.
When Walt left with Michael to seek rescue on the raft, he placed Vincent in the care of Shannon so she would “not be alone.” Vincent initially tried to swim after the raft after it launched, but he shortly returned to the shore. In the following days, Vincent served as a source of comfort and distraction for Shannon, who had recently suffered the loss of her step-brother, Boone. (The Dog as nexus of point of death.)
At the caves, Vincent disappeared into the jungle, Shannon went after him saying she couldn't lose the dog, as it was the only thing that someone asked her to do. So Shannon and Sayid ventured in the jungle to look for him. They found Vincent sitting in the jungle. When they attempted to catch him, Vincent ran off, and Shannon ran after him. She then heard whispers and saw a dripping wet Walt, who disappeared when Sayid came towards her with Vincent. The question is whether Vincent is shape shifting into illusions and/or is the agent to drive characters to event points in the Island time line.
Shannon continued caring for Vincent, right up until her sudden death, which was caused by her racing in the jungle trying to find the dog. Before her second vision of Walt she fed Vincent. After Shannon saw Walt a second time, she attempted to use Vincent to track him by smelling Walt's shirt but he led her to Boone’s grave. He then led Shannon into the jungle but ran off just before her death. Later, Vincent returned to the beach to see Michael had returned and was reunited with him.
Egyptians were already burying dogs in the same way they buried humans with plenty of goods for the afterlife. In dynastic Egypt, dog mummies were made with great care and expense. At Hardai, the sacred city of the god Anubis there are sprawling dog cemeteries.When thinking of dogs as deities few come to mind as quickly as Anubis, the god of the underworld, at times is represented clearly as a dog, at other times he appears more like a jackal. Anubis was one of the most ancient of Egyptian gods closely associated with funerary rites and the afterlife. He was guide to the dead and the one who weighted the souls of the deceased against the feather of Maat (truth and order). Socrates referred to Anubis when he swore "by the Dog of Egypt."
In the End, Vincent does not leave the Island but remains by Jack’s side. If Vincent is the manifestation of an underworld entity “leading” souls through their personal journeys, it would explain the underlying premise of the show.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 29:
MICHAEL: Okay, it's okay. She's good.
[Shot of Rose putting an Apollo bar in her pocket, holding Bernard's ring and smiling.]
EP 30:
JIN: [handing Sun her bag]
In Korean: Here you are.
[Then they gaze into each other's eyes. And it's love at first sight.]
[On-Island - Sun on the beach crying and happy and scared.]
EP 31:
SAYID: Shannon! Shannon.
[Shannon turns around to reveal a wound in her gut. She collapses into Sayid's arms and dies. Then we see Ana standing there with the gun. And shocked looks on Jin and Michael's faces. Sayid looks like he has murder in his heart looking at Ana.]
EP 32:
ANA LUCIA: You think they're okay? Let's find out. Hit me.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Three realms of premise to consider: Reality-Survival. Surreality-Fantasy. Death-After Life Journey.
If total reality, as Robinson Caruso meets the Lord of the Flies action-adventure drama of surviving on a deserted island; the premise is simple: what would you do as part of the castaways?
But with references to The Numbers, curses, mysteries, and crazy mental torment, a Stephen King world of horror-fantasy could explain that the unknowing participants are test subjects in cruel human experiments to test good, evil and free will.
But with supernatural elements quickly imposed on the Island, that would change the premise dramatically. In death, if one does not let go the baggage of their past life, they can not move forward toward heaven. It is a simplistic notion of the after life is not a good vs. evil punishment place, but a place where one conquers their personal fears head on, accepts them and then changes their personality for the better. Example, Hurley. He is an introverted, overweight person who sees his life as a dead end. He must divert to fantasy because he cannot cope at times with reality. He has been institutionalized in a mental facility. But the agent of change in his flashback world is the lottery ticket. Instead of embracing the change of wealth, he hides the secret and the Numbers mean that he is cursed by endless bad luck. He goes further into a shell because he cannot cope with the thought of success. On the island, he becomes more extroverted until he is tested with the inventory of the Hatch pantry. He realizes that everyone will “hate” him as the food czar. It is this change he cannot accept. He turns a positive event into a negative reality.
An ancillary theory was developed that the whole Island was Leonard Sims’ Mental Home for imaginary friends. Leonard was a long time patient at the mental hospital where Hurley and Libby were in-patients. He had the means to observe all the other patients, and had access to other areas such as psych/prison ward. All these faces, memories, stories could be jumbled together to create a layered mental illness fantasy place nightmare that is LOST. Leonard was lost in his own mind, and kept bringing in elements from his life in the hospital into dark island setting. It is the mirror image of the ghost elements that the 815 survivors see on the island as illusions. In a reversal, the 815 characters are the illusions in Leonard’s head. And the sudden “they lived happily ever after” ending to the series in the church, is the type of child like fantasy story a mentally challenged person like Leonard could create to cope or end his nightmare.
Leonard had to have been probed by medical specialists for years. He was aware of the techniques, protocols, experiments and theories that were given to him. From the studies conducted on himself, Leonard could internally reverse those same principles to create his own fantasy world to the study of individuals he met or observed at the hospital, and put them through various journeys to see if they could “change.” For this could be the only way Leonard himself could change and end his own mental problems was to have closure for all his important imaginary friends through the use of foundational elements of clinical psychology.
POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.
Recap: Episodes 29-32 (Days 47-48)
Hurley worries that his new job will make him the most unpopular person in camp. Sawyer, Jin and Michael learn that their captors are actually survivors from the tail section of the plane. Claire finds the message bottle from the raft, making her and Sun fear the worst. Sayid’s exploration of the Hatch raises suspicions.
The Tail Survivors trek back to the Island’s South Beaches but encounter trouble as Michael breaks off by himself to find his son, Walt. Meanwhile, at the main camp, Sun is heartbroken as she realizes that she has lost her wedding ring.
When Shannon sees Walt in her tent, she becomes convinced that he needs her help. Meanwhile, Sawyer’s bullet wound starts to become infected, prompting the tail-section group to pick up their pace, and risk cutting across the jungle where the Others attacked the Tailies before. Michael, Jin, Sawyer and Ana Lucia’s group journey towards the 815 camp. Shannon sees Walt and she is shot and dies in the arms of Sayid.
In “The Other 48 Days,” the story of the tail section survivors, from the moment of the crash to the "present day" on the Island is reviewed. Ana Lucia, realizing that she survived a plane crash, becomes the de facto leader of an eclectic group of survivors. However, the newly formed community is put through extreme stress as they become targeted in attacks by other people living on the Island.
Science:
Clinical psychology. Libby lies to at least two people about her background while at the Tail section camp. She said she was a clinical psychologist, and later a drop out psychology student. She was neither in the flashbacks, but a mental patient with Hurley.
Although modern, scientific psychology is often dated at the 1879 opening of the first psychological laboratory, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before. The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical and/or medical perspectives. In the early 19th century, one could have his or her head examined, literally, using phrenology, the study of personality by the shape of the skull. Other popular treatments included the study of the shape of the face—and mesmerism, a treatment by the use of magnets. Spiritualism and "mental healing" were also popular.
By the second half of the 1800s, the scientific study of psychology was becoming well-established in university laboratories. Although there were a few scattered voices calling for an applied psychology, the general field looked down upon this idea and insisted on "pure" science as the only respectable practice. This changed when Lightner Witmer treated a young boy who had trouble with spelling. His successful treatment was soon to lead to Witmer's opening of the first psychological clinic at Penn in 1896, dedicated to helping children with learning disabilities. Ten years later in 1907, Witmer was to found the first journal of this new field, The Psychological Clinic, where he coined the term "clinical psychology," defined as "the study of individuals, by observation or experimentation, with the intention of promoting change.”
The island itself is intentionally trying to promote change in the characters by pushing them toward events and mysteries to solve. The connection with the electromagnetic energy of the island, the experimental stations and the perception that the survivors are being “observed” by the Others, are all classic elements of clinical psychology.
Improbabilities:
Sawyer surviving septic shock from infected gunshot wound in the jungle with no antibiotics or treatment for days.
Mysteries:
The “Other” Others. When Eko and Jin hide in the underbrush when a party of 12 “natives” crosses their path while searching for Michael, the rag cloth and barefoot Others included children, with the last one dragging along 815 survivor Emma’s teddy bear. There has been a debate of whether these people were part of Ben’s group or a splinter group since they were patrolling part of the island far away from the safety of the Barracks.
Cindy the Flight Attendant. Was she an Other on the plane, or was she taken hostage then brainwashed or infected to become an Other? She appeared to be genuinely happy when Bernard found the radio (means of rescue). And if she was a pre-crash Other, why did Ben said Goodwin as a spy? Why did she lie when she said Nathan was not on the plane, when he was? Was Cindy the one who created “the list?” For several seasons, fans then questioned where was Cindy and the captured children?!
Themes:
Crazy. Several mentions in these episodes of characters saying they are not “crazy.” But in flashbacks, we know several were crazy, including Hurley and Libby.
Change. “Change is good,” says Island Locke. But in his past life, change and acceptance was extremely hard for Locke.
Mirror universe. The Tail Section story line is a mirror image of the 815 story line (which some fans believed was the beginning of major filler episodes). Ana and Nathan’s power struggle is like Jack and Locke. Goodwin and Nathan as being spies in the camps.
Clues:
Apollo candy bars are a talismans of the Island magic. an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune or something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects.
Some characters showing ESP traits like Rose knowing Bernard is safe and alright. It may foreshadow the TPTB concept of “mental time travel” where a person’s mind, like Desmond’s, sees the future which affects his decisions in the present.
Ana tells Eko that there is “no survivors - - - this is our life, get used to it!”
Visions. Shannon sees “ghost” Walt numerous times, which she interprets as a warning of impeding danger, but in her end runs toward the danger.
When Kate takes a shower, she says the water had sulfur in it. Sulfur has been equated to the fire and brimstone symbolism of hell.
Discussion:
“Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.”
-- Thomas Fuller
Every main character on Lost was running away from something in their flashback past life. How characters faced adversity in the past was by quitting, as in the backstories of Hurley at Mr. Cluck’s or Jin as the doorman. Negative reinforcement brings about negative results as part of self-loathing by a person.
The hard lesson to be learned by these individuals that change can be good, as Island Locke told Claire. If one separates flashbacks as its own life cycle realm, the island as its own life cycle realm, and the flash forward/sideways world (purgatory) as its own life cycle realm, one can see that the character’s inability to meet their fears in their flashback lives is being re-created on the island to see if the character can change. In Shannon’s example, when her father was killed in a car crash, she was left alone and felt worthless. On the island, after Boone is killed, she is left alone and feels worthless until Sayid makes a connection with her and she helps the survivors with the radio message. But when on the island she accepts the change of being Sayid, she is killed. It appears in the island time, once you answer your fear, you die - - - game over. In Sayid’s case, when Shannon is killed, his revenge and anger from his flashback life are amplified against Ana.
The Sayid-Nadia relationship was the hardest thing most fans had to deal with when in The End, Sayid wound up with Shannon in the after life. In reviewing the reruns, and separating each time as a separate existence, we can see why Sayid winds up with Shannon. In the first time period, Sayid as a boy has no real connection with Nadia, as she is in a higher class family. Sayid as an adult had no feelings for Nadia when she is captured and tortured, it is more a Nadia crush on him (or manipulation for freedom). So when Sayid is searching for Nadia in the Island time period, it is guilt not affection. In the sideways world, the past lives are re-created in purgatory as a “holding” life until the characters are “awakened” to the knowledge of their Island lives. In the sideways world, Sayid still does not have Nadia; he is on the outside looking in. But when he is awakened, he realizes the only woman he physically loved was Shannon, and that is the connection that allows both of them to move on together.
The idea that elements of a person past is being re-created and re-worked from the flashback world, to the island world to the sideways world is like moving characters through a maze of levels in a computer game (one theory of the Lost premise.) Or it is the journey of a “lost” soul which needs to meet and conquer the deepest fear in order to be enlightened and “change” in order to move forward to the next life (Egyptian after life type theory). In either case, the Island is the testing ground for the mental aspect of a person’s life.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Vincent. He is Walt’s yellow Labrador Retriever. Vincent originally belonged to Brian, Walt's adoptive father. After the crash, Walt’s concern was for his dog - - a strong emotional memory. Shortly after the crash, Vincent, who had been in the luggage compartment, was searching the jungle.. Whilst doing this, he heard a whistle. It was Christian, who told the dog to go wake up his son, Jack. As Vincent ran off towards Jack to do this, Christian stated that Jack "had work to do.” Vincent then continued running until he found Jack, who had just regained consciousness. As Jack awoke, he saw Vincent running towards him through the jungle and stopping to look at Jack. Vincent then continued exploring the jungle.
Vincent has led survivors into highly emotional and dangerous situations. Vincent woke up the survivors with his barking. Michael and Walt didn't know what had caused this but it was revealed to be the boars invading the camp; they were attracted to the scent of the dead corpses in the plane.(A symbolic theme of life from death)
Whilst trekking through the jungle, Vincent detected something and started to bark. As the sound of rustling in the jungle got louder, Vincent suddenly barked madly. Walt was unable to keep hold of Vincent, and he ran away. Walt chased after him, dropping the dog’s leash in the process. When Walt got rescued by his father and Locke from a polar bear later on, Walt told Locke that Vincent had run away. However Locke assured him that he would come back, just as he did before.
Vincent was chased by Michael in the jungle yet another time, which caused Michael to find Sun burying her secret driver’s license. When Michael tried to comfort her, they nearly kissed, which would upset the Sun-Jin dynamic, but Vincent showed up barking just at that moment.
When Walt left with Michael to seek rescue on the raft, he placed Vincent in the care of Shannon so she would “not be alone.” Vincent initially tried to swim after the raft after it launched, but he shortly returned to the shore. In the following days, Vincent served as a source of comfort and distraction for Shannon, who had recently suffered the loss of her step-brother, Boone. (The Dog as nexus of point of death.)
At the caves, Vincent disappeared into the jungle, Shannon went after him saying she couldn't lose the dog, as it was the only thing that someone asked her to do. So Shannon and Sayid ventured in the jungle to look for him. They found Vincent sitting in the jungle. When they attempted to catch him, Vincent ran off, and Shannon ran after him. She then heard whispers and saw a dripping wet Walt, who disappeared when Sayid came towards her with Vincent. The question is whether Vincent is shape shifting into illusions and/or is the agent to drive characters to event points in the Island time line.
Shannon continued caring for Vincent, right up until her sudden death, which was caused by her racing in the jungle trying to find the dog. Before her second vision of Walt she fed Vincent. After Shannon saw Walt a second time, she attempted to use Vincent to track him by smelling Walt's shirt but he led her to Boone’s grave. He then led Shannon into the jungle but ran off just before her death. Later, Vincent returned to the beach to see Michael had returned and was reunited with him.
Egyptians were already burying dogs in the same way they buried humans with plenty of goods for the afterlife. In dynastic Egypt, dog mummies were made with great care and expense. At Hardai, the sacred city of the god Anubis there are sprawling dog cemeteries.When thinking of dogs as deities few come to mind as quickly as Anubis, the god of the underworld, at times is represented clearly as a dog, at other times he appears more like a jackal. Anubis was one of the most ancient of Egyptian gods closely associated with funerary rites and the afterlife. He was guide to the dead and the one who weighted the souls of the deceased against the feather of Maat (truth and order). Socrates referred to Anubis when he swore "by the Dog of Egypt."
In the End, Vincent does not leave the Island but remains by Jack’s side. If Vincent is the manifestation of an underworld entity “leading” souls through their personal journeys, it would explain the underlying premise of the show.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 29:
MICHAEL: Okay, it's okay. She's good.
[Shot of Rose putting an Apollo bar in her pocket, holding Bernard's ring and smiling.]
EP 30:
JIN: [handing Sun her bag]
In Korean: Here you are.
[Then they gaze into each other's eyes. And it's love at first sight.]
[On-Island - Sun on the beach crying and happy and scared.]
EP 31:
SAYID: Shannon! Shannon.
[Shannon turns around to reveal a wound in her gut. She collapses into Sayid's arms and dies. Then we see Ana standing there with the gun. And shocked looks on Jin and Michael's faces. Sayid looks like he has murder in his heart looking at Ana.]
EP 32:
ANA LUCIA: You think they're okay? Let's find out. Hit me.
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
Three realms of premise to consider: Reality-Survival. Surreality-Fantasy. Death-After Life Journey.
If total reality, as Robinson Caruso meets the Lord of the Flies action-adventure drama of surviving on a deserted island; the premise is simple: what would you do as part of the castaways?
But with references to The Numbers, curses, mysteries, and crazy mental torment, a Stephen King world of horror-fantasy could explain that the unknowing participants are test subjects in cruel human experiments to test good, evil and free will.
But with supernatural elements quickly imposed on the Island, that would change the premise dramatically. In death, if one does not let go the baggage of their past life, they can not move forward toward heaven. It is a simplistic notion of the after life is not a good vs. evil punishment place, but a place where one conquers their personal fears head on, accepts them and then changes their personality for the better. Example, Hurley. He is an introverted, overweight person who sees his life as a dead end. He must divert to fantasy because he cannot cope at times with reality. He has been institutionalized in a mental facility. But the agent of change in his flashback world is the lottery ticket. Instead of embracing the change of wealth, he hides the secret and the Numbers mean that he is cursed by endless bad luck. He goes further into a shell because he cannot cope with the thought of success. On the island, he becomes more extroverted until he is tested with the inventory of the Hatch pantry. He realizes that everyone will “hate” him as the food czar. It is this change he cannot accept. He turns a positive event into a negative reality.
An ancillary theory was developed that the whole Island was Leonard Sims’ Mental Home for imaginary friends. Leonard was a long time patient at the mental hospital where Hurley and Libby were in-patients. He had the means to observe all the other patients, and had access to other areas such as psych/prison ward. All these faces, memories, stories could be jumbled together to create a layered mental illness fantasy place nightmare that is LOST. Leonard was lost in his own mind, and kept bringing in elements from his life in the hospital into dark island setting. It is the mirror image of the ghost elements that the 815 survivors see on the island as illusions. In a reversal, the 815 characters are the illusions in Leonard’s head. And the sudden “they lived happily ever after” ending to the series in the church, is the type of child like fantasy story a mentally challenged person like Leonard could create to cope or end his nightmare.
Leonard had to have been probed by medical specialists for years. He was aware of the techniques, protocols, experiments and theories that were given to him. From the studies conducted on himself, Leonard could internally reverse those same principles to create his own fantasy world to the study of individuals he met or observed at the hospital, and put them through various journeys to see if they could “change.” For this could be the only way Leonard himself could change and end his own mental problems was to have closure for all his important imaginary friends through the use of foundational elements of clinical psychology.
POSTING NOTE: Due to work changes, I may not be able to post updates on Tuesdays after Monday night marathon G4 reruns, but updates will occur later in the week.
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