LOST REBOOT
Recap: Episodes 49-52 (Days 67-69)
The second season begins to wind down with the build up of the confrontation with the Others.
Michael reveals secrets about the Others' camp to the survivors; Hurley and Libby plan their first date. When Ana is attacked by Ben, she begins to contemplate taking matters into her own hands. Meanwhile, Michael is reunited with his friends and tells them he wants to go back for Walt, which Ben said the Others would never give up. Michael takes matters into his own hands, and as a result he shoots Ana and Libby.
After Eko experiences unusual dreams, he asks Locke to take him to the “?” from the blast door map. They go out and find the Pearl Station. Michael must maintain his cool as he watches Libby die slowly. In the Hatch, the rest of the survivors must come to terms with what just transpired and try to ease the suffering of a mortally wounded Libby.
As the survivors mourn the losses Ana and Libby, Michael continues to badger the 815ers to launch a rescue mission for Walt, an assault against the Others who are to blame for their current situation. Michael convinces Hurley, Jack, Kate and Sawyer to ambush the Others.
Events come to a head as Michael leads his friends across the Island to confront the Others. Meanwhile, Desmond returns to the Island on his sailboat, and he and Locke make a decision to see what happens if the Hatch countdown timer goes beyond zero.
Michael’s ambush party is captured by the Others; Sayid, Jin and Sun use Desmond’s boat to counterattack and to meet up Jack's crew. Locke and Desmond confront Eko, who wants to continue to press the Hatch button.
Season 3 begins with Jack in a holding cell, an aquarium at the Dharma Hydra station. The interrogation of Sawyer and Kate take different tacks: Sawyer is caged and treated harshly by Tom (Mr. Friendly) while Kate is given beach breakfast with Ben, who then tells her the rest of her stay would be harsh. All three prisoners have had blood drawn and/or something injected into their arms.
We also see the “crash” of Flight 815 from the vantage point of the center of the Island barracks where the Others have a bucolic campus. Once the crash occurs, Ben orders Goodwin to run an hour away to the tail section; and Ethan to become a survivor in the front section of the plane. He wants “lists” in 3 days.
Sawyer and Kate are put to work by boss Danny Pickett in clearing the jungle of rocks, which we will later learn is for a runway. Sawyer “tests” his guards by kissing Kate to gather information on who is strong and who is weak. At the same time, the Others are testing Sawyer and Kate, first with the polar bear biscuit food cage puzzle, and their escape plans (as Ben is sitting in a monitoring station observing them).
Sayid’s rescue/ambush plan fails, as the Others board the sailboat while Jin and Sayid wait in the shadows of the beach fire. The boarding party finds Sun with a gun; Colleen tells Sun that she won’t shoot, because she is not a killer. But we know from a flashback that Sun is a killer, cleaning up her own mess with her tutor, when Jin could not follow her father’s instructions. Sun shoots Colleen in the stomach; more gun fire erupts and the sailboat leaves the dock. Jin rushes out into the water to find Sun in the darkness.
Locke also has to “clean up his own mess” when he is physically jolted by ghost Boone in the sweat lodge, built inside of Eko’s church frame. Boone tells him that he needs to save someone. It turns out to be Eko from a polar bear that has dragged him into a deep cave. Locke continues to see and hear visions.
Desmond, after the implosion, begins to see mental “flash forwards” including Locke’s rescue speech to the other camp members after returning with injured Eko. Other campers are upset that Hurley did not tell them
Science:
Entropy.
1. thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. (Symbol: S )
2. lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder: a marketplace where entropy reigns supreme.
3. (in information theory) a logarithmic measure of the rate of transfer of information in a particular message or language.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent., Greek roots for “transformation.”
Improbabilities:
Kelvin Inman, the American soldier in Iraq with Sayid, is now pushing button in Hatch with Desmond.
Charlie and Eko surviving without burns the dynamite fireball in the Hatch hallway. Also, Charlie, Eko, Locke and Desmond surviving a massive explosion-implosion of the Hatch which threw a large solid steel hatch cover (which took two men to open) more than a mile in the air to the beach camp.
Mysteries:
What did the fail safe key really do? Did it lock or imprison an evil spirit? Did it move the island out of its protective snow globe shell? Or did it do nothing of importance (mental nightmare)?
How did Penelope’s Russian men in the Arctic “find” Desmond after the Hatch explosion/implosion?
How can Ben and the Others leave the Island, and Desmond in his boat could not?
And if Ben can leave the island (by boat or submarine), why is he building a runway?
How did Ben not know about Desmond’s sailboat? Does it also mean that Ben did not know about Desmond being on the Island?
Themes:
Life and Death. There is a fine line between life and death. To what ends will a father do to save the life of his son? Is it rational for Michael to murder two people under the anger that his group is not helping him enough to find his son? At this point in the story, it is the plane survivors who act more like savages - - - killing three others and a few of their own people by gross negligence. But later on, we will be told that pales in comparison with Ben’s purge of Dharma.
Being “Sorry.” The characters are continually telling people they are sorry for some action, but in most cases the ask of forgiveness is hollow. At times, lies continue to cover up repentance for their past actions.
Mirrors. Events continue to mirror other events in different character story lines. The repetitive nature of the tests of the Island invokes a series of game play levels.
Clues:
When Desmond returns on his sailboat, which floated back to the Island, he states "we are stuck in a bloody snow globe! There's no outside world, there's no escape." Desmond finally asks Jack if they are "still pushing" to which Jack replies with a smile, "Yeah, we're still pushing it."
Again, Desmond tells Locke this time, “see you in another life” just before he turns the failsafe key.
Eko makes the sign of the cross before lighting off the dynamite to get back into the Hatch; Desmond makes the sign of the cross before turning the fail safe key.
Ben tells Michael to say at a 325 compass bearing to get “home.” That is the only way to get through the “snow globe” of the Island realm.
Discussion:
The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret --- that man is back at heart: mark and avoid him. - - - Cicero
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing . . . It takes something from the world, and has something to give in return. - - - Sarah Orne Jewett
As the second season winds down, there was a huge event that should have answered several burning questions about the Island and the Hatch. When Desmond returns, he makes the decision to “save them all,” and explodes the Hatch. In doing so, his “reality” does not change, again. When he says to Locke before inserting the failsafe key, we hear for the third time in the series “see you in another life.” This infers that the characters are never going back to their old life; that there is no escape from the Island; and that the Island is another realm.
The failure to explain, even in a science fiction way, begins the slow decline of the of the story line continuity and mysteries. A formula will emerge in the next seasons of adding characters as red shirts, to be killed off in an unexplained conflict with the Others, who are in an unexplained conflict with Widmore, over control of the Island which no one knows what it is or its purpose.
The vague explanation of the Hatch and its purpose is that there is a “unique” electromagnetic property under the Island that was uncovered during the drilling of the Hatch “the Incident,” and as a result the Hatch was constructed over the anomaly in order to discharge the EM build up to avoid another incident, which is earthquake shaking magnetic pulls toward the underground station walls.
From lostpedia, the pivotal event of season 2:
[Back in the Hatch Desmond opens his Dickens book and finds the failsafe key. We see the timer at 29 seconds. Desmond rushes to open the grate and get to the failsafe.]
DESMOND: 3 days before you came down here, before we met, I heard a banging on the Hatch door, shouting. But it was you, John, wasn't it? You said there isn't any purpose—there's no such thing as fate. But you saved my life, brother, so that I could save yours.
LOCKE: No, no, no, none of this is real! Nothing is going to happen. We're going to be okay.
[We see 5 seconds left on the timer.]
DESMOND: I've got to go. And you've got to get as far away from here as possible.
LOCKE: Go where?! Stop!
DESMOND: I'm going to blow the dam, John. [the timer starts flipping to the hieroglyphs] I'm sorry for whatever happened that made you stop believing. But it's all real. Now I've got to go and make it all go away.
LOCKE: Wait, Desmond.
DESMOND: I'll see you in another life, brother.
[We see the last hieroglyph lock in place. The loudspeaker starts announcing System Failure over and over. Everything starts shaking. We see Charlie trying to help Eko.]
CHARLIE: Eko! Eko! Wake up! Can you move? Okay, come on.
[Knives and forks start flying toward the magnet wall, with Charlie and Eko in their path. Everything metal in the place starts flying toward the magnet wall. Charlie helps Eko walk. Desmond makes it to the failsafe mechanism.]
CHARLIE: Eko, on your feet.
EKO: Charlie.
CHARLIE: No.
[Eko pushes Charlie away and knocks him to the ground. Eko heads back toward the computer room. The washing machine comes barreling toward Charlie as he rolls out of the way.]
EKO: John!
LOCKE: I was wrong.
[We see Desmond cross himself and insert the key. We hear Penelope as a VO, reading again.]
PENELOPE: All we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Always. I love you.
DESMOND: [turning the key] I love you, Penny.
[The screen fades to white.]
This event transforms the series. Desmond now becomes a center piece character, the wild card in a suddenly wild place. The Island survives a massive release of energy which apparently destroys matter but leaves the humans unharmed. How is that possible? Clearly, it is not. It is direct evidence that the characters are not human beings in the sense of being of blood and breathing carbon.
There may be an ode to the science of Entropy, but in a literary sense. The Hatch’s EM properties is a “magic wand” to represent supernatural change in the characters, a conversion from their past problems, motives and fears toward new “work” to rehabilitate their souls. The Hatch explosion also marks the lack of peace on the Island, and the slow decline of disorder in the bitter struggle between the survivors and the Others. The transformation, including the accelerating use of personal information against people, is new dynamic at play.
This massive white light experience will come back two more times in the series. The next is the Juliet time travel “falling down the well” moment of smashing a rock against an atomic weapon to allegedly re-boot them back to their own time period. The last time we see the white light is at the end of the church ceremony, when Christian opens the back doors and the room is filled with white light as peace comes over the characters expressions.
The other element of these episodes is Michael’s dissent into his personal hell. His incompetence as a father transforms him into an incompetent killer. He compounds his mistakes by blaming Ben for the shootings, and covers up the truth while his friends watch innocent Libby die. As a result of his misguided love for his son, Michael will forever chain his soul to the Island seeking answers to his misery, as a trapped whisper in the jungle, which in some respects is his purgatory.
The capture of Jack, Sawyer and Kate along with the absence of Sayid leaves the beach camp “leaderless” until Locke comes to tell them that he would get their friends back from the Others, and that he will come up with a plan. It is another transformation that Locke is taking a leadership role from his past as a follower. This time it appears that many of the castaways will follow his lead in this time of crisis.
Some consider the end of the Season 2, “Live Together Die Alone,” to be the climax of the first two seasons on the mysterious island. Beginning with Season 3, the quick descent into filler arcs and mad quests against “frenemies” is maddening to critics. The series “jumped the shark” for a few viewers with the introduction of Nikki and Paulo at the end of Season 3 Episode 3. In order to keep up the level of “drama,” more red shirts were required to fill time.
Michael's escape from the island is problematic as well. When Ben tells him to go NNW at a compass bearing of 325, a map of the Pacific Ocean west of Fiji shows that the boat would be headed into open ocean and not toward any close land mass.
Magical/Supernatural/Elements:
Desmond turning the “fail safe” key and the Hatch first exploding (with a solid steel door landing near the beach more than a mile away, and shaking the other side of the Island) then imploding into a large crater.
Locke returns to his commune past to build a sweat lodge to “talk” to the Island to find out what he needs to do now. The Island speaks through Boone, who is dead, who tells John that someone (Eko) is in danger and needs his immediate help.
Last lines in episodes:
EP 49:
MAN #1: It's us. I think we found it.
EP 50:
JULIET: Thank you, Ben.
EP 51:
BEN: That's home, Jack. Right there, on the other side of that glass. And if you listen to me -- if you trust me -- if you do what I tell you when the time comes -- I'll take you there. I will take you home.
EP 52:
CHARLIE: [looking at Desmond and back at Hurley] Okay. Well, when that wears off can you get bandages from the kitchen?
[Hurley continues staring as Desmond. The last shot we see is of Desmond looking out to sea -- worried and slightly crazed.]
New Ideas/Tests of Theories:
What does it mean to SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE?
The Hatch explosion/implosion should have killed a human being inside the blast crater. If one assumes that the 200 pound Hatch door was blown one mile to the beach camp in a minute (landing next to Claire and Bernard), the force needed to throw that door would be at least 17,600 foot pounds of force. A human neck can only withstand blunt force of 140 pounds. A human skull can withstand 1600-1900 pounds.
There are three ways in which to try to reconcile the Hatch explosion/implosion and the affect on the characters. One, the events on the island are wholly fantasy, with no relation to Earth physics or human endurance.
The inconsistency with how the implosion affected people inside the Hatch is a real story problem. Desmond winds up naked in jungle a day later. Charlie loses his hearing. Locke loses his voice. Eko apparently loses his consciousness. All of these injuries are inconsistent with the amount of force applied to their bodies as compared to physical objects such as hatch quarantine door. Hurley asks if Desmond has turned into a “Hulk,” a comic book character created by a mad experiment gone bad.
But there is another easy explanation. The first two seasons of LOST have all the components of a modern video game. In game play, you need a character with back stories. You need people or things to protect. You need territory to take or defend. You need spies, assassins, soldiers, weapons and missions. You need intel in order to form strategies. As we have said from the beginning, the key principle in LOST is “knowledge is power.” All the characters could be avatars in a complex multiplayer video game, with Desmond’s new “power” of flash forward visions, either a wild card upgrade or the fact the player is “farther” along at a different level than the other players. The flashbacks, with the repeat of characters in different places, could be assumed to be merely earlier versions of the current game, as developers often re-use characters in video game sequels.
The second is the concept of power and illusion of the mind. When Hurley talked in earlier episodes 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 Hurley's 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. Ben is also obsessive about LISTs: to Ethan and Goodwin after the plane crash, to Michael to bring back the four people to exchange for his son.
This leads to the continuing 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 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.
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. But what if that guilt haunts him after his own death?
There are more references to other characters having mental problems, mental meltdowns or “losing their grip” on reality like Jack going through his divorce and fighting his father at an AA meeting, to Jin “losing his grip” when told to do his father-in-law’s killing. In fact, all of the characters in LOST have the ability to become violent killers. Even lovesick Desmond, kills Kelvin in a rage over keeping his repaired sailboat a secret. The repression of past harm could be re-tested in the environment of the Island, either as a metaphor for a hospital treatment, or as judgment of a person’s soul.
Third, that the events of the Island is in the realm of the afterlife. 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.
There is also a reference to the Brooks movie when Juliet has a large file in front of her when she is talking to Jack. She tells him “this is your life.” She says knows everything about him, much like the angel defender does with Albert Brooks’ character.
These episodes dynamically reinforce the three theories about game play, mental illness, and the afterlife, creating a spiritual 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 or non-Earth 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.
What does it mean to SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE? It can mean see you at the next game level, see you in the next dream, or see you in the afterlife.
