REBOOT EPISODES 77-80

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 77-80 (Days 94-97)

Sayid and Desmond meet the crew members on freighter, while the latter experiences some unexpected side effects from the trip, when his mind bounces back and forth from 1996. The helicopter hits turbulence on its way to the freighter, and Desmond experiences unexpected side effects; as his consciousness travels in time he and a key character discover their “constants.” The episode follows Desmond's consciousness in a continuous narrative.

Juliet receives an unwelcome visit from someone from her past, Harper,  and is given orders to track down Charlotte and Daniel  in order to stop them from completing their mission of getting Ben.  Meanwhile, Ben offers Locke an enticing deal. Juliet is walking through the jungle and suddenly hears the whispers. She looks around and finds Harper standing behind her, who says that Ben has a message for her: Daniel and Charlotte are heading towards the Tempest station, and Juliet has to stop them, using deadly force if necessary. If Daniel and Charlotte figure out how to deploy the gas, everyone is going to die. Juliet asks why Harper doesn't stop them herself, and Harper answers that it is Ben's wish that Juliet does it, and says that although Ben is a prisoner,  he is "exactly where he wants to be." Harper says that Juliet must kill Daniel and Charlotte. The conversation is interrupted by Jack, who points his gun at Harper and demands to know who she is. She says she is an old friend of Juliet’s and she was telling her where the people they are looking for are headed and that Jack with his gun should go there too. The whispers are heard again, and Harper suddenly disappears.

Juliet is forced to reveal some startling news to Jin when Sun threatens to move to Locke’s camp.  Juliet warns Jin that Sun is very ill and will die within three weeks if she doesn’t leave the Island, but Jin doesn't appear to understand what Juliet is saying, and Sun refuses to translate. Sun is not swayed and Jin supports her, saying: “Where Sun go, I go.”  Meanwhile, Sayid and Desmond begin to get an idea of the freighter crew’s mission when they meet the ship’s  captain, who has a militaristic tone.

Sayid confronts Michael, Ben’s spy on the freighter while  Ben urges Alex to flee Locke’s camp to go the temple in order to survive an impending attack from the freighter crew. Sayid insists on learning why Michael was on the boat. Michael answers, “I’m here to die.”

Later, Sayid and Desmond find Michael in the engine room and confront him about why he is on the boat. Michael tells his story about being Ben's tool. When he is finished, Sayid asks him if he is truly working for Ben. Michael confirms this. Sayid grabs Michael and drags him into Captain Gault's room, revealing Michael's true identity as the saboteur, a spy, a traitor, and a survivor of Flight 815.


Science:

“Minkowski” as a crew name as a clue to the freighter situation. Hermann Minkowski was a scientist and peer of Albert Einstein. Minkowski’s work dealt with the concept of space-time. By 1907 Minkowski realized that Einstein’s special theory of relativity could be best understood in a four dimensional space,  in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space-time. Minkowski said "The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."

“Faraday” as a scientist as a clue to the island electromagnetic properties. Michael Faraday was a 19th century English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and electrolysis. It was by his research on the magnetic field  around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology.

The island as a large machine, which creates it own electromagnetic field, as referenced in the snow globe effect. And if this island electromagnetic field interfaces with Minkowski’s four dimensional space time to alter an individual’s reality in time.

Improbabilities:

When Capt. Gault shows Sayid the black box flight recorder from Flight 815, alleged “acquired” by Widmore, is unbelievable. Any plane crash debris, especially the flight recorder, would be impounded as critical investigative evidence by the NTSB. Further, Gault claims that the Flight 815 wreckage was “staged” by a man with great resources and serial killer motives to “find” 324 bodies for the wreck site: Ben. If one can film the wreck, and recover the flight recorder, the recover of other plane parts and bodies would be possible. With airliners having serial numbers on all parts and detailed records, it is impossible to “duplicate” a plane in a matter of weeks.

The concept of “mind jumps” from 1996 to 2004 caused by exposure to oscillating radiation frequencies. Further, the need for an “anchor” in both time periods would not cause Minkowski and other crew members to die because everyone has a parent, sibling, friend or co-worker in both time frames. The conscious imbalance and alleged brain trauma caused by severed “memories” from two time periods cannot cause physical harm - - - at best, it seems to cue schizophrenic behavior.

Frank being able to hold the helicopter on a bearing while flying through a thunderstorm.

Clues:

On the helicopter ride, Desmond “flashes” or mind jumps. One remarks whether he is “day dreaming.”

The Numbers may be Hurley’s curse, but they are also Desmond’s numbers. Penny’s apartment number in his latest mind jump and the setting for Daniel’s Eloise experiment are part of the Numbers.

Frank travels to the lower level of the ship, where he meets Regina, who seems somewhat distant and a little confused. He tells her that the captain wants him to bring the paper bag (to Sayid and Desmond), and that the book she is reading, The Survivors of the Chancellor, is upside down.

The book written by Jules Verne is about the final voyage of a British sailing ship, the Chancellor, told from the perspective of one of its passengers from his diary. In the story, one of the crew members commits suicide Later, Regina in chains, jumps overboard to her death while the crew watches. It seems people think of their fate, it happens to them.

Juliet explains that all pregnant women on the island do not come to term; in the second trimester there is nausea, followed by pain, unconsciousness then COMA, then death. However, her explanation that the body’s immune system attacks the mother by “white blood cells decreasing” is the opposite of an immune response (another gross medical error).

When Michael attempts suicide in a car crash, he awakes in a hospital room next to a comatose patient. A vision of ghost Libby appears to him. Then, Michael tries to commit suicide with a loaded gun, but it jams. He is told that the island won’t let him die. But when he is on the freighter, he tells Sayid that he is on the boat “to die.”

When Ben plays his “last card” of a secret video tape of Widmore, Ben says the blindfolded man “was one of his men” who gets severely beaten. That man appears to be Desmond in 1996.

The whispers in the jungle when Juliet is heading for the Tempest:

"Sarah is having another..."
"Is that the other woman?"

Right when Juliet runs into Harper in the jungle:

"Look out"
"Sarah is having another..."

"Did you hear that?"

"If she won't save us then who is?"

"Sarah, somebody's coming"

"There is somebody coming"

"Hold on one second"

"There is somebody coming"

After Jack runs into Juliet and Harper:

"Look out"
 
“Sarah, it's someone we know. Sarah, it's someone we know"

"I'm not answering"

"Answer them"

"We have our answer"

"Can we trust her?"

The “Sarah” we know is Jack’s ex-wife, the woman he “miraculously” cured after her auto accident.  The consensus is that when people die around the Island but cannot "move on" to the next stage, they remain as whispers, watching or trying to communicate with the living on the Island.  Characters often hear them when in peril, or when the Others or the Smoke Monster are near. The deceased whisperers can appear in their physical form only to a select few. If so, why is Sarah’s soul trapped on the island? Or are these whispers the echoes of people in Jack’s life, trapped in his mind?
Sarah should not be on the island; she moved on without Jack. It was Jack who could not let go of her. And now, a mental conflict inside of Jack about "moving on" from Sarah with another woman (Juliet?)

Daniel’s concept of a “constant” in both “worlds” is a clue that Desmond’s freighter flashes were not flashbacks, but connections in the sideways world, a parallel reality that once breached (known) can cause death if not controlled by a strong singularity in both worlds.

Discussion:

“ A word too much always defeats its purpose. ”
— Arthur Schopenhauer

Locke said there are no reason for rules if there is no punishment for breaking them. In the series, we have numerous “unwritten” rules, especially those island rules of Jacob, and the rules between Ben and Widmore in their feud.

Rules are defined as: a) one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere: the rules of the game were understood, b) a law or principle that operates within a particular sphere of knowledge, describing or prescribing what is possible or allowable: the rules of grammar. c)  a code of practice and discipline for a religious order or community, or d) control of or dominion over an area or people.The word is from Latin, regula, meaning “straight stick.”

Somehow, the rules have been broken. And now there is the word, “war,” on the lips of Ben and the Others. Who is at war?

Jack thinks the survivors are at war with the Others. Locke had thought that too, until he became a splinter cell leader.

The Others think they are at war with the survivors for killing their people.

Ben thinks he is at war with Widmore’s men on the freighter.

But the twists on the freighter (more for shock value than plot movement) call into play a larger "con" being conducted on the characters. It is an emotional roller coaster when Michael's bomb does not explode, when Desmond incredibly "calls" Penny on Christmas eve, when Regina commits suicide and no one cares, and when the captain tells them the elaborate hoax of the Flight 815 wreckage (since there is no need to tell people where the false wreckage is when no one can find the island to begin with - - - it took the Black Rock journal purchased by Widmore to find the island). Who is running the con on the characters? Apparently, the all-powerful being called "the island" is calling the the life and death shots of the characters.

In the final season, we will learn that Jacob is at odds with his brother, MIB, but you cannot call their dispute a war. It is more a difference of opinion. A wager on the outcome of humans brought to the island for some unknown purpose. All we know is that MIB has continually won this wager and has grown tired of the characters brought to the island because in the end, they all wind up corrupting themselves.

We also still here that some people are “special.”  But in island terms, what does that mean? Ben infers that he is special because he “was born on the island.”  This is a false statement in physical reality; he was prematurely born on the mainland, in the forest, with his parents. Locke has also been called “special,” and he was also a “miracle” baby as he was born prematurely in a rural town after his mother was hit by a car driven by his biological father. Jacob and his brother are also “special,” because they have immortal and magical powers. Is it because they were truly “born” on the island, after a shipwreck? Or are all these persons “special” because they were “born” in a different dimension, in the island after life realm?

One last person was called “special.” Walt showed that he had telekinetic powers, so much so that his adoptive father was so spooked by his special talents that he pushed Walt off onto Michael to raise after Walt’s mother’s death. We do not have any information on Walt’s actual birth to put him in the same classification as Ben or Locke. But Walt shows one aspect of Jacob and MIB as he materializes as ghost Walt to Locke to tell the bleeding man to get up because he still has “work” to do.

Which leads us to another nebulous word from the series, “work.”  What is the “work” that drives people forward in the series. The Others, including Richard Alpert, have been worried about Ben’s sidetracking to other issues like the fertility question over the Other’s primary mission. But we have no idea what the Others “goal in life” is on the island, except to fear outsiders.

What is Locke’s “work” that he needs to accomplish? He has nothing to go back to off the island. In fact, his life was pretty much a miserable wreck. Is the work to be completed the coup of Ben’s leadership? Is it to become the island’s new guardian?

The 815ers have no clear mission either. First, it was survival. Second, it was living together or dying alone. Third, it was battling the Others. Fourth, it was rescue. Then, rescue concept tore the group in half. And then, when some of the survivors actually leave the island, they are compelled to return to the island.

The Tempest scene was badly conceived and poorly executed. First, the concept of Dan knowing the computer codes to change a chemical plant system is not credible. Second, the warning of the activation of the plant makes no sense. The plant was inactive when Charlotte and Dan arrived. There was no need to “de-activate it.” Third, when Juliet arrives to stop them, she passes the main power switch. She could have simply “turned” off the station’s power! Fourth, Daniel claims that he is there is make the chemical gas “inert.” However, an inert gas or noble gas, any of the elements in Group 18 of the periodic table. In order of increasing atomic number they are: helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon. They are colorless, odorless, tasteless gases and were once believed to be entirely inert, i.e., forming no chemical compounds. So that is not what Daniel could do at a computer console. In order to neutralize a poisonous gas, something has to react to it. In 2005, Czech scientists believe they found the first known neutralizer for mustard gas:

An enzyme [employed through their method] reacts within minutes, is able to split several molecules of mustard gas per second, and its decontaminating effect is expected to last for hours at an average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius.

The problem is that Daniel is not neutralizing the gas: the computer screen ends with notation that a valve has been secured. It appears that the whole drama was for naught; a double, double cross. Are the freighters friend or foe? If a friend, why are they lying to the survivors? If they are a foe, why not use the gas and kill everyone? No wonder no trusts anyone anymore.


Is this why the whispers of Sarah talk about "trust?" The whole basis of the island story could be summed up as the mental instability of Jack. He is the one who could never get over Sarah. She was the one he fixed, but he could not fix their relationship. When he tries to commit suicide, it is Sarah who appears before him - - - and he wants to be with her, but she refuses and leaves. Sarah is one of the elements in Jack's life that he cannot get over. Likewise, it is Christian's berating that Jack cannot make the hard decisions, the life and more importantly, the death decisions. As such, he can never be a leader. He can never be a good doctor. So in a way, the island and its plots could center around the mental issues (or character flaws) of Jack not being able to "get over" Sarah and "move on" with another woman and the fact that he cannot "save" every life; and at times he needs to "take" lives in order for others to live. It would be an agonizing dynamic in a tortured soul's mind to try to reconcile those deep rooted beliefs; but that is what Jack does at the End.

The characters now appear to be rats in a complex maze. When Michael attempts to set off the bomb on the freighter, it surprises Ben that he actually attempted it. So the bomb was rigged NOT to explode. Instead, Ben ordered Michael to get a “list” of crew, then disable the radio room and engines. Why? If the whole purpose is to “stop” the crew from getting to the island, why not stop them dead in the water by exploding the bomb? The only reason is that Ben “wants” the crew to arrive at the island; that he wants “them” to do the dirty work of killing everyone but his “chosen” people (meaning all the 815ers). But Ben will stumble over his own arrogance, because when he sets Alex off to safety, Karl and Rousseau are both killed, and Alex is captured by Keamy’s ship crew. In one respect, this incident fulfills a wish of Ben’s: to get rid of Alex’s boyfriend and her mother. But the consequences for that decision will be grave.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

The concept of “constants” and mental “time travel.”

The “whispers” are trapped souls left on the island.

The island “not allowing” Michael to commit suicide on at least two occasions, because Tom has Michael “has work to do” to save his friends still on the Island.

Last lines in episodes:

EP 77:
DESMOND: Aye. I'm perfect.

[Daniel is on the beach flipping through his journal. On a page, he sees: "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be MY constant."]

EP 78:

BEN: [cheerfully] See you guys at dinner.
[Ben marches into a house and shuts the door behind him, leaving Sawyer and Hurley dumbfounded.]

EP 79:

[Hurley and Sun are at a cemetery, Sun holding the baby. They approach Jin's tombstone. Sun kneels down, crying.]

SUN: [Subtitle: Jin... You were right. It's a girl. The delivery was hard on me... The doctor said I was calling out for you... I wish you could've been there. Jin... she's beautiful. Ji Yeon. I named her just like you wanted. I miss you so much. I miss you so much.]

EP 80:

ALEX: Wait! Wait! Don't! I'm Ben's daughter! I'm his daughter!


New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

In the last Reboot, we fully developed two “Unified Theories” to the Lost mythology to explain all of the factual and legal impossibilities in the actual Lost scripts. The Dream State theory postulates that the characters are alive in reality, but in a deep coma state where their minds have split in the dream world of the island and the fantasy world of the sideways realm.  In the Egyptian After Life theory, the characters are already dead before the plane crash, and that their souls have been split between the underworld (island world) and the spirit world (sideways).

Using the science concepts of Minkowski and Faraday, one could extract a science-fiction basis for the island itself. It has been debated whether the Island is a character, a person or a place. If one combines Faraday’s electromagnetic physics with Minkowski’s theories of space-time, the Island can be seen as a unique “machine,” creating its own electromagnetic field a part from the Earth, which creates an opening portal, nexus or intersection into the four dimensions of space-time. This portal connection to space-time would allow an individual to go back into the past (to change events) or go forward into the future (to see the future events). The island’s power is one of a living time machine. Any person of wealth or stature would want to “control” the ability to control a time machine. One could make a fortune knowing the future, or changing the past. This may be the motivation for Widmore’s attempt to reclaim the Island from Ben and the Others. At the same time, this may be the motivation for Ben to keep people from coming and going from the island. It’s power must remain a captive secret so the island is not over-run by “miracle seekers.”

So what is the Island?

We know various story “facts” about the island. First, it appears to be a Pacific tropic island, believed to be located somewhere near Fiji. Second, based on the freighter rocket experiment, it is moving away at a fairly rapid speed. Third, based on the helicopter flights, it is difficult to get because there is only one “door way” inside the mask or cloaked atmosphere that surrounds the island itself. Fourth, the island contains “unique” electromagnetic properties. It appears that the Hatch was constructed after an “incident” to control the “discharge” of any electromagnetic build-up. Fifth, Faraday remarks that the island “scatters light” differently than normal. Sixth, we will learn later that the island contains a cave containing a “life force.” Seventh, there is speculation whether the smoke monster is mechanical, nanotech, spiritual or an organic beast.

So what is the Island?

Various theories have been postulated over the years.

One, is that the island is the bridge between earth and hell, a place of limbo where the dead or near-dead act out their last days before the after life journey begins.

Two, is that the island is actually hell, and souls incorporated into human form must journey through various dangerous but familiar “tests” to determine whether they are worthy of redemption and a fantasy life in heaven.

Three, is that the island is a fantasy game show, like the movie  West World, but abandoned and taken over by evil spirits.

Four, is that the island is an alien space ship that has trapped people in its snow globe field to view humanity at its basic level.

Fifth, is that the island is merely a collective, networked dream of various characters who are in a state of coma or deep dreaming.

Sixth, is that the island is an alien time machine that has crash landed on earth, and the forces of good and evil are trying to control it.

Seventh, is that the island is ancient Atlantis, a highly advanced civilization that had mastered the elements and dimensions of time travel.

Eighth, is that the island is an ancient Egyptian portal to the underworld, created to help their pharaohs in the after life achieve great power and immortality.

Ninth, is that the island represents the subconscious of a troubled person, trapped in his or her own personal fantasy land.

Tenth, is that the island is a living being of supernatural powers, who uses human beings as pawns for his amusement.

Eleventh, is that the island is a prison for Satan, who is trapped by the electromagnetic fields created by messengers (angels) in order to “save the (human) world” from destruction.

Twelfth, is that the island is a quantum portal, a black hole in the fabric of the universe, that allows parallel universes (the multiverse theory) to come into contact with each other, either physically or mentally in time jumps.

Thirteen, is that the island is a metaphor for god, in how he gives people choices but allows their individual’s free will to guide their decision making to make their own choices; but with consequences for their actions, good or bad.

REBOOT: EPISODES 73-76

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 73-76 (Days 91-94)

In these 4 episodes, we begin Season 4.

In The Beginning of the End, Ben’s prophecy to Jack at the radio tower, with their rescue is close at hand, the survivors don't know whether to believe Charlie’'s final message that the people on the boat are not who they claim to be.

In Confirmed Dead, The survivors  begin to question the intentions of their supposed rescuers when four strangers arrive on the Island.

In The Economist, Locke’s hostage may be the key to getting off the Island so Sayid and Kate go in search of their fellow survivors in an attempt to negotiate a peaceful deal.

In Eggtown, possibly the worst episode of the series, Kate's need to get information from the hostage may jeopardize her standing with Locke—as well as with Sawyer.

Science:

The human ability to make mental images; to see “things” in one’s own mind has been called “the mind’s eye.” 

The biological foundation of the mind's eye is not fully understood. MRI studies have shown that the areas of the visual cortex are activated during mental imagery tasks.  Wikipedia notes:

The visual pathway is not a one-way street. Higher areas of the brain can also send visual input back to neurons in lower areas of the visual cortex. Humans have the ability to see with the mind's eye - to have a perceptual experience in the absence of visual input. For example, PET scans have shown that when subjects, seated in a room, imagine they are at their front door starting to walk either to the left or right, activation begins in the visual association cortex, the parietal cortex, and the prefrontal cortex - all higher cognitive processing centers of the brain.

The rudiments of a biological basis for the mind's eye is found in the deeper portions of the brain below the neocortex, or where the center of perception exists. The thalamus has been found to be discrete to other components in that it processes all forms of perceptional data relayed from both lower and higher components of the brain. Damage to this component can produce permanent perceptual damage, however when damage is inflicted upon the cerebral cortex, the brain adapts to neuroplasticity to amend any occlusions for perception. It can be thought that the neocortex is a sophisticated memory storage warehouse in which data received as an input from sensory systems are compartmentalized via the cerebral cortex. This would essentially allow for shapes to be identified, although given the lack of filtering input produced internally, one may as a consequence, hallucinate - essentially seeing something that isn't received as an input externally but rather internal (i.e. an error in the filtering of segmented sensory data from the cerebral cortex may result in one seeing, feeling, hearing or experiencing something that is inconsistent with reality).

Furthermore, the pineal gland is a hypothetical candidate for producing a mind's eye; researchers have postulated that during near death experiences and dreaming, the gland might secrete a hallucinogenic chemical (DMT) to produce internal visuals when external sensory data is occluded. However, this hypothesis has yet to be fully supported with neurochemical evidence and plausible mechanism for DMT production.

In a 2011 medical study, researchers found that coma patients had the ability to access a dream state. In patients with seriously altered states of consciousness, there is also the puzzle about dreaming.   Do ‘vegetative’ patients  or minimally conscious state patients experience normal sleep?

 Electrophysiological studies have been no help so the hypothesis is if the vegetative state opens no conscious door onto the external world, the state of minimal consciousness for its part assumes a residual consciousness of the environment, certainly fluctuating but real.

It is this question of difference which has led a group of researchers to compare the sleep of these two types of brain damaged patients.  They say the results demonstrate the necessity of an adapted and specific medical care for each of these states.

The researchers’ work rested on a sample of 11 subjects (6 in a state of minimal consciousness and 5 in a vegetative state) and made use of high density (256 electrodes) electroencephalography (EEG). The goal was to determine the structure of sleep within the two types of patient. 

Researchers used markers for arousal such as whether the subject had his/her eyes open and muscle tone, or whether the patient had closed eyes and muscle inactivity.

The high density EEG revealed that the brain’s electrical activity differed very little between sleep and wake states in patients in a vegetative state. On the other hand the sleep of patients in a minimally conscious state had characteristics very close to that of normal sleep in a healthy subject. They showed changes in “slow wave” activity in the front of the brain considered important for learning and neural plasticity. It also appeared that these patients produced NREM (non rapid eye movement) slow wave sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is the support for dream activity. Researchers concluded that those patients had access to dreaming and the potential maintenance of a residual consciousness in these patients.


Improbabilities:

The rocket experiment. Regina counts down the distance when she launches the rocket. It appears that she believes that in 8 seconds, the rocket should have reached Daniel’s location. Assuming the freighter was 40 km from the island, a rocket would have to travel 11,904 mph to cover that distance. No model rocket has a top speed of 250 mph. The fundamental principles of the experiment may be true, but the “factual” presentation has no merit. Since we do not know the rocket variables, we can only assume that in a direct line launch at known model rocket speeds, the 31.3 minute variation seen in the timers means that the island is moving “away” from the freighter at a speed from 52 to 93 miles per hour. No island on earth is moving at that speed.

The continuity issue with the sat phone being jammed by the tower and/or Looking Glass station while less powerful hand held walkie talkies work fine on the Island.

Clues:

In story titles:

The Beginning of the The End. The End was the finale, where the characters wind up in the after life church, dead souls. The beginning of Season 4 starts the final journey to the church which is a place of death.

Confirmed Dead again references the theorists that the characters are souls trapped in purgatory.

The Economist deals with a tangent flash forward that has Sayid working as Ben’s hit man. The word “economist” comes from the 16th century greek word for “household manager.”  An economist deals with the relationship between supply and demand of any commodity, and how goods and services affect trade, wealth, power and exchange. It is possible that the world’s exchange principles go beyond the material world. There is ritual where people are buried with a coin in order to pay the ferryman to cross the River Styx in hell.

Eggtown was described by a commentator as a reference to depression era bartering where traveling merchants would go town to town to trade goods or services. It was said that Eggtowns were bad places to trade because who would want to trade for a perishable item like eggs.  Eggtown can be a reference to a bad place (the off-island)
or a place where one makes deals with the devil (on-island).

The show’s signature lose up of an Eye. Symbolic of the Mind’s Eye.

When Locke demands to know what the smoke monster is, Ben replies “I don’t know.”

When Daniel Faraday is emotional when seeing the news footage of the 815 crash site,
his wife or caretaker asks him what is wrong. She calls him by his name, “Sam,” which infers a duality in person. Hurley also has a duality in his character name with Hugo.

Daniel’s observations about the light and his rocket experiment show that the Island is not on Earth; it does not have the same physics properties. Also, Daniel says the light “scatters” differently on the island. Recall, Desmond called the island a “bloody snow globe” that no one could escape.

There is a real time discrepancy in the show that begins to appear. Jack states that he has been on the island 100 days, when in fact he has only been on it 94.

Miles can talk to the dead because he is dead. Hurley can see ghost Charlie, and ghost Charlie can physically slap him, because they are both dead. Charlie, having died while being dead before the island, haunts the living dead (see unified theories of Lost  below).

When Naomi is discussing the mission with Abaddon (whose name means Devil), Naomi remarks that the there were no survivors of Flight 815 which Abaddon confirms. But then she says what if some are still alive, but Abaddon cuts her off, as to say that the passengers could not have survived in the after life.

When Sayid is asked about Ben, he tells the group “the day I trust him is the day I sell my soul.”  The concept of selling one’s soul to the devil is shown in the flash forward with Sayid being Ben’s personal assassin.

When a frustrated Locke cannot find Jacob or his cabin, and his leadership is being questioned, Ben digs him by saying that Locke is “now more lost than ever,” to get a reaction to which Ben remarks “you’re evolving.”  Leaders are born to lead, they do not evolve. Evolution means a metaphysical transformation over time into a new being, such as a soul’s journey through the many layers of hell.

When Hurley is looking at tapes in the barracks, he asks Sawyer what he wants to see, Xanadu or Satan's Doom? Xanadu is a representation of a idyllic place of vast beauty and unattainable luxury. Satan’s Doom appears to be a fictional title, but possible foreshadowing of events to come.

When the freighter helicopter crew land on the island, their mission is to take down
Ben. They show Jack and Kate a photograph of Ben Linus. The key to that photograph
is that is an image of Ben from the Sideways World, when he was a school teacher!

Discussion:

“ Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. ”
— Michel de Montaigne

“ War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. ”
— Thomas Mann

The massive amount of legal errors in the “Eggtown” episode was appalling, even by television standards. It led to only one conclusion: nothing is real. The off-island courtroom events were so off-base to be beyond fiction; no basis in reality. Basic plot points: Kate would be charged for murder in Iowa, a state crime, and tried in Iowa and not in a court in California. And the “plea” bargain would disbar a prosecutor: The DA offers a deal of time served plus 10 years of in-state probation. Kate agrees over her lawyer's objection, telling the DA to give her something to sign because she just wants the whole thing behind her. Kate adds that she isn't going anywhere because she has a son.

This episode was poorly written and badly executed by any standard.

Kate's court proceedings were not believable; totally wrong both factually and procedurally:

Kate was being tried in a California court. However, California has no jurisdiction over any of her crimes. Murder is a local, state prosecution. The murder of her step father took place in Iowa. To be tried for murder, she would have been in an Iowa courtroom. Her bank robbery took place in New Mexico. Any bank robbery charges would be tried in New Mexico. She would have to be tried in each state for each separate crime. Also, federal courts have no concurrent jurisdiction over state criminal actions. So the whole premise that Kate was being tried for all her charges in one California court proceeding is totally wrong, an impossibility in the American legal system.

U.S. Attorneys try federal cases. District Attorneys try state/local cases. The arson-murder-insurance fraud case would have had to been tried at the place of the crime, Iowa, not California. (An interesting side note: Iowa does not have the death penalty for such a crime; which would make a prosecutor less lenient in a plea deal.) Also, the plea deal has no bearing on child welfare services allowing a murder-arsonist take care of child.

Is it not possible that the trial was held in California as a result of a "change of venue" motion since criminal trials are held in the location of the crimes. California has no contacts to any of the crimes alleged at the trial. The whole trial procedure was factually wrong.

During the trial, the prosecution presents its case in chief first. When Jack was called to the stand as a defense character witness, that would have meant that the prosecution would have rested its case. But it did not; because afterward the prosecutor (the District Attorney) told the judge her key witness, Kate’s mother, was unable to testify (because she was being uncooperative). A witness' condition does not stop cold a witness from testifying. There have been cases where people with oxygen tanks go to court and testify before jurors. Even if Kate's mom was near death several times over, the prosecution would have video taped an evidence deposition at the very least prior to trial to preserve her testimony.

Not only the court procedure was wrong, the excuse that Kate’s mother is now uncooperative is irrelevant to the prosecution of a capital case. Kate’s mother was already well enough to go to the courthouse to meet with Kate! Prosecutors subpoena uncooperative witnesses every day to testify at trials. Under the rules of evidence, a prosecutor can impeach its own witness on prior inconsistent statements, or subject an uncooperative witness to perjury charges. Further, the investigators who conducted the interviews with Kate’s mother would still be able to testify on Kate’s conduct. So the whole concept that the prosecution’s case instantaneously unravels when Kate’s mother got cold feet is not believable.

No prosecutor would offer time served (less than 2 years since that is my guess on Aaron's age) and probation to a murder-arson-insurance fraud case. An elected District Attorney would be run out of office for being soft on crime if allowed such a deal. But again, this whole legal proceeding is a farce.
There is also another background legal issue which was botched in Eggtown. The custody of Aaron made no sense. If Kate was in prison pending trial, her "child" would have placed in the care of a guardian, the nearest living relative, or if none, state care in a foster home. If Kate was alone, then her mother would have had custody or access to her grandchild. In the show, Kate’s mother was forbidden to see Aaron.

 In addition, it appears that Aaron stayed at home with a housekeeper. A housekeeper is a stranger, and has no custodial rights to a minor child.

Since that did not occur, the only conclusion is that the child, Aaron, remained with his "father" while Kate was in custody. Further, since parents control the upbringing of a child, in many states grandparents have no "visitation" rights This is why Kate's mother could not see Aaron without Kate or Aaron's "father's" permission. So to tie these matters up, Kate would have to be living with a man claiming to be Aaron's father.

However, we know later that is not true. Jack was not living with Kate because he did not want to be around Aaron, as a bitter reminder of the fact that they left their friends behind on the island.

So the whole premise of Kate’s trial resolution and guardianship of Aaron is totally out of the realm of reality even for television show writing. It taints the entire show’s credibility as a story of mystery and drama. Mysteries need facts and clues in order to lead the viewer/reader to the reveal: the solving of the mysteries.

So are there any other ideas that might make the Eggtown plot seem plausible?
During the show’s initial run, one poster said maybe it was all a dream; Kate's fantasy about the best possible outcome if she left the island. Based upon the egregious errors in Eggtown, a dream or fantasy outcome is the only explanation.

Back to other matters. The survivors camp has now split into two, which in some ways mirrors the Others' evolution on the island. Locke makes an a clear observation when holding Charlotte. He tells her that his group does not want to be “found.”  Before the survivors arrived on the island, they were “lost.”  Once on the island, most wanted to be “found” or rescued to get off the island. But Ben has told several castaways that they have no “life” to go back to. Whether this is jab or the harsh reality of the character’s real existence, alive or dead, does not matter. The split between the beach campers into one for rescue and one for staying on the island probably mirrors the earliest of the “natives” on the island: MIB Romans who tried to fashion an escape from the island, to Jacob and his adoptive mother who wanted or needed to stay.

Daniel takes the opportunity to perform an experiment. He sets up a tripod with a homing beacon and a clock on it, then asks Frank for his phone so he can call Regina . Frank hands it over on the condition that he hang up if Minkowski answers. Daniel agrees and phones the freighter, getting Regina. He asks her to send a “payload” (a small rocket) to his beacon. Regina does so and begins counting down the arrival of the payload in rapid 5-kilometer-steps, starting with 40 km. But when she reaches zero approximately 29 seconds after launch, the rocket has not arrived. Regina claims that is "weird," while Daniel responds that it is "far more than weird." Some time later. to Daniel's surprise, the rocket finally arrives. Daniel compares the time on a digital clock from the rocket with the one from the tripod and sees that they are different by 31 minutes and 18 seconds. Concerned, he says to himself "Oh no, this is not good."

At the initial airing, I calculated that the Island was actually “moving” away from the freighter at a rate of 93 mph. I revisited the calculations based upon current model rocket information. Based upon current rocket speeds, a model rocket’s top speed is 250 mph. According to Regina’s countdown and assumed location, Daniel’s rocket was suppose to travel at more than 3,000 miles per hour to reach the island in less than 30 seconds. That is not plausible or feasible. So I took the freighter as a fixed point, and the island as a moving point in a straight line, made several assumptions including average rocket speed of 100 mph, to theorize that the island was moving away from the freighter at 57 mph.

And finally, a “war” is coming to the island. The freighter crew’s primary mission was to capture Ben. Ben is aware of the plot to seize him (in order to seize control of the island) because Ben has his own spy on the ship (Michael). Guilt is apparently a big motivator. A war is an armed conflict between two groups, usually over a territory. The plot states that the war is Widmore against Ben, in an attempt by Widmore to “reclaim” the natives (Others) that he once led when Ben was a teen. But why would an uber-successful, wealthy man like Widmore care about reclaiming the island? The island is a powerful nexus, a portal between dimensions in parallel realms.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

The Island is moving away from the freighter as shown by Daniel’s rocket experiment.

The helicopter leaving the island but not finding the freighter for more than a day.

Last lines in episodes:

EP 73:
PARACHUTIST (Daniel): Are you Jack?
[Jack and Kate look with apprehension.]

EP 74:

BEN: Because I have a man on their boat.

EP 75:

BEN: Good.

EP 76:

KATE: Hi, Aaron.


New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

There are two ways to view Lost with the current evidence at hand. Both unified theories have a premise that the characters have concurrent duality within the story arcs. For those who believe that the characters are “alive” on Earth, then the cumulative evidence points to a layered dream state.

The Unified Theory of Lost - - - Dream State
I re-read the comments from the episode on the community blog I was part of during the original show run. Eggtown was so horribly factual incorrect that one commentator had to admit that the only explanation it could not be real events; that it was all Kate’s dream scenario where she gets out of her troubles.

TPTB never disclosed the Big Premise of the show, because it is pretty clear to most viewers that they had no unified structure to the show except generalizations such as plane wreck, mysterious island, and rapid fire “shock” events to their characters.

So fans have been trying to put together the story puzzle pieces together so the entire series has a cohesive explanation. And after re-writing the old materials and re-watching the series on G4, I have come to a new Unified Theory of Lost which incorporates all the main elements of the story into a workable Big Premise.

One of the absolutes in the show is the sideways world. In The End, we are told that this sideways realm was a purgatory, or an after life existence, where souls “waited” for everyone else to “be awakened” in order to “move on.”

Sideways World = after life
Characters are functioning in a dream state waiting for their memories of the island
to return so they awaken so they can move on in the after life.

The key element of the sideways mechanics is that the souls are “waiting” to be “awakened.” That means the “real” human being is not awake in some other place of existence. This leads us to the sleeping man; when some one in real life is at a state of rest, they are asleep - - - in an out of dream states. When someone wakes up, the sleep dream state (REM) is broken.  So our characters have to be existing at some level in
some sort of dream state.

Add the show’s signature element, the close up of a human eye. An open eye has been the symbol or metaphor for a gateway into the mind. Further, the Mind’s Eye is stated as  the human subconscious. As we have discussed in earlier reboot commentaries, there is a possibility that some or all of the characters could be institutionalized for mental conditions or serious injuries (such as Claire’s mother in a car crash).  In turn, these same characters could be in a coma state. Caretakers of coma patients desire for them to “wake up” out of their comas at some point in recovery time.

So between the sideways world and the island world there lies character(s) in a coma state.  These characters could be a series of human experimentation like the military did to soldiers with LSD in the 1960s. Fragments of those type of mind-altering, institutional clips are found with Karl in Room 23 or the Dharma stations.

As stated above in the science section, patients  in a coma state have the ability to dream. We can place that as the foundation for the premise.

Island World = dream world of coma patient(s)
Since a coma patient is not conscious of their real world situation, the dream state becomes his or her true “reality.” The island world as a complex dream state would explain of the supernatural elements of the story. Why there are monsters, immortal beings, and the lack of moral consequences for people’s actions.

But that coma dream state does not explain everything about the Lost mythology.

The off-island world (flash back and flash forwards) is supposed to be the true past of each character. However, in a disjointed way, there are many continuity errors to really believe everyone’s back stories are true. So what could explain the difference, a sub-set of an island dream land?

Psychologists and mental therapists describe how the human mind works as the left-brain and right-brain. The left brain is our logical mind - the one that says: "Don't touch the stove; you'll get burned," "I have to go to work today," or "Pick up the dry cleaning." The right brain is the creative mind - the subconscious mind and the place where the inner child resides. Our subconscious mind has a 10 year-old mentality. It stops growing by the age of 10, and that is why our dreams can be strange and symbolic. It is so the subconscious brain (the inner child) can understand and process.

And here is where the Eggtown gross legal errors and resolution shed light on the off-world existence: it is how a 10 year old would view the complex legal system. It is a subconscious fairy tale opened by the mind’s eye to fed images, symbols and fears into a person’s dream state.

Off island world (flash back/flash forward) = subconscious mind of coma patient(s).

So the Dream State Unified Theory of Lost is:

In discussing “the church” from the ending episode in this blog in 2010, I remarked:

The church. In "The End," Christian specifically told Jack that "this place" was created by all his friends so they could find each again in the afterlife. Christian also told Jack that this special place "they all created" was real, and the things that happened to him was also "real." Everyone takes away from this finale sideways twist that the Lost Souls met up in a form of purgatory, or an anteroom world prior to making the final journey to heaven.

Except, we forgot about the church! Eloise Hawking operated the Lamp Post out of the same sideways world church! As lostpedia describes it "Jack meets Christian in the back of Eloise's Church in Los Angeles. Together, the two join the rest of their friends in journeying on to the white light."

If the church was a sideways world creation by the departed, then one could rationally deduct that the church in the O6, off-island story line (the Lamp Post) was also a sideways world creation, too. And that makes perfect sense, as the nonsensical, inaccurate, hard to believe events in the sideways world (Jin & Sun English awakening) mirror the inaccurate, hard to believe events in the O6 world (Kate's trial errors). None of those events were really "real" in the sense of the character's original life times.

All the characters who came to the church had NO REAL lives. That is why their memories of their collective, networked dream of the island was the most “important” part of their comatose lives. In other posts in this blog, there is a theory that based on bits of information in each character’s past memories, all of them could have had significant injuries to be in a vegetative state.

It was said that only Jacob brought the characters to the Island. It was a test that Jacob and his assistant, his brother MIB, devised to observe human behavior. What better way to observe the subconscious mind then network comatose patients together (which literally plays off the video game elements of the story actions). The human brain is the most complex computer and hard drive known in the universe. It electro-chemically stores vast amounts of commands and information. It is not unreasonable in a science-fiction setting to “wire” or network brains together. A place where the dream and subconscious states of a group of 70 vegetative people could roam free would be something that certain elements of society would find appealing, especially if it is the parents of comatose children (which plays into the parental issues throughout the series; a comatose child may not understand why his or her parent is not “with” them in their reality).

Jacob can be a symbolic representation of the lead medical researcher, the network administrator,  who hooks up coma patients into his group neuron-network. (In a certain fashion, conscious humans are doing the same thing with the interconnectivity of the Internet). And what happens when someone “dies” or “leaves” the island? The patient is unhooked from the network either by awakening or dying in real life, or re-connected later on like Michael “returning” on the freighter.

It also gives some explanation to the juvenile behavior/writing of certain episodes, like Eggtown. If the subconscious mind is that of a 10 year old child, then the critical factual errors in Eggtown are explained as being the logic of an ill-informed 10 year old.

The Dream State Unified Theory does have one final aspect to make it functional. As the coma patients are in their fantasy worlds, they are created new strong bonds and memories of their new friends and loved ones. As with all major religions, people’s souls after death will “reunite” with their loved ones in heaven. In order to bridge the existence from earth to the spiritual world, souls carry with them their thoughts, memories and connections. The sideways world provides a “re-connection” of those memory bonds by the characters souls until all of them awaken to move on in the after life.

And this does explain The Aaron Problem. The much debated Aaron problem was the major issue of Aaron being “born” on the island, but then being “born” in the after life. It was logically inconsistent for a child to be born in the real life setting of the island, and then born again in the after life. If we presume that Claire was pregnant when she was in her accident that led to her coma state, then one could assume that her unborn child is in the same state of existence, feeding off Claire’s own memories and dreams. But in reality, Aaron was still born. His birth in the after life is his soul reconnecting with his mother’s.

It is ironic that the worst episode of the series, “Eggtown,” brought about the most complete theories about the premises of the entire series.

The Unified Theory of Lost -- Egyptian After Life.

However, more factors point to the living dead type Big Premise to the show. We will learn that the Temple where the Others fled to is an ancient Egyptian construct. We will further learn that Jacob resides in the foot of the Tawaret statue, an ancient Egyptian god of fertility and the underworld.

Every ancient Egyptian had concerns about the After Life and the Beyond. Although, the gods and goddesses demanded mollification while Egyptians are alive, once they died, some gods became beneficent protectors and provided for the dead during their journey through the after life.

Death was not seen as the last stage of life, but as a stage of life to which a person was at rest waiting for revivification. For those more fortunate to live comfortably, they were able to avoid funerary objects, mummification, and entombment, which is what l us how dangerous they felt the Afterlife could be.

Inscriptions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Book of the Two Ways, and the Amduat, were found around the body.

The dead needed protection as they progressed from the Other World to the Hall of Judgment.
The dead travel on the solar barge (here, symbolic of Flight 815, an airplane), that the sun god,  Ra, created as a way to achieve eternal life.

A priest performed the 'Opening of the Mouth' ceremony over the mummified body in order to restore all of the senses to the body. Here, Lost has used the “opening of the eye” to symbolically symbol restoration of senses in the island existence.

All of the other senses were restored immediately, as well, because the first step after death was to the Field of Reeds- the land of wish fulfillment. The Lost island is such a place. For example, Locke’s wish to be able to walk again, to be an Outback hunter, were granted by the island. The deceased had to pass through 7 difference gates which is aided by the magical spells inscribed on the tomb around the deceased person. We will later see the temple, with its Egyptian hieroglyphs of spells, was the last sanctuary on the island.

The dead would have to stand in front of Osiris and face judgment, in a 'weighing the heart' ceremony, which is why the heart is remained intact and the other organs are placed in canopic jars. In the final arc, Jack has to face MIB in human form, to sacrifice himself so his remaining friends have an chance to escape the island (the place of death). Jack’s heart is heavy with regret and pain, especially when he tells Kate to leave him for the last time.

While justifying himself, the deceased would face all 42 gods and heart would be weighed against a feather. If the heart does not balance perfectly, Amemat would devour it and Set would eat the rest of the body. A person and his soul would be “permanently” dead with no chance of revival in the next stage of the after life. This is probably what Abaddon was telling Naomi about the survivors, the souls from Flight 815, not being “alive” when she arrived on the island, for they would have succumbed to the trials of the after life (and Smokey’s judgment, such as Mr. Eko refusing to seek forgiveness for his actions just before Smokey killed him).

In ancient Egyptian death rites, there is a clear duality. A person’s life is split at death into at least two parts, the Ka and the Ba being the most important elements. The Island itself has been called the place of the “life force.” We know that the sideways world is part of the after life.

In Egyptian mythology, the Ka is the double of the human being. It is very similar to the concept of the astral body. One big difference is that the Ka can separate or rejoin the body as it wishes. The Ka, in a sense a spirit, is also able to live with the Gods in heaven (which in our view is the sideways world)  The Ka was the life force that was created at birth and released at death; The Ba was like the soul. In order to live forever, the Ba and the Ka had to be reunited with the body after death.

The Ba that comes into existence after death is corporeal, eating, drinking and copulating so a deceased person may not “believe” they are dead because they continue to exist like that had done in their past life. The Ba is not part of the person but is the person himself, with his or her own memories, character traits, emotions and desires. The Ba existence is the island world.

In The Book of the Dead, the collection of spells which aided a person in the afterlife, had the Egyptian name of the Book of going forth by day. They helped people avoid the perils of the afterlife and also aided their existence, containing spells to assure "not dying a second time in the underworld", and to "grant memory always" to a person. In Egyptian mythology, it is possible that a person can “die” in the after life. The journey through the underworld was told to be hazardous, so it was possible to die in the afterlife and this “second” death was permanent.

The most power information that the Lost series takes place in the alternative dimension of death is connecting the dots from the End to the Beginning. The End clearly references the after life in the Church. When Christian tells Jack everything he experienced was “real,” he meant not in humanity but in his second life as a dual soul. The Beginning clearly references a place of death, as the Flight 815 plane crashes to Earth. But it may be more a symbolic representation of death that the actual cause(s) of death. For the split of an ancient Egyptian’s life into two spirits, one remains in a physical human state, almost unaware that it is dead per se, “living” a life no unfamiliar to its past life, going through various “tests” in the underworld. The person’s intellect is somewhere else (the sideways world) waiting to be re-united with its body (the “awakening”) to become whole again (the “Akh”). The intellectual part of the characters always resided in the sideways world. The human-emotional part of the characters always resided in the island world.

The Widmore freighter crew mission to kill Ben came with the photograph of Ben, clearly taken in the sideways world. This evidence of cross-over is important in trying to make sense of the two polar opposite realms. In the sideways after life, Ben is a school teacher. In fact, most of the characters have some intellectual pursuit more so than the more primal, emotional and physical existence on the island realm. The people on the island have no conscious understanding of the sideways world. Ben’s photograph is a direct connection between souls in the sideways world and their counterpart spirits in the island world.

In a way, the initial journey of the dead souls through the underworld is the “most important thing” in their spiritual journey through the afterlife. It echoes what Christian told Jack in the church in The End. The people Jack journeyed through the island passage were the “most important people” in his afterlife.

The Akh, which meaning “(magically) effective one'”) was a concept of the dead that varied over the long history of ancient Egyptian belief.

It was associated with thought, but not as an action of the mind; rather, it was intellect as a living entity. The Akh also played a role in the afterlife. Following death, the Ba and Ka were reunited to reanimate the Akh. The reanimation of the Akh was only possible if the proper funeral rites were executed and followed by constant offerings. The ritual was termed: “to make (a dead person) into an (living) akh.” In this sense, the ritual texts explain that souls turn into a sort of ghost or roaming 'dead being' (when the tomb was not in order any more) during this period.  An Akh could do either harm or good to persons still living, depending on the circumstances, causing e.g., nightmares, feelings of guilt, sickness, etc. It could be evoked by prayers or written letters left in the tomb's offering chapel also in order to help living family members, e.g., by intervening in disputes, by making an appeal to other dead persons or deities with any authority to influence things on earth for the better, but also to inflict punishments.

There are a few characters who have reached the Akh state, that they “know” about their existence and the ramifications of the ba and ka reuniting in the after life. Eloise is the prime example of a character who “knows” what has happened or what could happen when the ba and ka reunite (which would awaken her son Daniel in the sideways world - -  a situation where he would leave her forever). Desmond reaches the Akh state in the sideways world, and sets off a course of conduct to “awaken” his friends from the island.

The freighter mission was coordinated by Mr. Abaddon.  Abaddon (in the Bible) is a name for the Devil or for hell. The word’s origin is Greek for “destruction” and its use for “hell” rose in the late 17th Century. We have character references to messengers of an underworld existence guiding our lost soul characters on and off the island.

So the Egyptian After Life Unified Theory of Lost is:

REBOOT EPISODES 69-72

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 69-72 (Days 89-91)

In these 4 episodes, we reach the end of Season 3, and the half way point of the LOST saga.

Ben remembers arriving on the island with his father and growing up to become the Others leader. Ben takes Locke to “see” Jacob, the mysterious cult leader.  Meanwhile, secrets about Juliet and Naomi are revealed to the camp.  At night, the whole camp is in uproar about Naomi’s arrival on the island,  as well as her story about the plane having already been found and everyone is dead.  As Sawyer plays the tape, Jack and Juliet return. Everyone questions them, but Juliet tries to explain that she is actually helping them. They turn over the tape and hear that Ben plans to lead a team to kidnap all the fertile women. Juliet reveals that she has already told Jack about it, and that they were still thinking of a plan.

A group of survivors trek inland following Jack. On the way, Charlie sees Desmond stop in his tracks, and despite his denial, Charlie suspects he may have had another one of his visions. Jack tells them that they have arrived and that he and Juliet have been forced to come up with a plan to stop the attack. He calls out and Danielle comes out and sets off a large dynamite explosion blowing up a tree. As the rest of the group recoil in surprise, Jack explains that Juliet will mark the tents of pregnant women with white rocks as she was told, but the Others will find nothing inside but dynamite. As Jack states, "We're gonna blow 'em all to hell."

Back at camp, Charlie talks with Naomi. She asks who the survivors are going to war with but he says that it's a long story. She recognizes him from Drive Shaft, because after his apparent death, a "Greatest Hits" album was released and became very popular. Charlie is pleased at the news, although he notices Desmond in the distance, an ominous reminder of his possible fate.

At the same time, Sayid tells Jack that he can't get a rescue signal out to the freighter because of Danielle’s old distress call is blocking the signal. He tells Jack that they need to go to the radio tower to turn it off, but Juliet says it would make no difference,, as Ben is blocking all transmissions from an underwater station called The Looking Glass.  She mentions that she has no idea where it is, but Sayid he thinks he might know.

Charlie sits with Claire as Desmond approaches, asking to speak with him. Desmond reluctantly admits that he lied, and has seen a flash — one of Claire and Aaron getting into a Helicopter and leaving the Island.  Charlie at first does not understand how this can be bad, but Desmond explains that for this to happen, Charlie must drown after "flicking a switch next to a yellow light" in a hatch.

Jack devises a defense plan to combat the kidnapping plot. Charlie volunteers to go to the underwater station to switch off the jamming equipment so Claire can be saved.

The camp leaves to begin their second exodus to the radio tower.

Sayid, Jin and Bernard are left behind as the three marksmen who will ambush the Others. He makes Jack promise that no matter what happens on the beach, Jack will lead the remaining survivors to the tower and signal the ship; he tells Jack that he is willing to die but only if the others can be rescued. Jack understands and is ready to undertake the long trek to the tower. Before leaving with the others for the radio tower, Rose reminds Bernard that he is "not Rambo" and warns him to be careful. Jin speaks with Sun, intimately telling her to stay close to Jack. Sun asks him why he is staying behind to help, he tells her (in English) because they need to go home. Sun cries and they kiss, Juliet watches further away.

Once they are on their way, Naomi takes Jack aside and tells him that Juliet is not trusted by the other survivors. Then she shows him how to use the radio - in case she doesn't make it.

In the underground station, Charlie is captured is interrogated by Bonnie and Greta. He says that he found out about the Looking Glass from Juliet. Bonnie and Greta go into the radio room to call Ben.
 Charlie sees the blinking yellow light from Desmond's vision of the jamming equipment. After he shouts his name to Ben, Bonnie tells Ben about Juliet's betrayal (overheard by Alpert and Patchy). Ben orders Patchy to go to the Looking Glass to find out why Charlie is there. Ben has to admit he lied about the station being inoperable. Patchy wonders what else Juliet has told the Losties. Ben tries to contact the Others' kidnap team but they are in radio silence.

Charlie’s final message that the people claiming to liberate them are not who they seem to be...

Science:

Once the pin is pulled the fuse and the chemical explosive do not require oxygen to do their stuff, so a grenade can explode under water.

Explosive chemical reactions break down compounds into highly compressed gases, as well as heat resulting from compound molecules being blasted apart. The gases expand rapidly, and the heat speeds up individual gas particles to increase expansion speed even more.

This rapidly expanding gas, called a pressure wave, is the key to any explosive's destructive power. If the pressure wave is fast enough to break the sound barrier, it generates a powerful shock wave. A land explosion can burn skin, tear apart limbs and propel objects and shrapnel through the air.
When the pressure wave travels through the air and connects with a living organism, the organism's body reflects most of the force. This is because there's a difference in densities: The molecules in solid skin are closer together than the rapidly moving gas molecules.

However, portions of your body contain gas, meaning the density is the same as the expanding gas in the pressure wave. The pressure wave hits the body and, while most of it is reflected, some of it manages to compress internal gases. As a result, the victim sustains primary blast injuries. These typically affect the lungs, ears and -- in rare cases -- intestines. These gassy chambers basically implode, rupturing and fragmenting tissue.

In an explosion surrounded by air, the atmosphere will compress and absorb some of the explosive energy. This decreases the lethal range of the explosion. Water, however, is often described as incompressible. Technically, it can compress, but it takes a massive amount of pressure to apply a small amount of compression. This means that in an underwater explosion, the surrounding water doesn't absorb the pressure like air does, but moves with it. An underwater explosion doesn't propel objects through the water nearly as far as a surface explosion throws shrapnel because of the drag water exerts on objects. However, an underwater explosion transmits pressure with greater intensity over a longer distance.

Improbabilities:

Patchy “surviving” a spear to the chest AND going deep underwater (holding his breath with a gaping chest wound) to detonate a grenade which drowns Charlie in the Looking Glass communication room.

Themes:

Sacrifice. Charlie’s death based upon a faulty vision. Claire does not leave the Island on a helicopter.

Alternative reality. The reveal that somehow Jack is “off” the Island and wanting to go back (flash forward) stumped many viewer. It was a twist that was hard to fit into the disjointed sequence that was Lost’s plot structure. But it got weirder when the final reveal is that flash forwards were the sideways world (after life).

Clues:

Hurley goes from believing that he is cursed by his lottery winnings, to believing that he is dead from the plane crash. Is this realization the “second” person (besides Rose) who understands that they are all dead? And is this why the passive Hurley turns killer with the van during the Other’s camp raid? It could be said that Hurley’s new belief in his “real”  situation is why he became Jacob’s true successor.

Charlie’s heroic act is based upon his own memories, musical notes. It shows that the Island is taking character memories and re-postulating them into sacrificial moments to see how the characters react and use their own “free will” to die.

Charlie states that it is not Penny’s boat. Desmond takes Charlie’s death in vain. If not Penny, the 815ers cannot trust the freighter people. Naomi asks about the “war” on the island, but which war is it? Others vs. survivors, or freighters vs. Others. And is the “war” the final resolution between Jacob and MIB?

When Naomi asks Jack what he did before the island, Jack says he was a doctor. In an odd response, Naomi says “of course you were,” as in “if that is what you believe.” It can’t be taken just as a off-hand remark because Naomi knows more than she appears, as she was “recruited” by Jacob for this mission.

Ben is fearful of the freighter attacking the island. Ben’s own web of lies to his own people begin to unravel as they start to distrust him. He says to Jack when contact is made, “this is the beginning of The End.” It could mean the end of his power. It could mean the end of the Others on the island, as he said “every living thing on the island would be killed.” Or could it relate to Lost’s final episode, “The End,” the re-constitution of the characters souls in the after life?

When Locke is shot and falls into the purge ditch to die, he loses movement in his legs. His paralysis returns as he gets closer to death. No so more than when he decides to take his own life with the revolver; he struggles to reach for the gun. This could show a relationship between parallel universes: as Locke’s life fades on the island, his disabled state returns as his spirit is about to depart the island. It would be symbolic that the island is not part of the real world.

There were several references to being rescued and taken “home.” Home could refer to their off-island lives. But one definition of the word “home” states that it is “an institution for people needing professional care or supervision: example, an old people's home.” Or, in some theories, a mental institution.

Another word used often was “hero.” 
A hero is defined as “a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities: example, a war hero.” It can also mean
(in mythology and folklore) a person of superhuman qualities and often semi-divine origin, in particular one of those whose exploits and dealings with the gods were the subject of ancient Greek myths and legends.

Naomi appears to have died twice on the island: first as a result of the parachute jump and severe injury, and then second with Locke’s knife. There may be a connection in a gamer way to the character’s and their permanent removal from the island: you get one free “death” on the island. It could explain why Patchy survived both the sonic fence or spear gun, to meet his final fate with the underwater grenade. That would mean that all the passengers have used up their one life in the crash.


Discussion:

“ Wishes cost nothing unless you want them to come true. ”
— Frank Tyger

“ Action is the last resource of those who know not how to dream. ”
— Oscar Wilde

“ A long dispute means that both parties are wrong. ”
— Voltaire

False assumptions are worse than lies. So many times characters jump to conclusions without understanding the situation or question the facts.

Why did Charlie need to “die?”  In order for Desmond’s dream to come true?

Desmond had a final vision - Charlie dying by turning off the flooded underwater station's signal jammer. Charlie accepted the suicide mission. He hides his ring with Aaron and kisses Claire goodbye. He went out in a canoe with Desmond, passing on a list of his life's best moments. Dez volunteers to take Charlie's place, but Charlie knocked him out with an oar and  dives to the station, discovering it wasn't flooded after all, but it was inhabited by female Others who beat and interrogated him until reanimated Patchy arrived and shots them, per orders of Ben. Using scuba gear, Mikhail (Patchy) dives down to the station - where, on Ben's orders, he killed Greta and fatally wounded Bonnie before being shot in the chest by Desmond with a speargun. Charlie convinced the dying Bonnie to give him the code to turn off the jamming equipment due to her anger towards Ben's betrayal.

One issue is that Charlie should have known Desmond’s vision is faulty because the station was not flooded. Charlie’s background in blind faith has led him astray, putting aside common sense, to push on with his suicidal mission.

Charlie gives Desmond his final message before drowning. He then received an incoming message, revealing that Desmond's girlfriend Penny hadn't sent their "rescuers." Mikhail, still alive, then blew up a port window, filling the chamber with water. Charlie passed on the message  “Not Penny’s Boat” on his hand.

Charlie states when he is writing his “greatest hits” list of events in his life, number one was meeting Claire. He also states that “memories are all” his has - - - which begs the question whether memories are all his or blurred with other island captives. An example is Charlie being called a hero for stopping a purse snatcher in London. The woman he saved was Nadia. Now, Charlie never knew Nadia, for she is part of Sayid’s memories. It would appear that memories from the characters are props in the actions or events of other characters. And yes, that makes a confusing, tangled cosmic string.

But it may be the dynamic stock feed for the island, a West World for spirits. It is not a new concept that souls may need a “break” from their afterlife to go to a spiritual-adventurous resort to “re-live” memories and/or create new ones. Look at Mikail - - - he dies as often as the Yul Brenner gunslinger.
But is Charlie really a hero or a dumb oaf? When the communication station was filling with water, one can see that Charlie could have swam out of the port hole to safety even after failing to open the chamber door. So how does Charlie’s death further the cause of rescue from the island? It does nothing. It does transform Charlie into a spirit that physically haunts Hurley.

Charlie will appear to Hurley during his years off the island. Hurley first saw him in a convenience store and panicked, and his flight turned into a full on car chase with the police. In the interrogation room, Hurley hallucinated Charlie drowning, disturbing him so greatly that he agreed to be taken back to the Santa Rosa Mental Institution. Charlie began visiting him regularly there, and physically slapping him to attention,  in plain view of the other patients. Charlie’s sacrifice turns him into a messenger, trying to guide Hurley back to the island, as other characters seem to have done in other story arcs.

But just as memories of the island captives is important in the dynamic of the events that unfold on the island, Jacob’s memories of his dead brother may be the living embodiment of the Island itself. There is an eternal conflict rooted in the Island. We just are never really told what it really, truly all about. There is no context (mortar) to support the events (bricks) in the foundation of the Lost mythology.

The question of who the “original” inhabitants of the Island will never be known. But from the structures and stories, we know that there were Egyptian temples and statues built on the Island. This predates the Roman era, the time when Jacob’s mother was shipwrecked on the Island.

At that time, Crazy Mother was the only person on the island. She was the Island “guardian.” So, we can assume she brought Jacob’s parents to the island. Now, whether she was also a person “brought” to the island during an earlier time is probable, as she probably succeeded some Egyptian leader just as Jacob succeeds her. Kings or rulers of a territory have the right to make their own rules.

There appears to be a clear good vs. evil game at work on the island. It mirrors the tension between science and technology vs. religion and morality. When Jacob and MIB discuss the reason why Jacob continues to bring human beings to the island, MIB laments that they always turn corrupt and Jacob loses in his bet. So it is more likely that the island guardian brings both good and evil people to the island to determine which type of person wins out when people are left to fend for themselves, and when absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is a spark of this power play when Jack returns to the angry camp with Juliet, and Jack tells them to follow “his” plan to kill the Others. He expects them to follow his orders, and “blow them all to Hell.”

Do followers lose their humanity, their “goodness” when leaders continue to absorb the power between individuals and turn that into “evil?” That may be the basic game between Jacob and MIB: a philosophical question that has always ended with evil corrupting the good; the good never winning.

There is no sense of mortality or judgment for the killings on the island. The island may have cloaks of religion, and themes of redemption, but the actual killings is primal and without regard to any consequences. They appear indiscriminate and without remorse, almost in a video game style shooter.

We made the assumption that the 815ers are “good” and the Others are “evil.” But in the backstories of the 815ers, there is much evil: murderers, criminals, mentally unstable personalities, drug abusers, alcoholics and thieves. We know another outsider, Ben, is a psychopathic mass murderer due his purge of Dharma. But what of the original Hostiles? We see only Ben’s influence on them, part of which was learned behavior from Widmore when he was a leader of the band who expelled the military from the island.

There is a ramp up on the killing in this arc to end Season 3. When we compare the final tallies for the series, it is hard to distinguish which group was good or evil. In fact, there appears to be no lessons learned, no remorse and no moral consequences from killing anyone.

If you consider the Island as MIB, the smoke monster and Jacob, they account for 44 deaths.

If you count Ben with the Others, they killed 64 people (including the purge)

If you count the 815 survivors, they killed 42 people.

If you consider outsiders like Danielle and Desmond, Danielle killed 3 and Desmond killed 1 (unless you also count the 254 passengers killed on impact as his fault or the Island’s EM field).

If you consider Widmore and his forces, they killed 10 people.

There is no distinction between whether a death was intentional, accidental, negligent or in self defense. Death is a way of life on the island.

In fact, there is no moral high ground or moral stance that any of these groups declare when the conflict begins or ends. It is almost a primal “us against them” attack reflex. There are killers who are saved in the end, and some killers who are not saved in the end.

The final false assumption at the end of the third season was bad beard Jack's off-island story. We all thought from the editing that this was a drunken Jack, crashing after his divorce to Sarah, to the edge of despair. He even argues with the new chief of surgery about talking to his father about his condition. He is suicidal. He makes one final reach out to Sarah, but she rebuffs him. But in the final scene at the airport, we learn that the bearded Jack pining is not a flash back, but he is a flash forward - - - to a time off-island. The woman who would not talk to him on the phone was Kate. And in a crazed expression of despair, Jack yells "we have to go back!" which means that at least some of the survivors made it off the island.

It was a viewer game changer. It put some doubt in the story time line, which would be further complicated by the island time travel arc which led to another cliff hanger, The Incident.

But confusion would become a constant, soon. There will be unanswered questions like what ever happened to Annie, Ben's island school pal? If she was the only one who was kind to young Ben, where was she in his life? What happened after she left the island? And why did not Ben join her? He kept the wooden doll because she said with it "they would never be a part." But they were kept separated for no apparent reason. Once Ben became a leader and brought more people to the island, he could have re-connected with her.  And in a twisted way, Ben's kidnapping and calling Alex "his daughter" was a replacement for Annie. But in the End, why did not Ben seek out Annie? Unless he feared that any wish he had with her would not come true.

There is a parallel between Ben's sad little life and Jack's. Ben pleads to Jack not to call the freighter, telling him he has nothing to go back to on the mainland. Ben has nothing to go back to either. Both men's lives are similar: drunken father's, not getting the respect they deserved, and both wanting to be greater than their father - - - leaders, making the hard life and death decisions, without faltering under the pressure. In all of his manipulative tricks, Ben could not convince Jack to stop the call. And even though Locke killed Naomi as she got the signal, Locke could not convince Jack to stop the call, either.


Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

The ash ring around Jacob’s cabin was thought by many as a talisman to ward off evil spirits from seeing or attacking Jacob.

Tall Walt appearing to Locke in the purge ditch to tell him to get up because “he was work to do.” The strange voice implies that this Walt is not the boy who left the island, but a representation created by MIB or Jacob in shape shifting mode.




Last lines in episodes:

EP 69:

BEN: Well, I certainly hope he helps you, John.
[Ben leaves Locke lying in the ditch.]

EP 70:

CHARLIE: [Laughs and pants] I'm alive. AH! I'm alive!!!!

[A door opens and two women run out, both with guns. A light comes on, and one woman runs to Charlie and points her gun right at his face. He makes a weak smile.]

EP 71:

WALT: Because, you have work to do.
[Locke smiles.]

EP 72:

JACK: We have to go back!

[A plane takes off over Jack's head.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

Naomi is working for Mr. Abaddon who is working for Jacob. Naomi is a messenger. Alpert is a messenger (messenger bag holds Sawyer’s file to Locke). Jacob puts together a team under the guise of Widmore’s obsession to return to control the power of the Island (life and death?). But it is all part Jacob’s plan to bring those people to the Island. For what purpose? Worship him as a god? Experiment on human behavior with his brother, MIB? To prove a point that humanity can make noble self-sacrifices for a greater good?

And the “good” is represented by multiple types of religions, just as “evil” can be represented by the technology driven groups. MIB was drawn to working with the Romans, who had learned to fashion a crude frozen donkey wheel. Crazy Mother and Jacob appear to be naturalists, anti-technology, as it corrupts humanity. The struggle of technology taking away human elements in society could be a core reason why MIB and Jacob argue about the people brought to the island. It may be a game of which type of person can cope the best: spiritual or technological.

For what ever reason, Crazy Mother was the last soul on the Island until the Roman shipwreck. The Romans succeeded the Egyptians as the world’s great engineering civilization. Succession is an important theme in the Lost stories. In a certain way, Jack is succeeding Ben; both had drunken father/daddy issues which never resolved themselves properly. Both grabbed power because they were told as a boy that they lacked the qualities for leadership.

The American military industrial complex succeeded the empires of Europe in World War II, as represented by the jughead bomb on the Island. Apparently, the Hostiles led by Eloise and Widmore took out the U.S. military. Afterward, the scientists of the Dharma Institute were brought to the island as a direct contrast to the cult like subsistent Hostiles. The clash of cultures was set up to determine whether good or evil would will out. In the case of recruiting a disillusioned Ben, the Hostiles “purged” Dharma in mass homicide. One can only say that evil won that battle.

Now, Jacob has brought another series of people to the Island, a cast of characters all with personal physical and mental issues. Many of those people start off “bad,” such as murderers, cheats, liars, killers and drug addicts. Many of those people start off “good,” as in religious, kind, nurturing and caring for other people. The dynamic story line shows that many of the “bad” people turn “good” and many “good” people turn “bad.”

If the Island is a organic construct of the memories of the souls brought into its energy field (its core computing processor), it is possible that Jacob himself is using his own memories to keep his brother “alive” on the Island, just as Eloise is trying desperately to keep her son, Daniel, “alive” with her in the sideways world.

Look at the character tree:

Follow the character paths like falling dominoes. Like in the Egyptian game of Senet, the object is to get your pieces off the board. Or in this version, turn the characters into your black or white (good or evil) color. MIB must have been intent on destroying Jacob's candidates.

You can trace MIB’s path of “influence” throughout the chart. However, it ends with Locke, since it will come to pass that Jack does not follow Flocke’s path to evil, but instead Jack sacrifices himself to save his friends. That sacrifice for the “good of others” is the end game, the check mate, in the Jacob-MIB philosophical battle; Jacob finally wins - - - freeing himself from the obligation of the island wardenship which was his own prison of memories. Hurley reluctantly assumes the role as Island guardian, only to dismantle it - -  - and apparently to leave Bernard, Rose, Cindy, the children and any remaining Others on their own, at peace, on the Island.

REBOOT EPISODES 65-68

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 65-68 (Days 82-89)

Juliet arrives at the 815 camp with Jack, Sayid and Kate. But the camp distrusts Juliet. Kack explains that he cut a deal with them by helping Ben. He says, "I did what they told me and didn't ask any questions." Kate is skeptical that it was that simple, but leaves it alone. Meanwhile, Sayid questions Juliet about who she is but she refuses to tell him anything. She says he would kill her if she tells him everything he wants to know. He bluntly implies that he will kill her if she doesn't. Jack returns and tells Sayid to leave Juliet alone, and that she is under his protection, because the Others left her behind. But we will learn that is not true. Claire is stricken by a mysterious illness as Juliet rushes to save her, which is part of the Others plan to gain Juliet trust.

Desmond has flashes or visions. So he coaxes Charlie, Hurley and Jin to go with him into the jungle to find his vision of a stranger arriving on the island. As they make camp, they see a parachutist crash onto the Island. After Kate sees Jack and Juliet together, she has sexual relations with Sawyer.

Sun allows Juliet to take her to the Staff medical station to check on her pregnancy. Juliet reveals to her that pregnant women die on the island. Patchy returns from death to make a deal to treat the injured parachutist, Naomi, in exchange for his freedom.

The Others offer Locke the chance to join them if he shows his commitment to them. Apparently, the killing of one’s own father is such a commitment. Unable to do what they ask, Locke recruits  Sawyer to do it for him, with the help of the mysterious Alpert.  Meanwhile, Desmond questions whether or not the the camp survivors trust Jack enough to tell him about Naomi.  Sayid questions Naomi for information from the outside world. What she tells him everyone on Flight 815 died.

Science:

The traditional ultrasound procedure involves placing gel on your abdomen to work as a conductor for the sound waves. Your healthcare provider uses a transducer to produce sound waves into the uterus. The sound waves bounce off bones and tissue returning back to the transducer to generate black and white images of the fetus.

An ultrasound determines the age of a pregnancy by comparing measurements against a standard. Given the dimensions of the entire embryo (whole length) or the diameter of the abdomen, the head, and the length of the fetus' femur (thigh bone) doctors can estimate the age of the fetus. Therefore, the determined age of a pregnancy is only an approximation. Information about a woman’s last menstruation date, her  cycle,  regularity and the duration and date of intercourse are more useful in determining the date of conception.

Your healthcare provider will use hormone levels in your blood, the date of your last menstrual period and, in some cases, results from an ultrasound to generate an expected date of conception. However, many differences in each woman's cycle may hinder the accuracy of the conception date calculation. The viability of sperm varies as well, which means that intercourse three to five days prior to ovulation may result in conception. Ultrasound dating of conception is not reliable for determining paternity because the ultrasound can be off by at least 5-7 days in early pregnancy.

Improbabilities:

Patchy surviving a massive cerebral hemorrhage in the jungle, without any apparent medical treatment.

Ben claiming that he “activated” the “implant” in Claire to cause her sickness. What “implant” can be activated by long distance to cause an illness, let alone an immediate cure? It is clearly a Bondesque literary device where the agent is injected by an evil scientist to die in a matter of minutes unless he finds the antidote.

Themes:

Death. Three separate characters tell the main characters that they are “dead.” Cooper tells Locke that the island is Hell; he was in a car crash (the series motif) and then in the Island magic box. Naomi tells Hurley that they found the Flight 815 plane and t”you are all dead”; there were no survivors of Flight 815.  And then, there is the reanimation of Patchy, who was killed by the sonic fence. He stumbles across the survivors and Naomi and tells them”I have already died once this week.”

Leadership. The beach camp no longer trusts Jack who has brought an Other, Juliet, into their camp. The distrust is further heightened when Locke tells Sawyer that Juliet is a spy and gives him proof the tape. But before Sawyer can impart the news, Kate takes the secret of Naomi to Jack; and in return for her trusting him, Jack refuses to tell her his new secret with Juliet. The Others are in search of a new leader in Locke. In a mindless cult dynamic, they were excited to learn that a paralyzed man regained his walking ability after a plane crash. That miracle makes Locke “special” in the Others culture. But Ben attempts to sabotage Locke by embarrassing him with his father, but Alpert works behind the scenes to undermine Ben’s authority. Alpert and many of the followers are fed up with Ben’s sidetrack issues such as island fertility, instead of the unknown purpose the Others seek.


Clues:

The direct dialogue references to death. TPTB said after the pilot episode that the series was not about purgatory. But in The End, that statement had no credibility. Perhaps, in order to confess the original lie, TPTB put in more and more “death” references to cue viewers to the final series finish line. It would be manipulative half-truths which the series story structure was replete.

Cooper claims the Island  is hell. A popular is that the Island is not hell, but purgatory. This theory would later be revisited in “Ab Aererno,” the Alpert flashback episode.

Juliet downs a glass of orange juice and massive amount of tranquilizers in order to get on the Others submarine. The idea that one has to overdose (die?) in order to travel the “bumpy” road to the Island is a possibility.

D.O.C. could mean “Date of Conception” in the case of Sun. But D.O.C. could also mean “Dead on Crash” as Naomi tells the survivors that Flight 815 plane was found and there were no survivors. All the bodies were found in the wreckage.

All pregnant women who conceive on the Island do not give birth. All of the pregnancies are terminated by some factor on the Island, usually by the second trimester.  It is unclear whether it is “the illness” or the Island itself. But the contradictory nature of the Island as a “place of healing” is directly opposite for the pregnant women. In a negative perspective, “new life” i.e. the birth of baby, would not be possible in a place of death, such as Hell.

When Desmond is in the monestary, there is a picture of Eloise on Brother Campbell’s desk. And when the entire season’s wine cases are sold, they are sold to Widmore, Eloise’s husband. It is where Desmond meets Penny.

The wine itself is labeled Moriah. Moriah is the name given to a mountain range in Genesis where Abraham is to sacrifice his son Issac. In Genesis 22:2 it states "And he said, Take thy son, the beloved one, whom thou hast loved—Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there for a whole-burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Desmond believes that when he woke up in the middle of the street (dead?) Brother Campbell came upon him and Dez found his “calling” to be a monk instead of marrying Ruth. (It is interesting to note that Desmond ran away from Ruth just as he did with Penny. It seems Desmond’s life “reboots” or repeats itself after a drunken erasure moment where he seems to awaken to a new, different, life. He is told that he has a “higher calling” than being a monk - - - which will detour him to the Island.

Genesis also makes a quiet cue when Sawyer gives Kate “a mix tape” from Phil Collins.
The island shares the Genesis passage in regard to the theme of sacrifice and personal tests. Each character is being tested by their own fears, memories and challenges. Most have “run away” from them during their life, but now must come to grips with them. In Desmond’s case, it is being a coward.

Discussion:

Dream On. Dream On.
Dream until your Dreams come True - - -
Aerosmith

Dream on until your Dreams come true.  Is that what is really happening to our Flight 815 “survivors?”

Look at the “dreams” that characters want to come true?

Desmond reunited with Penny.
Sun having a baby with Jin.
Charlie finding a normal paternal purpose with Claire and Aaron.
Locke killing his father for what he had done to him. It would also fulfill Locke's dream of leadership and respect.

It would seem that the island “tests” are components of each character’s own nightmares on the path to having their dreams fulfilled in the End.

The only person on Island that “ages” is Walt. Is this his reoccurring dream? Because of a broken marriage of his parents, and constant travel with his mother to foreign countries, did Walt dream up a vast array of “imaginary friends” to have adventures in his mind? It could a subconscious rebellion against the separation of his father, to but his imagine of his father, Michael, through hellish situations and anguish so he could punish him. But once Walt “leaves” the Island story, does not preclude his dream from living on? No. In fact, it may be bolstered by the fact that Michael, for no apparent reason, returns to the Island and gets blown up on the boat. He is forever trapped as a spirit on the Island.

Likewise, it could be all Michael’s nightmare of remorse for allowing his son to leave and be adopted by a stranger. His mind has turned against him to punish him for being a bad person, and over time comes to consume his subconscious to become a murderous thug. Since he cannot handle reality, his mind traps him in his own “mental death” on his return to the Island; a permanent coma purgatory.

Desmond has visions that when group walks through the jungle in the rain while Hurley and Charlie playfully argue over which comic character would win a footrace, Charlie steps on a  trigger and lifts his foot, activating an arrow which is shot through his neck. They try to help him but Charlie dies. There are mental flashes of different images: a reverse version of Hurley pulling the cable,  a blinking red light behind dark clouds at night, the photo of Desmond and Penny, an image of Jin and Charlie and a set of hands holding a parachute, the feet of a person in gear hanging from a tree, the helmeted head of the same person and a fast image of the face of Penny with a green backdrop which might suggest the Island.

Desmond looks up, startled from his flashes of imminent future events. He drops his fishing pole and runs up to Hurley to ask him about the cable (which Sayid had found earlier). Hurley wants to know why, so Desmond tells him it's important and that someone is coming.

Desmond compares his flashes to puzzle pieces except he does not to know what picture the pieces form. Hurley and the cable are the first piece of this vision but he can't tell more without compromising the vision. Remembering himself kissing Penny, Desmond admits to Hurley that the end result of this vision is something he wants to ensure above all else. Desmond believes that if changes the events of his visions, they will not come true.

Desmond has “dreamed” of reuniting with Penny for more than three years of captivity on the Island. His visions may be subconscious desires overwhelming his conscious emotional state. These may not be memory, but fantasy projections in Desmond’s own mind on how he can get want he wants in his dreams: holding Penny again. As a result, he may be programming himself (or the Island) to make his dream come true.

But, when he saves Charlie from the arrow, Desmond believes that he changed the outcome of his vision. Naomi had replaced Penny as the person coming to rescue him from the Island.

While it is dark outside, Juliet creeps into Sun's tent and, with her hand over Sun's mouth to stop her from screaming, offers to help her. They begin walking to the Staff. Along the way Juliet explains that if Sun conceived off the Island then she will probably be fine; however, if Sun conceived on the Island then she will likely die. An ultrasound will be able to determine Sun's "D.O.C." (date of conception) to within a few days. Sun says that Claire and Kate had told her about this place, and that it had been cleared out and abandoned. Juliet tells her, "they didn't know where to look."

Juliet and Sun enter medical station where Sun looks around uneasily as Juliet switches on the lights. Sun explains that she had cheated on Jin and that if the baby was conceived off of the Island, it was not her husband's. She then asks Juliet why she is helping her, and Juliet explains that she used to give women the news that they were pregnant and it was the best news they had ever received. However, on the island she has lost 9 patients in 3 years and she wants to be able to give good news again.

Again, the series medical facts are suspect as Juliet does not gather sufficient patient information to make a normal diagnosis. In the three years Juliet was on the Island, she never found out what is actually killing pregnant women. However, if her brilliance was to have her infertile sister get pregnant (during chemotherapy no less), are there parallel “miracle” realms where modern medical science rules do not apply? If true, it would bolster the proposition that the flashbacks are not “real world” events but a prior afterlife or between worlds realm of events, where supernatural elements are common, just like on the Island.

One issue with the ultrasound scene that continues to bother me is that a) the medical information is incomplete to make a conclusion; and b) it appears that Juliet turns on the machine “after” using the wand on Sun’s stomach. The latter infers that the image on the screen is NOT Sun’s baby, but a VHS tape image of a fetus in a womb. It is a con. It is an attempt to make Sun believe she conceived on the Island, so the Others can take control over her reproduction. Juliet tells her the reason for the “miracle” is that men on the island have their sperm count increase 5 fold. Again, that is an impossible statement that Sun takes as truth. And when Juliet leaves a message in the station for Ben about gathering more information on the other camp women, we see the devious nature and mistrust for what we see or hear in critical scenes.

There was always a question of whether Eloise’s killing of her time traveling son, Daniel, on the Island in 1977, caused the Island to kill all pregnant women. It is also unclear as to the paternity of both Daniel and Penny. Was Penny a secondary dream to replace Daniel in Eloise’s own mental visions of her future? Was the imprisonment of Desmond on the Island the mental visions of Eloise to “save (her) world” i.e. Daniel from the fate of death at her own hands?

Desmond refers to his visions as puzzle pieces. The whole LOST dynamic could be a large puzzle. But in certain respects, it could be two or more actual puzzles mixed up into one pile. We have certain shapes or patterns in the LOST mythology. First, most people appear to come onto the island via accident: shipwreck, plane crash, helicopter crash, lost at sea by boat. Second, all the characters have some deep and unresolved mental or emotional problems. Third, the Island is supernatural. It contains a violent smoke monster (who appeared quickly in the background of one of Desmond’s visions; is Naomi the smoke monster directing Desmond’s flashes?)

Naomi adds new key facts to the mystery of Flight 815. She states that the wreckage was found near Bali. All passengers and crew were found dead. The question is how did the plane get so far off course. Approximately six hours into the flight, Flight 815 encountered problems with their radio. Having lost contact with ground control, the pilot decided to alter course and "turn back" towards Fiji. Approximately two hours later, having traveled more than 1000 miles off their planned course, the plane hit turbulence, which eventually resulted in the plane's crash.

The flight time from Sydney to Fiji is 4 hours. One can assume that 815 passed Fiji before the turbulence, IF it was on the correct course from the beginning. The flight time from Fiji to Bali is approximately 8 hours. However, the flight time from Sydney to Bali is approximately 6.5 hours. So if one just takes the pilot’s time points, it is possible that Flight 815 crashed near Bali or father away in the Phillipines Sea. This is a “real world” explanation.

In the supernatural sense, one theory has the Island off the coast of Indonesia, possibly “moved” by the failure of Desmond to input the Numbers. Demond’s failure caused a large burst of electromagnetic energy. The true cause of the plane's off-course deviation and arrival to the Island's airspace was Jacob, the supernatural entity who protected the Island. Jacob brought the plane because many of the flight's passengers were allegedly candidates to take over Island guardianship. Lostpedia states that eight hours after take-off would put Oceanic 815 on the Island around 10:15pm Sydney time, later local time since they were flying eastward (Fiji is 2 time zones later, Tahiti is 4). However, it was clearly mid-day when the plane lands, and on the printout from the Pearl found by Locke and Eko, it is clearly shown that the Swan's system failure occurred on September 22, 2004, at 4:16 PM. This is another indication of the time discrepancy the Island and the outside world.

Now, many believe it is absolute that Widmore planted the plane wreckage off Bali to hide the Island from outsiders. This conclusion is based solely on pilot Frank’s observation on the film footage on the news. Frank, an alcoholic pilot who missed the flight, was replaced by his friend, Seth Norris. When Frank heard of the crash, most likely he was despondent, since he was supposed to be on that plane; he was supposed to have died not his friend. When Frank saw a newscast showing the supposed body of Seth in the underwater cockpit. Frank believed that was not Seth's body, since Seth always wore his wedding ring, while the corpse's hand had no rings. However, there was never any confirmation that Widmore or anyone else staged the wreckage. There was no point to it. Once the plane crashed in the ocean, full wreckage recovery is statistically impossible. Besides, the Island can “move” and hide itself from the outside world so there was no need to call off the search parties, if any. And further, only Jacob can bring people to the Island.

So based upon the information at hand, Naomi’s statements are more believable than Frank’s observations on the fate of Flight 815. And one can add the circumstantial evidence that Cooper said he was run into a highway divider going 70 miles per hour, blacks out, and winds up on the Island with no real injuries. He knows that he was killed in that traffic accident, and he wound up on the Island which he calls Hell. Hell in the sense that he must answer for his sins, first to his son and second to Sawyer.

Magical/Supernatural/Elements:

What happens to souls if they are brought to an Island Hell? They live “dangerous” adventures, see people die then come back to life, the experience real fear and they test their will to sacrifice.

Last lines in episodes:

EP 65:

BEN: [Hands Juliet a gas mask] See you in a week.
[Ben rolls away in his wheelchair. Juliet pauses, then takes the mask. At the beach, Juliet ties part of the tarp sharply, with a cold look on her face.]

EP 66:

WOMAN: Desmond...
[She stops moving and her eyes close.]

EP 67:

HURLEY: What?!

EP 68:

LOCKE: Not anymore.
[Locke leaves, and Sawyer starts walking back to camp. Locke grabs Cooper's covered body, and pulls it onto his back. He walks away carrying it.]

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

There is clear testimony by multiple characters that the people on board Flight 815 died in the crash. Three separate characters tell the main characters that they are “dead.” Cooper tells Locke that the island is Hell; he was in a car crash (the series motif) and then in the Island magic box. Naomi tells Hurley that they found the Flight 815 plane and t”you are all dead”; there were no survivors of Flight 815.  And then, there is the reanimation of Patchy, who was killed by the sonic fence. He stumbles across the survivors and Naomi and tells them”I have already died once this week.”

Many fans refuse to accept the concept that the characters were spirits, ghosts or souls detoured to an after life Island controlled by a mysterious guardian called Jacob.

Cooper, Naomi and Patchy’s statements reinforce the original pictures and sequence of events of the crash. The plane was off course, but at international flight attitude of at least 30,000 feet. The plane shutters but remains level before it suddenly breaks in two. As discussed in previous posts, it is almost certain that no person would survive a high altitude plane break-up over the ocean.

Then we have the odd, inconsistent medical events. Rose’s cancer is “cured” by the crash. How can a live person’s terminal cancer be “cured” by the Island? It is said it could be the unique electromagnetic waves, but those were allegedly destroyed by the Hatch explosion. Locke’s paralysis was “cured” by the crash. How can a permanently disabled man with a crushed spinal cord suddenly regain the use of all his limbs? It is said the Island has “healing” properties. But such explanations defy current medical science.

On the reverse side, a place of “healing” should not be a place where pregnant women die. Juliet claims that at conception, pregnant women’s “immune” system attacks the fetus and the body causing death. Normally, a rejection of the fertile egg would not lead to dire consequences for a normal female patient. One has to try to make all these inconsistencies make sense. One conclusion could be that women on the island, though appear to be “alive,” are not. They are spirits or souls in Hell or purgatory or an after life realm which does not allow “new” life to be created from the dead.

One of my more complex theories during the show’s first run dealt with this issue.

The Nexus-Buffer Theory is premised on the speculation that Lost is a modern adaptation of Paradise Lost (with elements of Dante’s Inferno).

In Milton’s world view, the universe was represented just like the mobile above Aaron’s crib. The universe of planets, sun and stars was encapsulated by waters which fed the Earth and kept the raging forces of Chaos at bay. Outside the Universe sphere are the separate spheres of Heaven and Hell. In Dante’s work, after the rebellion in heaven, Satan and his devils were cast into Hell in the midst of Chaos. God then created a new universe which housed a new creature, Man, on Earth. Satan built a bridge to Earth through Chaos and brought evil to mankind, which lead to the banishment of man from Eden to the mortality of Earth.

In religion context, man has both a body and soul. Upon death on earth, one’s soul travels to another plane of existence. Some religions base that upon the sins of the past; others various stages of enlightenment and reincarnation; hell (punishment), purgatory (penance), limbo (pagan paradise) or heaven (resurrection, eternal paradise). In the afterlife, souls have new bodies (vessels). Various stages of the afterlife may be present in the ether of the after world, as the soul is cleansed of its mortal sins toward a path of enlightenment on final judgment. The mind would control afterlife matter.

What was left in Milton and Dante’s works was the revenge of Satan against God. There is an inference that Satan at some time would rise up to fight another battle for heaven. As Satan had found a path to invade his spiritual form to Earth, it would probably be much harder to breach the gates of heaven.

Thus, we get to the Island. The Island is a way station, a nexus point between the gates of heaven and the afterlife universe. The Hatch and the Numbers were the mechanism to maintain an electromagnetic barrier between the nexus bridge and the gates of heaven so Satan’s minions could not invade. When the numbers were not imputed to vent the EM, an alarm would sound, an internal barrier would drop and symbols would appear. I translated those Egyptian symbols to say “He escapes place of death.” Once the EM force field was down, breached or compromised, the nexus point (island) was exposed - - and other souls (devils) could arrive through either Chaos or through a gate to Earth to take control of this strategic place.

The basic assumption watching the show is that the characters are alive. They survived the plane crash. But in the jumbled time looping, flash back and flash forward story lines, is that really confirmed as true? It is possible to speculate that the passengers on 815 were already in their afterlives, having already died prior to Flight 815. In the flashbacks, there are clues that these characters died: examples -- Hurley: deck collapse; Kate: car accidents; Sayid: Iraq war casualty; Rose: terminal cancer; Rousseau: shipwreck; Desmond: lost at sea in small boat. They may not actually know they are "dead" per se, as their mind and soul is just beginning its long journey through the afterlife and judgment. (In ancient Egyptian culture, various parts of the body and soul transmute into the afterlife to be reconstructed after various stages of being in the afterlife.) How everyone got on the plane is like the comment from Defending Your Life, how one imagines their demise is how they are transported to the next level of existence.

Three characters have been called "special." If one looks at their situation with a more objective notion of time and place, one could conclude that they were either stillborn, or died shortly after birth. This would mean that they had no mortal sins. Ben (premature and born on roadside), Locke (mother hit by car, premature), and Alex (mother shipwrecked or died of the sickness). When Ben stated that he was born on the island, it may be a reference that he was actually arrived in the afterlife as a "rarity," a human soul without mortal sin. This would imply that he would have angelic powers. But those powers could be corrupted by other, fallen angels or Satan’s minions.

In ancient Egyptian culture (since LOST has increased its references to it as the seasons have come to pass), departed souls would reach a pagan paradise where they would toil in the fields of the gods, while others would go into the underworld to have their heart weighed in the final judgment on whether they would pass onto eternal paradise.

The Island could the the intersection of different, supernatural realms of good and evil. This could explain why our natural laws and physics seem not to apply to aspects of Island.

In my final theory, I stated:

The Lost Experience can be best summarized as human beings taking a long journey of good, evil, faith, science, redemption and final judgment. The Lost Souls (the 815ers, the Others, Dharma) are all caught in a layered spirit world. It is the merger of ancient religion and science which created the pyramids and Temples. The need to prepare in one's lifetime for the journey through the afterlife is a key component in the ancient texts. Speculate that the ancient civilizations actually found the technology portal(s) to the afterlife as a means of helping their rulers and gods journey through the afterlife. This puts the characters in a supernatural world, where our known concepts of science, physics and technology become immaterial.

There are various levels in the afterlife, according to a person's beliefs and final judgment. Many could toil in the pagan-secular world after death, which may be tilling ancient fields, or living in a parallel earth civilization. It could be real or an illusion to test one's free will or faith. Many could be found worthy of eternal paradise in heaven, or in reincarnation into a higher life form. Many of the unworthy, evil or damned could be found on the road to hell, chaos or non-existence. There is no right or wrong answer to how the road map of Death could play out.

But most literary civilizations have common touchstones for which morality creates the mortar to create a solid society.

I believe that the characters are dead. Dead before we even saw them in S1E1. But dying once on earth does not mean that you cannot die multiple times more during one's journey through the afterlife. Dead is Dead but the Dead could be Alive in another plane of existence. One could compare it to running through levels of an action video game. Each one of those levels is managed by angels or guardians, whose sole mission is to sort out the souls for judgment, rehabilitation or demise. It can be levels of existence: earth life, to a faux earth existence in another plane like earth, to a pagan paradise (toiling in the fields, working for the gods), to an underworld where souls are tested, to various levels or hell to various levels of spiritual enlightenment, to the final way station before final judgment. It would function as a pre-heaven Eden and a pre-hell Pit of Destruction. The Island is like an airport terminal, with various gates or portals to different dimensions, different times, different realms of existence. The Guardians bring souls to the Island in a collective manner, in order to retain their human beliefs, instincts, experiences, fears, weaknesses and strengths, in order to see if one's human instincts (destruction, deceit, corruption, deadly sins) have been reformed in order to pass on to the next level of the afterlife.

There is another aspect to consider: Lost in Reverse. Sideways is a purgatory wait station. The Island is the hell to test souls fears, sins through relationships, quests, tests, judgment or redemption. The flashbacks are not true memories, but the dream feedstock of the characters main fears and nightmares, because those mental conditions are repeated in Island events to see if the character can change, come to grip with those issues, in order to “move on.” Christian tells Jack that everything that has happened to him was “real.” But reality is a moving target concept. One can dream themselves into sweat filled horror which seems absolutely real. A psychopath can have “real illusions” and act them out in real life, like stabbing an individual who he thinks is a werewolf or zombie. The sideways world was “created” by Jack’s friends in order to wait for Jack’s death. How can you “interconnect” the minds, thoughts, memories and personality of a dozen people to create a whole new world. It sounds like a game platform. It sounds like an MMO. It sounds - - - like a crazy construct.  We know the sideways world is not real, but it had to be created by the memories or dreams of the characters, which differ from their flashback stories. An alternative dream world was created for Jack to return to the group who shared Island based adventures and breakthroughs like group therapy.

So is the Island all inside Jack’s head? It is possible. Factors that point to a mental instability issue were the paranoia of his failed marriage, his daddy issues, his drug addiction, his almost suicide and his probable professional collapse by running away to Thailand for more than one month, to be intertwined with Achara (Dharma), a symbol of the spirit world. Jack’s main characteristic (and fault) was his desire to “fix people.” What better way to mentally fix people than to create a plane full of broken characters and set them in a dangerous fantasy world where you would become the Leader.

Or it could be a layered effect of interlocking Time. The ancient Mayans had three interlocking calendars to keep Time. One was a 9 month “human” cycle. One was the 12 month “harvest” cycle. One was the “cosmic” cycle. High priests could interlock all three calendars to predict future star events or predict the meaning of births.

Lost could represent a layered of “after time” calendars. A character may be “living” in several different “realities” which may or may not overlap. More likely, one parallel life feeds off the memories of an alternative past “after time” cycle. Take Eloise as the prime example of this theory:

Those layered clocks on human consciousness can overlap. It could explain Desmond’s mind flashes to future events. It could explain how Eloise knows the future, and knows how the after life gears of time work. It is why Eloise was so upset that Desmond was "awakening" other Island people in the sideways world. Eloise feared that Daniel would wake up - - - realize what his mother did to him in alternative time lines - - -  and leave her forever.