IMPLODING STORY LINE

It is one point that is glossed over as being superficial. But it shows the story structure problems of the show when it comes to a consistent mythology.

It deals with the Hatch and The Incident.

As the LOST story unfolded in real broadcast time, many of us thought that the Hatch "implosion" was "The Incident" that was whispered about in the Others Dharma camp. But then we had the story tangent of Juliet being trapped in the hatch excavation pit banging a rock on an atomic bomb when the white light flashes and we next see another implosion debris field at the site.

Two separate incidents. The same results: there was a massive crater (implosion).

Normally, a massive discharge of energy will create an explosion, where the debris field would be scattered about a wide range of area. There still may be a crater at the epicenter.

When Desmond turned the fail safe key, we saw the Hatch cover land on the beach (an explosion) but also saw the effects of the station crumpled down into the crater (an implosion).  When Juliet's cliffhanger flash happened, we really only saw the end result of her being trapped in the debris of the implosion (as the construction scaffolding was twisted upon her).

That left us with various assumptions on what happened in each event. In Desmond's case, the fail safe key had to have been attached to a detention device (a bomb) for the sole purpose of stopping the runaway electromagnetic build up. Hence, the explosion and implosion as the EM field apparently "re-sealed" itself. In Juliet's case, the "incident" began as the drill hit the EM pocket. Now some people thought Juliet "set off" the a-bomb by banging on it, but that is not how atomic weapons detonate to cause a chain reaction explosion. Further, if the atomic bomb did explode, Juliet would have been vaporized; instead, we get her portfolio death scene with Sawyer.

Which is oddly consistent with Desmond's event. Dez somehow survives the explosion-implosion. He is found naked wandering the jungle. Why did Desmond survive and Juliet die? They both experienced the same EM event. And why was Desmond's clothes stripped away but Juliet's was not?

The writers often tried to set mirror events into the plot lines. But the writers never explained any distinguishing results from those mirror situations.

You cannot even argue that naked Desmond running in the jungle was symbolic of his "rebirth." Juliet's "sacrifice" was more straight forward until she said "it worked." What worked? Did she re-boot the island time clock? How would she have known that, she was buried in a debris pit.  Or did she think that she died and went to heaven (sideways world). But that makes little sense since she was the last to be "awakened" in the sideways story line. Besides, at the moment of her death she was thinking about her love, Sawyer. But in the sideways world, her fantasy life began with being married to Jack, and having his child, David, before getting divorced.  There is a major inconsistency between the cause and effects of the two Hatch location incidents.

Why was Desmond more "important" than Juliet to move the story to its climax? In retrospect, Desmond was touted as being "the secret weapon" to take down MIB but he never achieved that goal. He was immune to high EM energy. The light cave apparently had high EM energy. Someone had to "re-boot" the island so Desmond was drafted to be that worker by both MIB and Jack, the new island guardian. But Desmond failed to finish his job; Jack had to intervene. Desmond did not have the final death blow to defeat MIB. Kate shot MIB.

And what did Juliet's death do to move the story line forward? The only thing was to reinforce the will in Sawyer to leave the island. It is also a strange path to believe that it took a three year time travel work camp imprisonment with the Dharma group to teach Sawyer that there was someone who could love him in a respectable relationship. Do we then assume that Sawyer lived unhappily ever after until he died and went to the sideways purgatory to be keystone copped into an unbelievable reunion with Juliet at a candy machine?

It the incidents were merely markers for the theme of death and rebirth, the story was not well crafted to bring those points home. If you believe the island was real, then Desmond's "rebirth" is symbolic that fate will keep you on your path of destiny? Or, in Juliet's case, one's rebirth can only occur in the after life.

THE BOMB OR THE DUD

People are still confused on what to take from the enhanced episodes of LOST. Some believe that it is merely "marketing department" annotations and not canon material. Others believe that TPTB have to have some input into the screen crawls otherwise their work could be contaminated with non-canon material. TPTB never denounced any of the enhanced materials. However, ABC admitted that it added the plane crash scenes over the End credits.

Now, the sideways world was subtitled as "what if" time line if Flight 815 never crashed on the island. In the End, we find out that if "what if" was fantasy, then that is correct. The sideways world was a made-up construct from the 815ers collective memories as a place to meet in the afterlife. (Who, what, when, where and how this occurred is a complete mystery.)

Next, the enhanced episodes stated that Juliet died when Jughead, the h-bomb, "went off." This is the apparent "Incident" that changed the course of the island events. If one suspends disbelief that a hydrogen bomb can be detonated by a rock, then how did Juliet not vaporize? How did all of the 815ers survive radiation fall-out and the shock wave? Further, the blast door map said the Incident happened in 1985; not when Juliet hit the device in 1977. If the bomb did go off, then the island world was not "real," but the illusion of reality. No one would have survived. If the bomb did not go off, and the drill hit an EM pocket that caused the sky to turn purple (and time flashed back to 2007), based on past experiences, the 815ers could have survived the jump. But that itself, does not put the island in the real world.

The problem with the island world is that light source and EM was never explained to any degree to determine what exactly is the island. Is the light source and the EM part of the same energy pocket? What is the energy pocket? What causes the EM and its "unique" properties? Why would you need to release the EM build up in the Hatch, but not in the island cave (the heart of the island) near the bamboo grove? And if an atomic bomb did go off, what changed? The sideways "events" were not created by the bomb, but according to Christian, it was made up by memories.

The whole mission to detonate Jughead appears to be a story dead end. It is one of many story line dead ends: why the Egyptian sets? who were the Others? what was Dharma really doing? what was the smoke monster? what was the lighthouse? what were Hanso, Widmore and Paik industries roles in the island? None of these story elements had any true relevance or material implications in the LOST ending of the characters being reunited in the church.

THE INCIDENT

I watched the enhanced version last night and afterward came to one major conclusion.

The white out at the end of the Incident was not the bomb going off. Juliet was hitting the device with less impact force than the fall down the shaft. The sequence made the viewer think that is what happened.

I believe the white flash at the end of the episode represents Eloise (possibly through Richard) turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel.

It was when Richard said that he was protecting his leader, Eloise, when he knocked her out to protect her and her baby that I thought the only way for Richard to protect her was to get her off the island by turning the FDW. This would explain how Eloise got off the island. It would also explain why it took her a long time to find the island because it moved when she left it.

And with the bomb not exploding makes case that WHH. The bomb was sealed in the concrete tomb that Sayid said reminded him of Chernobyl when Jack and Sayid were investigating the Swan Station. Dharma buried the bomb in concrete, and made the Hatch station next to it with the word Quarantine on the door. The bomb not exploding gets the elements back into place before the 815 crash.

Turning the FDW at the end of the episode probably moved the island like a pendulum back toward a flash forward reset. My guess, based on the ABC promo of the timer clock resetting to 109.11 to September 11, 2004. This date is significant because it is around the time the major characters had to make choices on whether to go to Australia and/or get on Flight 815 13 days later.

The enhanced version also made reference to heavy Egyptian mythology concepts, or variations on those elements. It also made constant references to Jacob's touches to 815 survivors, as we have discussed for months on the fan boards. If there is going to be a mid-September 2004 reset, Flight 815 will not land at LAX but it will crash again on the Island.