THE UNLUCKY ANSWER

As today is Friday, the 13th, a superstitious day of bad luck, we focus on the one character who could have answered all the LOST questions, Daniel Faraday.

Poor Daniel. He was doomed from the start.

His back story was as hazy as his science.

Daniel was born on the mainland (as there is a birth certificate for him) and was the son of Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore,  although he did not know the identity of his father (that was left blank on the birth certificate). This is the first unsolved mystery of this character: who was Daniel's real father?

We know that young Eloise and Widmore were co-leaders of a small Others fraction on the Island. Widmore wanted control of "his" island against any outsider, and Eloise seemed to be more focused on survival. How they both got to the island was unknown. But it seems they were both quite protective of it.

During their early adulthood, the time traveling Daniel appears on the island. Eloise shoots and kills "her son" then realizes her mistake. This sets off one of the most important background characters into action.

We know that both Eloise and Widmore left the island before the Purge. Widmore was banished by Ben because Widmore "violated the rules" by having a child (Penny) with an off-islander. Eloise's departure was not told. (She could have been part of the evacuation, or she may have left after killing her son in the time travel arc.)

It would seem that Eloise's sole goal in the series was to protect Daniel. After Eloise and Widmore's relationship soured, Eloise also changed Daniel's last name to Faraday so Charles could not find him. But we know how powerful Widmore was; he knew and found Daniel.

One could speculate that the falling out between Eloise and Widmore was about Daniel and his special abilities. Daniel had "time traveled" to the island. Widmore wanted to get back to the island and seize it as his own. What better means to do so than "time travel." Likewise, Eloise would want to save the time traveling Daniel from her own actions of killing him. As a result, Eloise may have needed to find a man who was a scientific genius. (Clue to last name: Stephen Hawking.)

Eloise needed to unlock the elements of space-time in order to correct Daniel's destiny. So she forced Daniel to give up music to study extreme theoretical science. So Daniel studied at Oxford, earning his doctorate at the youngest age on record. At that time, his girlfriend Teresa Spencer, was deemed to be a distraction. Soon after, Daniel started unauthorized experiments (funded by Widmore) involving time travel. He created a machine in 1996 that allowed a living creature's consciousness to travel through time. He tested it on a lab rat he named Eloise, which signifies an open hostility toward his mother and her constant pressure on him to succeed in this science.

During that same year, Daniel was visited by a stranger named Desmond Hume. Desmond claimed to know about the machine, Daniel initially believed that a colleague was playing a practical joke on him, but when Desmond mentioned "Eloise,"  Daniel's lab rat, he believed Desmond. In his lab, Daniel tested "the Numbers" Desmond supplied to him. He used the machine on Eloise, enabling her to unerringly complete a maze that she would not be taught how to run for another hour. Daniel's blackboard revealed his interest in the Kerr metric as part of his theory of time-transported consciousness. According to Daniel's theory, a being that undergoes time-transported consciousness must identify a "constant,"  something existing in both periods of time travel that can serve as an anchor for the being's consciousness; failure to find a constant results in instability of consciousness, and the resulting stress can lead to brain aneurysm and eventual death. 

Daniel's success led him to ramp up his experiments.  The experiment apparently resulted in Theresa becoming permanently mentally 'unstuck' in time, with her condition deteriorating to the point that she became permanently bedridden, in a coma-like state as a result of his experiments. (Widmore funded her care for her parents silence.) Soon after this accident, Daniel went to America. Daniel began to study at  DHARMA. It seemed that Daniel started to experiment on himself, which wrecked his ability to connect with his own memory. He constantly wrote notes in his leather journal to remember. 

But while in the United States, Daniel's mental state deteriorated to the point in 2004 where he is under the care of a woman (caretaker or some initially assumed a girlfriend or wife). When the news of Flight 815's crash, with film footage of the wreckage shown on the television, Daniel had a mental breakdown which he could not explain. When Widmore arrived, he told him that the wreckage was a fake. He told Daniel that the real Flight 815 had crashed on a "miraculous island," and offered him the chance to go there, promising that it would "cure" him. Several days later, Daniel was playing piano at his home, trying to remember the Chopin piece he was playing when he was ten, when he was visited by his mother. She persuaded him to accept Widmore's offer and go to the Island, assuring him that she would be proud of him if he did so. Daniel agreed to accept the offer.

Daniel brought several critical (we thought) elements to the LOST mythology. First, he brought with him science explanations for the island's mysteries. Second, he brought with him a window to the people pulling the strings behind the curtain (Eloise and Widmore, shadow villains). Third, he brought in intellectually naive character in the mix of amateur action heroes.

But Daniel's story is really messed up.

First, there are the paradoxes that cannot be put in their places. Young Eloise "kills" her adult yet unborn son on the island. This is a classic time travel problem that should have had radical results. Since Eloise has a son in the future, but kills him in the past, why would she "re-live" this pain by actually conceiving him in the future? Some could argue that an adult traveling back into time to meet their death is not a conventional paradox since Daniel was destined to die "someday," and this was the means of his own demise. But a secondary issue is that if Eloise knew Daniel was going to die on the island, why did she do everything in power after killing him to get him to study time travel and go on the trip to the island?

It would seem that Eloise "needed" Daniel to become a brilliant scientist in order to kill him on the island so her own fantasy sideways world dream family situation would come true. In Daniel's death on the island, Eloise could lead a normal, but rich life in the after life. It sounds insane, but that seems to be the whole motivation for the Eloise manipulation of both Daniel and Widmore.

So Daniel had a bounty on his head before he was even born. He was never going to have a real, normal, human life.

Second, if Daniel's theory of mental consciousness time travel is to be believed, was his research adopted by DHARMA to create the full transformation of physical time travel as demonstrated by the turning of the frozen donkey wheel? When Ben turned it, the island began "time skipping" but only with a few individuals. The idea of someone having a "constant" in real and skip times seems to be moot because people have connections in those worlds (i.e. parents, close friends, spouses, children, etc.). If the salvation key is consciously putting a mental image of a person in both time periods in your mind before you time jump, then that seems superficially a magic chant or spell and not science. (The ancient Egyptians Book of the Dead contained various chants and spells to help souls travel through the dangers of the underworld; perhaps Daniel's theory is like these spells.)

If Daniel was already mentally time tripping in the U.S., then why did he need to go to the island? The only explanation was that he needed to "die" on the island in order for his consciousness (some would call it his soul) to reach Eloise in the after life, so she could repress his memories and not "move on" through the next level of existence. This would presuppose that the island is actually an inter-dimensional gateway between the worlds of the living and the dead. For some unknown reason, people dying on the island have their memories repressed when their souls reach the after life. It is sort of a dream state in the sideways world where people, like in dreams, try to subconsciously work out real world problems through various fantasies. 

If the island allowed full body and mind time travel, then there should be no "mental" only time travel side effects, such as the nose bleeds and death that happened to Charlotte. Daniel was nose bleeding before he was shot, so he was going to also die even though his "constant," Desmond, was on the island and in his original time period. So, since there are two sets of rules at play in one time travel sequence, no clear conclusion could be made on what is truly happening on the island. If Daniel's theory is the control, then everyone on the island was time tripping, in a dream like state, in a forehell to the sideways world. If DHARMA and the island's FDW full time travel machine was the control, then only when you met yourself in both time frames could you be paradoxically removed from existence. But that did not happen to Charlotte or Daniel. In face, some time trippers were reincarnated. 

So it gets back to the big mystery of why, throughout all the trauma and manipulation of Daniel's life, did Eloise want, need, desire or demand Daniel to be on the freighter, come ashore, and be killed by her younger self? The only viable answer was that guilt was making Eloise dream up these actions.

For the symbolism of a young woman killing her "adult" child could represent a psychological trauma of Eloise's young life, such as an abortion. If she aborted "Daniel" or lost him during pregnancy on the island, then the series could evolve around a troubled young woman's lost mental state of delusions and fantasies of having the perfect life with her dead fetus. Eloise could have been haunted by her actions so that she could have been institutionalized as a mental patient. As creepy as that may seem, it allows for the fact that science, sci-fi and any other rational explanations for series events be immaterial and irrelevant. The sole factor was keeping her dead child from realizing that his own mother killed him.

CHANGE

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny. — Paulo Coelho

Change is a difficult concept to comprehend. People are creatures of habit. We tend to have self-loathing aspects to our daily routine. Some call this personal introversion of suffering just life. Deal with it. One can scuttle along with their own dark cloud overhead without any one else noticing it. And if they do, they claim it is your own choice to live an unhappy, unfulfilled, unrewarding life. You created your own situation. Only you yourself can correct it.

It is hard life lesson that many people will avoid. They would rather keep the comfort of their miserable surroundings than risk the unknown that material change could bring. If one has lived in a bad place for so long, he only thinks that bad things will happen - - - even in change. The bad misery is his destiny. It is his fate. It is his demise.

There is nothing harder than getting out of one's rut to do something different. And even if one tries a little, in a short time one reverts back to the old mean. The classic example of this is dieting. People know they should avoid fast food, eat healthy, avoid fatty foods and alcohol. But those temptations are so easily accessible. The pleasure sensors in our brain find joy in consuming such unhealthy fare. So even when one realizes that change is needed, it is first the toe dip in the pool. Then it may be a small baby steps of substituting something good for something bad. You get on a program to help you along, but programs are like nagging mothers and one drowns them out after a while. You get on an exercise routine until some other activity, such as work, becomes a timely excuse to cut back on the exercise. And then suddenly, the downward spiral is back to the beginning. Some people would justify it as "that's the way things are supposed to be." Others will be depressed by the failure, which reinforces the anti-change thoughts they will have in the future.

It is only through trusted positive reinforcement will one latch on to change to make it work. Families are the hardest critics. They have the harshest words when things are not best. But, at the same time, their compliments hold more water than a stranger's, like a paid fitness instructor who says "good job" after every feeble station on the universal machine.

Why so many LOST characters never changed in the series is simple: they had no trusted person who would give them positive reinforcement in order to seek change. All the main characters had flaws and broken spirits. They were all pigeon-holed into a way of life that some of them resented to the fullest of their internal mental faculties. More and more they would recede into their own private worlds. There was some comfort to shut out the outside world, including your naggy family, to be left alone. 

But loneliness is one of the worst aspects of life. It puts some on the same mental level as inanimate objects like stones. They are mere background set pieces to the people around them who seem happy, energetic . . . alive. The farther one seeps into the shadows, the less likely it is that they will even recognize other people's happiness. This is where they become totally lost in their own dark angst.

And that is why LOST ended on a shadowy thud. The main characters did not have a moral, ethical, or spiritual upheaval and change in personality that made any sort of difference in how the various story lines ended in the sideways church. Their actions had no consequence in the big picture. They were all pretty miserable at the beginning through to the end. There was no real change in the characters, even though the TPTB still claim that the series was all about a character study. The main characters merely showed up for the cast wrap party reunion.

DESTINY

 Confucius said "It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop."

Season 6 of LOST was slow.

It was heralded as a return to the fast paced Season 1.

Season 5 ended with a cliffhanger when Juliet was sucked into the hole and woke up with the bomb near her. She hit the bomb with a rock and it was the end of the episode. To keep fans in excitement, ABC has posted a very short sneak peek of the 6th Season where an aye opens up in shock. No clue to who the green eye belongs to.

Also in the Season 6 preview, it is revealed that the big idea is "Destiny Found" and it could as well be the ultimate reason why they are all stranded on the island in the first place, not the kind of destiny that each of the characters thought. At the time, Michael Emerson told reporters that Ben's work is not done in the Season 5  finale but he is also still crossing fingers for it because nothing is set in stone in "Lost."  Juliet's comeback was teased by EW with no other details while Claire's involvement was suggested by Carlton Cuse. "Claire is a wonderful part of the show and the audience can rest assured that they will see (her) again on Lost," Cuse said. TPTB promised that with the LOST story would come back to full circle. "Season six will feel a lot like season one," Damon Lindelof teased. "The focus comes back to the characters with whom we began. We've been winnowing away everyone else who came along. The Tailies are gone, only Miles is left of the Freighter Folk and only Juliet is left of The Others. We're getting down to the end now."

So the whole set up for the final season was to double back to the beginning to focus on the first main characters and to reveal their Destiny.

Destiny is the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future. It is a   hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

What were the current events at the end of Season 5 which would set into motion the conclusive destiny of the main characters? It was the apparent Jughead explosion by Juliet - - - her death was to make things "work." But nothing worked out as expected. The island did return to his normal time frame, but the main characters were no better off than before the time skips. They had less answers to their own questions than ever before.  

And even the random fan had a few concerns going into the final season.

The Others made their importance known in Season 3 but the viewers had not been told really anything about them except  their fertility problems. The Others overall purpose and connection to the Island had not been to be revealed.  They seem to have people recruited around the world and they seem to have a limitless amount of resources. Is it all in the name of protecting the island or do they have other work to do?

After two seasons of hearing about Jacob, viewers finally got a look at him in the Seasons 5 finale. Then there is the twist that Jacob and a mysterious Man in Black may have been controlling the LOST story this entire time.  The big question is what has been the purpose of the power struggle between these two. Is it just a game between the two or do they have a higher purpose to their actions?

Just as the dynamic between Jacob and MIB remains a mystery, Widmore and Ben's relationship is obvious based upon hate. Widmore obsessed with getting back to the island and reclaiming his place as the leader of the Others. But what is so important about a tiny hidden island that would make a billionaire crazy? But, like Jacob and MIB , there seems to be an unwritten rule that prevent these two from harming each other directly. What are the Rules? Have they been controlling and manipulating people along the way for their own game?

Lastly, we learned very little about the Smoke Monster. We don't what it is or how it manifests itself. Is it organic, spiritual, nanotechnology?  And the island inhabitants, the Others, seem to ignore the Smoke Monster's origin and purpose. The open question is that is the Smoke Monster the actual controlling being on the island, and the various personal conflicts (Jacob-MIB, Ben-Widmore) are somehow to appease it.

The main characters literally fell into the Jacob-MIB saga. The main characters also literally fell into the Ben-Widmore Dharma remains story line. The 815 survivors continue to look out of place and serve no purpose in resolving these pre-existing conflicts.

So those were some of the major question marks going into the last season. It was teased as a series of events for the main characters to find their destiny. But the side stories soon consumed Season 6. Then the addition of the sideways parallel story arc created more confusion than answers. Instead of running around one circle for clues and answers, we had to run around two circles.

The only destiny found at the end of the series that viewers were destined never to find out what were the foundational theories (science fiction or otherwise) explanations for the various connections, island events, and rules of the series as applied to the characters.

STOP TRYING

There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no insurmountable barrier except our own inherent weakness of purpose. — Elbert Hubbard

Despite all of his hope and desire, O6 John Locke gave up. In the hotel room in LA, he decided to end his existence because he could not convince any of his fellow survivors to return to the island. He was a failure. There was nothing left for him to do.

Ghost Christian a/k/a MIB/Smokey told John when he was about to turn the FDW that he had to bring all the people back in order to save the island. The island was more precious to Locke than his friends. He felt a connection with it. He knew of its magic. He wanted to protect it. When he asked how he could do it, MIB replied that Locke would have to die.

The island put into Locke's head the solution: death. Death would solve Locke's problems. 

When Locke was at his wit's end in the hotel room, he had lost everything. Helen, his former girlfriend was dead. Abaddon, his driver-advisor, was gunned down in the street. Locke was once again a wheelchair bound loser. He had no purpose going forward if he could not complete his mission.

The irony is that Ben saved his life. Ben interrupted John's suicide. He comforted John and told him that he would help him. Everything would be alright. Locke believed him. And when discussing the next step, Locke told Ben he should go see Eloise because she would know what to do next. At that moment, jealous rage boiled up in Ben. Ben strangled Locke because the name of Eloise was his trigger flash point.

It makes sense that Ben was jealous of Locke if Eloise now trusted him. If Ben and Locke wanted to get back to the island to be its true leader, Ben would not want to be a second banana. No, suddenly pathetic Locke became a major obstacle in Ben's path back to the top. 

As another ironic plot twist, Ben's killing of Locke actually made Locke's mission a success. Locke's death suddenly moved Jack to drastically change his behavior. He took Locke's mission to bring everyone back. It drove him mad. And just as Jack was nearing the end of his rope, Ben intervened to manipulate everyone at the marina into just hearing out Eloise at the church. As a result, most of the O6 people met Eloise for the first time. But Ben was still brooding, because now Jack had taken Locke's place as a potential rival.

On the island, Ben only found some peace when he stop trying to be a leader. Even after he was found to be Jacob's killer, he was forgiven by one of Jacob's followers, Ilana.

Ilana, being the only remaining member of Jacob's followers, then led a new group composed of  Sun, Ben and Frank.  The newly-formed group decided that they should trek to the Temple but before they left they decided to bury the body of Locke. Later, they rescused Miles from the massacre. Ben was separated and attacked by the Smoke Monster. They rejoined at the beach with Jack, Richard and Hurley.  When Ilana found out that it was Ben who killed Jacob, she ordered him to dig his own grave. While he was doing so, MIB appeared to Ben and tried to get him to join his group. Ben ran into the jungle to escape Ilana, resulting in a standoff in which Ben apologized for killing Jacob, stating that he will go with "Locke" because no one else will have him. Ilana then accepted Ben into the group, thereby letting him leave. At this point, Ben became a follower. The burdens of leadership faded away.



That night, the group discussed their next move around a beach campfire. Ilana told them that Jacob had told her that Richard would know what to do. Richard denied this, and angrily walked into the jungle. After following him, Hurley helped him communicate with the ghost of his dead wife telling him that if the Man in Black leaves the Island, they will all go to hell.

If this was true, then Locke's purpose in dying was correct. They key for any island group to get to heaven, i.e. avoid hell, was to keep MIB on the island. It was a test. A test of wills. A test of friendship. A test of trust. A test of team work. A test of spirit. In Locke's own death, he gave others  the will power to carry on his mission to save the island (defeating MIB). It sounds like a simplistic video game final level conquest, but if dead souls true mission was to defeat the devil to release their sins (and the chains of being themselves trapped in the sideways purgatory) to move on to heaven.

Death was the solution for Jack as well. When he closed his eyes after defeating MIB, he had them opening in the sideways world.  His destiny of moving on in the after life was the same destiny of John Locke, except they did not know it until the very end.

A VICIOUS CIRCLE

It was one of those recent random thoughts that got my attention.

What if LOST never ended?

Ben consoled Hurley when he became the new island guardian with the concept that Hurley could do the right thing and allow an injured Desmond to leave the island and go home. (Besides the philosophic connotation of what "home" could be - - - reality or heaven - - - will be left for another post.)

But we observed that the island had a continual cycle of people coming to the island to be "candidates" in Jacob and MIB's game of human Senet. As stated in previous posts, there is no clear, direct evidence that Jacob or MIB actually ceased to exist when they were allegedly "killed."

At the end of the island story arc, we have only nine main survivors:

Ben, Hurley and Desmond, who are left by the light cave to mourn the demise of their friend.

Frank, Miles, and Alpert are ready to take off on the Ajira plane when they are interrupted by the presence of Kate, Sawyer and Claire running toward them.

Claire told Kate that she won't come with them to the plane because the Island has made her crazy. Kate offered to help her, which convinced her to go with them. The plane is seen flying overhead a dying Jack.

But what are the survivors looking forward to?

Frank has nothing to back to since no one would believe his story about "losing" his plane and passengers on a mysterious island. He is only second person able to escape the island twice (Kate is the other). One would think the island would cause Frank mental problems for the rest of his life.

Claire already acknowledges her crazy state of mind caused by the island. Upon her return, we would assume she would remain crazy. This puts her in the mode of Locke's mother, who was institutionalized when he was a small boy. Perhaps Locke's childhood drawings of the smoke monster and island events were stories past down to him by his mother, who had escaped the island. This would be down the basis of a new theory that the candidates were not randomly chosen by Jacob, but bred or conditioned to come to the island.

Kate returns to nothing. Even if Claire takes back Aaron, she would be in Australia. Kate would be alone, without purpose, stuck in LA pining away for dead Jack? How long would that fact led to Kate being depressed to suicidal like Locke's life prior to meeting his con artist father?

If Kate returns to nothing, Alpert would be transported to an alien world. He has no family, no friends and no place to call home back in the United States. He was an unemployed island minion. We think that his immortality ended with a single gray hair. But what if he is still tethered to the island, like Mr. Abaddon?

Sawyer's life long quest for revenge is over. The whole purpose of his life was completed by the death of Cooper on the island. Sawyer's return has one pending murder investigation in Australia, but it is not likely that case would be solved unless his buddy who gave him the hit confessed that he sent Sawyer to kill that man he thought killed his parents. So Sawyer returns to the states as a "dead man" in more than one way: no job, no family and no future except a return to his criminal ways. If Juliet was the love of his life, would he get over her quickly?

Miles is in a similar situation of Sawyer. He returns to the states the son of island scientist, one of the few people conceived on the island who survived. His ability to listen to the final echo thoughts of the dead may be that native connection to the island itself. One would think that after being on the island, Miles would be haunted by it in future years.

The people on the Ajira flight we saw leave the island all had the seeds of doubt and misery that could have drawn them back into the clutches of the island destiny as it did Locke.

Which may have been the plan all along. Jacob and MIB's human game of Senet spanned thousands of years and countless number of people. It was a chess match with real people and real weapons. A life and death amusement for immortal beings bored with their island existence.

When Hurley, Ben and Desmond presumably left the island, it is possible that Jacob and MIB would wait for the other survivors to "return" to the island to re-populate their game.  As you recall, the game of Senet is "won" when the player removes his last piece off the board (island). Both Jacob and MIB never left the island - - - both "died" on it. That may be the only way the island ceases to exist: when either Jacob or MIB physically leaves the island as the last piece standing. That did not happen. Until that point, when Hurley leaves the island for good, the vicious Jacob-MIB game restarts again.

Claire is the new Locke's crazy mother (to Aaron). Aaron may grow up to believe that he has an island destiny. The same could be true of Walt, who was "special" and of extreme interest to the Others until he escaped with his father. It is possible that Walt's intense father issues would make him the next Jack.

S6E11 VIOLATION

Partial transcript of key scene between Desmond and Hawking:

"Stop talking, Hume. I've heard what you've had to say, now you listen to me. I want you to stop."

"Stop? Stop what?"

"Someone has clearly affected the way you see things. This is a serious problem. This is, in fact, a violation. So, whatever you're doing, whatever it is you think you're looking for, you need to stop looking for it."

"Do you know what I'm looking for, Mrs. Widmore?"

"I don't know why you're looking for anything. You have the perfect life. On top of it, you've managed to attain the thing you wanted more than anything, my husband's approval."

"How do you know what I want?"

"Because, I bloody do!"

"I need to see that list or you need to tell me why I can't."

"Because you're not ready yet, Desmond." She walks away.

KEY POINTS:

The "someone" who told Desmond to change the way he thinks about himself was Charlie.

Charlie telling Desmond was "a violation."

Desmond already has "a perfect life."

Desmond can't change his life because he is "not ready yet."

DISCUSSION:

In the Doctor Who mythology, every person's choices in life creates a multiverse that follows that path, and over time there are infinite, separate universes based on the variable choices of all humanity. Some turn UK into current reality, others turn into steam punk dictatorships.

We can get the sense of "concurrent" universes in this exchange. There are no paradoxes in the time space continuum if each universe remains separate. Hawking knows that. She is aware that the paradox rules have been violated if someone changes their current path by interacting with its concurrent alternative reality.

When we first met Hawking, the clock keeper lectured Desmond about "course correction." That if a person was supposed to die today, and some one (like Desmond) intervenes to stop the accident from happening, the saved person's demise is merely delayed an hour, a day, a week. Hawking must be a time paradox officer in charge of making sure that the concurrent universes do not come into contact with each other. The double star brooch she was wearing could symbolize this twin Earth concept.

It could also mean that she was speaking that Desmond had a "perfect life" and he was not ready for the "change" which would be his "life after death." In the sideways world, he has yet to fulfill his fate or destiny so he cannot be influenced by an alternative world where Penny was his centerpiece. Charlie is Dead Charlie in the island world. He has been popping up to guide other 815ers in their decisions (especially Hurley). Did "Dead Charlie" slip through (consciousness during near death experiences or physically through a portal to sideways world) with memories of the alternative reality which makes him crazy enough to attempt to change his other life? And the lives of the other castaways?

There is much double speak in trying to keep the premise in the dark. Widmore's warning that all you love will cease to exist if MIB succeeds in his plan, does not make total sense if you are also in multiple alternative universes. Charlie does not need to change anything in the sideways world if he wants to live happily ever after with Claire. Claire is alive, pregnant, and alone in LA (and about to be rebuffed by the adoptive mother). The term "happily ever after" was never put into any context in the actual episode. It is usually associated with the end of "fairy tales" or at weddings ("until death do you part.") So two explanations of the title: this is a fantasy world or this is the after life when your one true love is lost.

S6E11 CLUNKER

I thought this Desmond-centric episode was a clunker.

I had the image of a piece of Swiss cheese as plot unfolded; partially because I always felt that the sideways world was mere "what if" filler, and maybe because it appears that TPTB are going to try to "force" a reunion of alternative universes for no apparent reason.

LOST is like an old rusted car sitting in a field. It may have some of its old character lines covered in rust, but you don't know if it will ever start again. You may kick the flat tires, and check to see if the engine still has all its parts, but the mechanics of machinery may have seized up. You may think the rusted clunker next to it may have some useful parts, but the cars are not compatible: one's a Ford and the other one's a Chevy.

Last week I toured around the internet looking for some old LOST sites, and found an increasing number of them have just stopped posting after 5 seasons. It may be that some people really believe that even though they invested a lot of time and resources into the show, it has dawned on them that they were riding along in a junker and decided to leave before it totally fell a part.

I also came across a poster who viewed LOST as a "Show About Nothing." And he or she created a cast logo from the old Steinfeld show, with Jack as Jerry, Locke as George, Kate as Elaine, and Sawyer as Kramer. And as this season slithers along, that theory is just as valid as any other one.

The show is trying to make the sideways universe as important as the lost island time line. In all the time traveling commentary, it was clear that in order to avoid paradoxes, the concept of parallel universes made the most sense in the sci-fi genre. But, LOST is trying to merge the consciousness of two separate universes in some weird cross-over way, which in itself creates a paradox which affects both realities. A person who is self-aware that he belongs in another time space will affect both his current and alternative time universe by trying to "set things right" = messy paradox.

WALKABOUT DESTINY

Locke has returned to the Center of the Storyline at the end of Season 5. He appears to have been in control of his own free will for the first time in his life. But was he?

From "Walkabout" in Season 1, Flashback:

RANDY: Well, tell me, what's a Walkabout? [reading from a brochure]: "Experience the dream journeys of the fabled Australian Outback."

LOCKE: You have no right taking that off my desk.

RANDY: So, you wander around hunting and gathering food, right? On foot?

LOCKE: Not that you would understand, but a Walkabout is a journey of spiritual renewal, where one derives strength from the earth. And becomes inseparable from it. I have vacation days, I'm going, Randy. I've already made a reservation.

GL12: Wow. John you're really doing it, huh? You tell Helen yet?

RANDY: Helen? Well, what's this Locke, you've actually got a woman in your life.

LOCKE: That's none of your business.

RANDY: What is it with you Locke? Why do you torture yourself? I mean, imagining you're some hunter? Walkabouts? Wake up, you can't do any of that.

LOCKE: Norman Croucher.

RANDY: What? Norman what?

LOCKE: Norman Croucher. Norman Croucher, double amputee, no legs. He climbed to the top of Mt. Everest. Why? It was his destiny.

RANDY: That's what you think you've got, old man? Destiny?

LOCKE: JUST DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO.

End of Flashback, Back to the Island:

KATE: [off camera at first] He's hurt. John? Can you hear me? Locke?

[Locke is still lying there.]

KATE: John you okay?

[Shot from the foot angle again.]

KATE: Locke?

LOCKE: [moving] I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine, Helen, I just got the wind knocked out of me is all.

KATE: Helen?

LOCKE: What?

KATE: YOU CALLED ME HELEN.

LOCKE: Did I?

[Kate is tending to Michael, making a tourniquet.]

LOCKE: Which way did that boar go?

KATE: Michael's hurt. We have to get him back to camp.

LOCKE: Yeah, you take him back to camp. I'm going to get that boar.

[Kate looks shocked.]

KATE: What are you talking about?

LOCKE: I'm fine. I can do this.

KATE: John, you can't.

LOCKE: Don't tell me what I can't do.

Another Flashback, to travel agent in Sydney:

AGENT: The Walkabouts we arrange here are not just some stroll through the park. It's trekking across vast stretches of desert, rafting bloody treacherous waters.

LOCKE: Look, you've got no idea who you're talking to. I'm well aware of what's involved, believe me. I probably know more than you on the subject.

AGENT: In any case, it's a trying ordeal for someone in peak physical condition, let alone …

LOCKE: Look, I booked this tour a month ago, you've already got my money. Now, I demand a place on that bus.

AGENT: You misrepresented yourself …

LOCKE: I never lied.

AGENT: By omission, Mr. Locke. You neglected to tell us about your condition.

LOCKE: My condition is not an issue. I've lived with it for 4 years. It's never kept me from doing anything.

AGENT: Look, unfortunately it is an issue for our insurance company. I can't keep the bus waiting any longer. It isn't fair to the other people.

LOCKE: Hey, don't talk to me about fair.

AGENT: I can get you on a plane back to Sydney on our dime. That's the best I can do.

LOCKE: No. I don't want to go back to Sydney. Look I've been preparing for this for years. Just put me on the bus, right now, I can do this.

AGENT: No, you can't.

LOCKE: Hey, hey, don't you walk away from me. [The wheelchair reveal]. You don't know who you're dealing with. Don't ever tell me what I can't do, ever. This is destiny. This is destiny. This is my destiny. (yelling) I'm supposed to do this, dammit. DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO. DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T . . . .

His whole life was defined by what other people were telling him what he had to do. Like a volcano, there was inner anger building up inside of him. In the end, there was nothing he could do. He was merely a pawn, magnified to the fullest when Anthony Cooper, his father, conned him out of a kidney, and tossed him through a window to his paralyzed state, both mentally and physically. The shocking plot twist was that Locke was once in a wheelchair but now "cured" on the Island.The oddest part of this Locke-centric episode was his comment to Kate when he was awakening: he called her "Helen," his former girlfriend. With all the theories of time resets, that the time line could be rewritten, or destiny changed; is it possible that Locke was re-living a memory of a Walkabout with Helen?