Watching the latest episode of Lost, I was really bugged by the seeming timeline continuity errors, which have been noted in the forum. Some facts strongly suggest that a month past between the Jack-Locke meeting and Locke’s suicide. Jack said Locke visited him a month ago, and the GREAT growth in his beard between the meeting and when he read the obituary suggests this. Also, Jack references flying these flights to find the Island every weekend, mentioning three different destinations. Ben also says to Jack ‘yes I hear you’ve been flying a lot recently’ (approximately). This implies several weeks, about a month. Sayid heard of Locke’s death at the same time as Jack, and since their discovery and Flight 316 only a few days pass.
However, the episode seemed to suggest only a short period between the meeting and the murder/staged suicide of Locke. There was nothing to indicate much time had passed. Locke’s injuries were all exactly the same as before, whereas in a month they should have healed somewhat. Ben and Locke spoke of the meeting with Jack as if it had just happened, and Ben said that Jack had just booked a flight for this weekend, so Locke’s meeting had had an effect. So where are all Jack’s other flights?
Another issue is the massive discrepancy with what people said Bentham told them and what we see of the meetings. It was emphasised before that Bentham had told Jack bad things happened because he left, everyone will die if he doesn’t go back, and so on. But Locke’s meeting seemed continuous, there was no indication of a second meeting, and Locke said none of this.
I believe that a possible explanation for this is that several weeks or a month or so passed between Ben’s murder of Locke and the announcement in the media, and that in this period ‘Locke’ – reincarnated like Christian Shephard was – visited Jack, possibly the others, and said what needed to be said. Locke on the island now is properly resurrected, a real live human being. But after his death for a short while he was an apparition like Shephard, or like the visions that Hurley has – created by the Island. This is why he needed to be dead. Apparation-Bentham visited Jack once or twice more, saying what needed to be said, about everyone being in danger etc. This explains Jack’s accounts of what Locke told him. It can also explain better why Jack spent his time flying around rather than meeting up with Locke, because these apparations, like his visions of his father, would appear and then walk off, Jack tries to follow but he has gone out of sight.
This also relates to Ben’s murder of Locke. On the one hand, he could have done it out of some malevolent motive. In this case, he is surprised to see Locke appear to him later. This could shed some light on his conversation with Jack about believing resurrection: a few weeks earlier he himself did not believe it, but was confronted with it. Or on the other hand maybe he knew Locke had ‘work to do’ getting the O6 back when dead, the Island working through him.
As I said, I found this whole thing quite annoying. I can’t see how the writers could have messed up so much with continuity – for example Jack’s beard was always used to show where he was in the timeline, but now seems widely incorrect, and even this season they have been repeating stuff about what Locke said and Jack’s flights. If it is an issue of not wanting to have too much time on Locke’s not-particularly-interesting-meetings with the O6, they shouldn’t have thought they could get away with just re-writing what has been clearly established over the last season or so. And you can’t show meetings without the essential bits, when in Jack’s case it appears to be one whole continuous meeting, not just a small part of it. Therefore I am suggesting what I think is the only possible explanation. It is somewhat strange, in the sense that the episode roughly makes sense and if you hadn’t paid much attention to last episodes you wouldn’t really have noticed th! e timeline/continuity errors. Also, this hasn’t been posed as a mystery, so it would be weird if in a later episode we see some Flashbacks back to this yet again (though it could be part of the Flashbacks showing how Kate, Hurley, Sayid got on the plane – one whole episode rehashing all the O6 stuff, showing the additional Bentham apparitions). So I don’t entirely believe this theory, but I think that it is the only logical explanation that is possible for what is otherwise a huge timeline mess up, re-write etc that I think the writers would not have done. After all, it would have been easy to make the episode fit around everything said about Bentham and this time period before. Theory by conchords
However, the episode seemed to suggest only a short period between the meeting and the murder/staged suicide of Locke. There was nothing to indicate much time had passed. Locke’s injuries were all exactly the same as before, whereas in a month they should have healed somewhat. Ben and Locke spoke of the meeting with Jack as if it had just happened, and Ben said that Jack had just booked a flight for this weekend, so Locke’s meeting had had an effect. So where are all Jack’s other flights?
Another issue is the massive discrepancy with what people said Bentham told them and what we see of the meetings. It was emphasised before that Bentham had told Jack bad things happened because he left, everyone will die if he doesn’t go back, and so on. But Locke’s meeting seemed continuous, there was no indication of a second meeting, and Locke said none of this.
I believe that a possible explanation for this is that several weeks or a month or so passed between Ben’s murder of Locke and the announcement in the media, and that in this period ‘Locke’ – reincarnated like Christian Shephard was – visited Jack, possibly the others, and said what needed to be said. Locke on the island now is properly resurrected, a real live human being. But after his death for a short while he was an apparition like Shephard, or like the visions that Hurley has – created by the Island. This is why he needed to be dead. Apparation-Bentham visited Jack once or twice more, saying what needed to be said, about everyone being in danger etc. This explains Jack’s accounts of what Locke told him. It can also explain better why Jack spent his time flying around rather than meeting up with Locke, because these apparations, like his visions of his father, would appear and then walk off, Jack tries to follow but he has gone out of sight.
This also relates to Ben’s murder of Locke. On the one hand, he could have done it out of some malevolent motive. In this case, he is surprised to see Locke appear to him later. This could shed some light on his conversation with Jack about believing resurrection: a few weeks earlier he himself did not believe it, but was confronted with it. Or on the other hand maybe he knew Locke had ‘work to do’ getting the O6 back when dead, the Island working through him.
As I said, I found this whole thing quite annoying. I can’t see how the writers could have messed up so much with continuity – for example Jack’s beard was always used to show where he was in the timeline, but now seems widely incorrect, and even this season they have been repeating stuff about what Locke said and Jack’s flights. If it is an issue of not wanting to have too much time on Locke’s not-particularly-interesting-meetings with the O6, they shouldn’t have thought they could get away with just re-writing what has been clearly established over the last season or so. And you can’t show meetings without the essential bits, when in Jack’s case it appears to be one whole continuous meeting, not just a small part of it. Therefore I am suggesting what I think is the only possible explanation. It is somewhat strange, in the sense that the episode roughly makes sense and if you hadn’t paid much attention to last episodes you wouldn’t really have noticed th! e timeline/continuity errors. Also, this hasn’t been posed as a mystery, so it would be weird if in a later episode we see some Flashbacks back to this yet again (though it could be part of the Flashbacks showing how Kate, Hurley, Sayid got on the plane – one whole episode rehashing all the O6 stuff, showing the additional Bentham apparitions). So I don’t entirely believe this theory, but I think that it is the only logical explanation that is possible for what is otherwise a huge timeline mess up, re-write etc that I think the writers would not have done. After all, it would have been easy to make the episode fit around everything said about Bentham and this time period before. Theory by conchords
