LA X - Wrapping Up Lost by NJROEN

Wrapping up LOST

S6 E1 – “LA X” Parts 1 & 2

Everything is or will eventually be the same.

The one thing that we can all agree upon is that LOST is coming to a close. And that close date which was announced last night on Jimmy Kimmel will be Sunday, May 23rd. That fact makes me ponder what life will be like without LOST. Which leads me to the theme of this season, “What if”? Each season has had it’s major story device; mostly flash backs, then flash forwards, later time travel, and now in season 6 alternate realities or dimensions. The alternate dimensions was the reason behind the title of the season 6 premiere being “LA _X” and not LAX. To illustrate the idea that we are now in the dimension/reality/timeline X season, where everything has changed but everything is or will eventually be the same.

Apparently ‘it worked’ according to Miles’ divined answer from Juliet, which for the first time was accompanied by the sound of the smoke monster. This anomaly, I think will eventually prove that the message of “it worked” came more from MIB rather than from ‘blondie’.



That’s not a very strong reaction-
We first see Jack with his new hair cut, which looks like it’s parted the opposite way to me, maybe because this is the mirror reality. Jack is on 815 having some sort of déjà vu moment, except this time Jack gets one less bottle of Vodka from Cindy, since he won’t need the extra this time for the cut on his back. Next we get our first clue that the two realities simultaneously exist. Jack has to go to the bathroom and sees that somehow his neck is bleeding. This could be due to his proximity in time (incident just happened) and space (flying right over the Island) to the mirror reality, thus the two realities are bleeding over, literally. Or maybe the wound is something that happens in the one true reality that everyone is trying to get to. Something interesting about this spot of blood is that Jack and the camera only view this cut in the mirror. Going back to even more Alice in Wonderland imagery of the mirror world through the looking glass.



Double dutch realities, lightly stirred.-
Another sign of the two realities blending is in the rubble at the swan/incident site. At first we see the swan door and assume it didn’t work, but then we hear and find Juliet in the rubble of what actually seems to be the site of the incident, meaning the swan was never built. But if it was never built why do we see a washing machine, and a stationary bicycle (both from the Swan) in the pile of rubble covering Juliet? The answer is that things kind of worked, and there may be a bit more work to do before it FULLY works.

Juliet’s line about going dutch to get coffee reminded me of Charlotte’s line about “no chocolate before dinner”. I think that is because much like Desmond being so close to the electromagnetic energy at the time of the explosion, Juliet’s consciousness was traveling through time and experienced her and Sawyer having coffee in the alternate time line we see the 815’ers experiencing. I’m sure down the road we will get to see that moment of Juliet and Sawyer actually having that coffee.



Nice meeting you, or seeing you again.-
“See you in another life brother” never made more sense than it did at the time of Jack seeing Desmond on the plane reading his Salmon Rushdie book, “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” Here are some synopsis of the book I found online. Pretty interesting stuff.
“In a ruined city so sad it has forgotten its name, that breathes black smoke from "sadness factories," lives a happy child, Haroun Khalifa, the only child of Rashid and Soraya. Known as the "Ocean of Notions" and the "Shah of Blah," Rashid is a storyteller, a juggler of tales. Rashid tells Haroun that the stories come from drinking "Story Waters" flowing from an invisible tap installed by Water Genies, a process "too complicated to explain." Haroun is dubious. The happiness ends as Soraya strays with the upstairs neighbor, Mr. Sengupta. Rashid smashes the clocks, freezing them at 11 o'clock, moans that storytelling is all he knows, but runs out of stories to tell. Haroun's attentions span shrinks to 11 minutes.”

“The use of shadows in Salmin Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories is complex and intricate. The shadows themselves do not solely represent evil nor do they solely represent good. Although shadows range from many shades of gray, they do not exist in the extremes of light and darkness. Instead, they are combinations of light and dark. Therefore, the duality of shadows in the novel symbolizes the careful balance of good and evil.”





What ever happened, will still happen, only different.-
So we’ve heard before that whatever happened, happened. I think that is still true, only now it’s a matter of when and how these things will still happen. Here are some things that are the same, and some that are different.

Sayid still asks to be of assistance instead of fixing the transceiver this time his opens a door for the nice stewardess lady, Chuck Norris style.

Jack still asks for a pen to save someone.

Sayid – Is still going to see Nadia, but this time he is from Iran (based on his passport.)
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEOcdC36OYOOZvBe8EhR6x8W_9fI_QOVEd-3cEH5KBRCBjkxItUD-pSLtanH8qyCEFI_Nzt_pon6hDGU_ujWNhI1xADSlJjP29D14_qit9pER4-EfPEng4CX76vUVp6bR8F3Qe9A/s1600-h/1431380_snapshot20100203074338+copy.jpg

Jack is the worried one and Rose is comforting him about the plane ride, instead of the opposite in the pilot.


Charlie is still doomed to die by suffocating. Think about it, Desmond saw him drown (once in a dream, once in reality), Ethan hangs him to asphyxiation, and we see a vision in which he gets shot in the throat with an arrow. Now, in this episode, Charlie's choking on a big bag of heroin. No matter when or where Charlie is he is always doing to die by suffocation. This fact leads me to believe that I have a pretty good idea of why people are brought to the Island, which I’ll discuss in the next paragraph.

LOST is all about light and dark, good and evil, dead or alive, this reality or that reality, and the heart of Jacob and MIB’s ideals fate vs. choice. The writers over the past 5 seasons have time and time again shown us that there is no stark contrast between white and black as many hope there would be, but rather everything is a hazy shade of gray in the world of LOST. I think in the end both sides will be right, because there is only one outcome. Because Just like Jacob says, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” That being said I think the island is merely the place where everyone’s fate/decisions do the most good, and give people a chance to be redeemed.
Just like how Charlie is slated to die by suffocation no matter how you slice it, but on the Island it just does the most good, because he ends up saving people through his drowning, rather than choking on a sandwich baggy of heroin.”

Hurley is still the owner of Mr. Clucks chicken and still won the lottery, but this time he is the “Luckiest guy in the world”. Is the Island Hurley beginning to feel the effects of this change in luck, because he sure as heck is more confident now, and seems to be the leader of the losties in the temple. I think this will become a common theme this season, where those on the island begin to feel the effects of the alternate selves, and become more and more like them.

Our federal agent still gets hit on the head, but only this time he lives, but I’m sure he’ll die soon anyway.

Sawyer is hard to figure out at this point, his warning Hurley not to tell people he won the lottery either means he is setting up Hurley via a confidence man con, or the opposite, that he isn’t a con man now. But then again he did see Kate’s cuffs and helped her get away. Remember Kate and Sawyer were the only people Jacob visited/touched when they were children, so maybe they are the same.

I want to believe so badly that Locke was actually allowed to go on the Walk about in this mirror world, but despite him saying he’s not ‘pulling Boone’s leg’ (I see what you did there Darlton), I feel like maybe Locke wasn’t able to. Although Locke does seem more chipper and optimistic in the alternate timeline, I really think he is destined to die via suicide in the end, no matter which timeline. Remember if Jacob brought them to the island via the touch, I think it only means they will do more good with their choices/fate but still have the same result.




Sayid/Fayid/Jayid – That is the question
That is really the big mystery that DARLTON want us to think about There are ideas that MIB is now in Sayid also, but I don’t think bi-posession is something that MIB/smokey is capable of, but who knows know that Jacob’s power of protection is gone. Speaking of Jacob’s protection, that spring of vitamin water needs a new floating filter. There are two ideas about the murky pool of healing. The first is now that Jacob is ‘dead’ the power of healing on the island is gone. The second is that the pool is murky because it’s actually Jacob’s blood waiting to fill Sayid’s body and take it over. I think since Jacob clearly told Hurley to take Sayid to the temple, and the message in the ankh said Sayid needed to live or everyone was in for a some serious problems I think it’s pretty clear that Sayid is now Jacob’s vessel of choice. But I’m open to the possibilities that Sayid is still just Sayid, or even the missing Christian Shepard is now in Sayid, but t! hat one is a stretch I think.

Ring around the rosie, ashes ashes smokey makes you all fall down.-
One of my favorite action scenes of LOST was Flocke plays ring around the rosie pocket full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down with Jacob’s body guards. What we all pretty much knew in the S5 finale is that the MIB/Flock is the smoke monster. The MIB is the smoke monster, the smoke monster is the security system for the temple. The security system has been dubbed Cerberus. Cerberus was always employed as Hades' loyal watchdog, and guarded the gates that granted access and exit to the underworld. It also had 3 heads, maybe MIB is only one of the three heads. Jacob being the second. Not sure about MIB's death, but the one thing that is clear is that he was there at the time of Richard's arrival as a slave in chains on the Black Rock which was coming from Africa. Note in the screen cap here that smokey has at least 2 heads/arms.
http://getlostpodcast.iimmgg.com/image/643d857a2a39855488b07d003926267e



There’s no place like home,
The real big question that I came away from the show with is concerning Flocke’s statement that all he want’s is to “GO HOME”. So where is home for MIB?
Where is home for MIB?
a. The Temple
b. The Cabin
c. The Underworld
d. The Bronx - I say this because of Rose’s comment about the smoke monster the first time she hears it in the Pilot, that “it sounds familiar” and then Shannon asks her where she is from, and she says the Bronx. The only problem with that is that the Bronx probably didn’t exist when MIB first came to the island.
e. Other
I’m going to guess that it’s either the Underworld or going with a main LOST theme and say Other.



The guy behind the guy, behind the guy, behind the guy, behind the guy – The real TPTB
Next I want to talk about the overarching issue of power on LOST. Here are some of the ideas of who is in control we’ve seen over the course of LOST.
Season one, we thought the power struggle was between Jack and Locke. In Season 2, we think it’s between the Losties and the Others. In season 3 it’s about Ben or Alpert or Jacob, or that one random blonde lady who shows up during Juliet’s trial. In season 4 we think it’s between Locke and Jack again about calling the boat or not. In season 5 it was about Ben vs. Widmore, and the scientists vs. mercinaries on the freighter. Then in the season 5 finale we think it’s about Jacob vs. MIB. As of where we stand now we have the ideas of temple others vs. tent others, and Jacob vs. MIB. My guess of who is really in control of the island is NONE OF THEM. I don’t think we’ve ‘SEEN’ the ones truly in control of the island. But I do think we’ve ‘HEARD’ the ones in control of the island, but more on that later.

After seeing the new LOST promo with everything happening on a chessboard finally solidified this idea for me. Locke alluded to this in the pilot episode when describing backgammon to Walt, as being the oldest game in the world, two sides, light vs. dark. Now with the new Chessboard LOST promo it has dawned on me that the reason why it’s been so hard to tell who is good and who is bad, is because it has been changing all the time, because the real people in control are just moving all of our characters around like chess pieces, and depending on who did the moving of the pieces, our characters could be either at the moment. Most of the characters are pawns on Lost, some are rooks, bishops, knights, and queens. But there are only two kings in this game; those are Jacob and the MIB. Also remember in Chess when a pawn reaches the 8th position it can be promoted to a rook, bishop, knight, or queen. I know that Jacob and MIB are not the ones in ultimate control, because they! wouldn’t need to find a loophole in someone else’s rules if they were. The MIB wouldn’t feel so trapped and want to go home if he was really the one in control. But now that Jacob is dead and team white is in check mate, team black will try to make it’s final push to win the game. But that is where Jayid comes into play, as the secret weapon X in the end game of LOST.

I mentioned above that we have HEARD the ones in control, but have not SEEN them. I think the Whispers are the voices of the ones truly in control of the island. Who are playing the game, and moving the pieces around. If you want to read some of the things they’ve said over the course of LOST you can do so here.
http://lostwhispering.blogspot.com/

Who those people are that are really in control is to be seen. But if I had to guess I would say that since the island has so many Greek and Egyptian symbols, I’m going to guess that the people really in control of the island are ancient gods from those two cultures. And the Island is the ONLY PLACE left on earth where they still have power over things, and they want to use the island and the pawns that land on it, to fulfill their desires.
Here is the link to the new Chess board LOST promo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuISMUoJNw8



Here is my last observation for the week, just something to throw out there and ponder.

Taweret's Left Foot, or is it Right Foot? -
One thing that some people have noticed that I want to point out is the foot on the statue seems to be different in different seasons/timelines. Maybe they are two different feet on different places on the island, but I don’t think so, see below.

The Foot –
Season 2 finale, it’s the left foot.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/6/6c/Footboat.jpg

Underwater, it’s the left foot.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/lostpedia/images/8/83/6x01_Submerged.png

Jacob’s house under the statue foot is the right foot.
http://getlostpodcast.iimmgg.com/image/2535f3aeed27f3787f0c26449dc08dc6