Seeing Red & LAX's Life "Through the Looking Glass" by Adrian McDonald

Below is a theory that I started here: http://theoriesonlost.blogspot.com/2010/02/dont-ignore-how-things-on-815-are.html and elaborated on at my own blog here: http://lost-looking-glass.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-jack-my-favorite-character.html

With those references in place--I continue my theory here...

Adding to the "Red List":

I just wanted to make a couple of additions to my "importance of Red" notes, which I began in my 2/25/10 entry on Jack. As I was re-watching "The Constant", I noticed that the door on Penny's home Desmond visits to get her number was Red. On the freighter, the phone Desmond must use to call Penny in Christmas Eve was also Red. And it seemed like the room Penny was in when she answered the phone was painted red...but it could have been maroon. And Jack's son David owned a copy of the red covered "Annotated Alice".

What is the Significance of Red? Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" May Offer Some Clues...

It's tempting for me to say Red is employed to indicate a connection to time travel. But that is too simplistic. Certainly Red is associated with time travel, such as the red on Jack's collar or Desmond waking in red paint...the man in the red shoes Ms. Hawking points out moments before his death etc. But the man in red shoes, as far as we know, was not time traveling. When Desmond used the red phone to call Penny in her home with the Red door, they were both speaking to each other in 2004, on the same date (Christmas Eve). So no time traveling. Then what??

Let's go back to my boy Jack and the writers penchant for associating Jack, more than any other character and arguably exclusively, with "Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland" and its sequel, "Through the Looking Glass." In last weeks episode, "Lighthouse", LAX Jack visits his mother's home to look for his father's will; the door on her house is painted Red. So what, no time travel (at least directly involved)? We do see this house again, however.....

When Jack sees the image of his mother's home in the top of the lighthouse, the door is white (I think) and NOT Red. Put another way, when Jack looks "through the looking glass" (the lighthouse mirrors) he sees his old home with a white door. Perhaps his mother just later painted it red...but I think not. Rather, maybe when the island Jack we know awakens on the LAX 815--when the 2007 timeline is somehow merged with the LAX 2004 timeline--the door is now Red just as Jack now has a son, Locke has Helen....etc. etc. Remember that Jack looked "through the looking glass" on LAX 815 in the bathroom mirror and noticed the apparent Red blood on his neck. Similarly, in "Lighthouse" Jack looks through the looking glass (his home bathroom mirror) when he gets confused about the scar from having his appendix removed.

As mentioned above, "Lighthouse" also contained a Red connection in the color of David's copy of "Annotated Alice," which I picked up and am greatly enjoying. It contains full texts of Alice in Wonderland and Looking Glass.

Two Things Concerning Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass--bear with me:

In S3's "Something Nice Back Home", Jack reads the following from the first pages of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland":

“Dear, dear, how queer everything is today. And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’d been changed in the night. Let me think, was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I’m not the same, the next question is who in the world am I?


Ah, THAT's the great puzzle.”

LAX Jack has changed. LAX Jack is a new version of Jack's life created as a result of Jack crashing on the island, and his journey of personal growth and improvement Jack has undergone throughout the course of the show. No, Jack is not the same in the LAX flashforward as he would have been had the original 815 not crashed. But LAX Jack is close to the same as current island Jack, who has overcome (mostly) his daddy issues, his substance abuse problems and his need to control/fix everything. Thus, LAX Jack is able to avoid the mistake his father made with him and be the father he should be to David---"who can never fail" in Jack's eyes. And it seems LAX Jack is much more at peace with his father and his death...the need to "bury" is not the crisis it once was. Jack is more a feather on the wind.

The LAX Jack is a "Through the Looking Glass" version of Jack, a version that was possible because of Jack's "destiny" on the Island.

Reconciling the Two Versions of Flight 815--The First Plane Had to Crash to Create the Version of the Plane that Landed at LA X:

Forget the idea of alternate, separate or duplicate 815s, Jacks, Locks...etc. The adventure goes like this: S1 815 carrying flawed passengers (Jack/daddy,Sawyer/daddy, Locke/daddy-faith, Kate/running fugitive, Jin & Sun/estranged) crashed on the Island. The Losties experience a dramatic adventure on the Island (polar bears to time travel) and, in the process, are changed for the better--they resolve their flaws or have almost resloved them. Once these flaws are resolved, probably at the end of the ongoing adventure in S6, the end of this adventure finds them back on 815 that does not crash....the "changed" people return to their lives, which are different in that they reflect the changes in the people themselves.

Just as the first non-pilot S1 episode, "Tabula Rasa" focussed on Kate, so to did the first non-premier S6 episode--the Kate centric "What Kate Does". Whereas S1's episode introduced us to a Kate ever on the run, the S6 "looking glass" Kate episode showed us a Kate perhaps ending her run as she returned to pick up poor Claire, pregnant with Aaron.

S1 followed Kate's episode with Locke's episode "Walkabout", where we meet an angry Locke screaming at the tour company for telling him what he can or cant do. Following Kate's S6 episode was Locke's "The Substitute" episode, where me meet a much less angry Locke learning to accept who he is and find peace.

Finally, S1 gave us "White Rabbit" about Jack after Lock's episode just as S6 gave us Jack's "Lighthouse" after Locke's episode.

Same order, different result. In Season One we saw how these characters flaws were affecting them on the Island. In Season 6, however, we see how these people are correcting/corrected their flaws.