A Case of the.... Lost - Episodes 5-1 & 5-2 Revisited

Welcome to Lost: Revisited, where I take a closer look at the previous week’s episode of Lost and respond to e-mails and blog comments that have come my way.

Click the "Read More" link for the full column.

Let’s start with an e-mail from longtime reader, Dan:

Do you think Ben had Jack get the paternity test ordered? That way, he would get custody of Aaron, since he's his relative, and he could make a deal with Kate to get her to come back to the island.

This is an interesting theory, and not one that I had considered. That being said, I don’t think this is the case. Jack is undoubtedly a flawed hero, but I honestly don’t see him doing that to Kate. What’s that old expression? “You get more flies with honey than vinegar.” I just don’t see him threatening Kate in order to get her to do something for him. I do believe that he truly loves Kate, and he loves Aaron, and I just don’t see him doing that to either of them, even if it’s for the “greater good.”

Besides which, it doesn’t really add up timeline-wise. Jack had just discovered that Ben wasn’t on the island. I don’t think Ben would able to convince Jack to go through with this, find a lawyer, and sic them on Kate in such a short amount of time. Along with that, Jack still believes in continuing with this lie, and involving lawyers only risks uncovering the truth.

But it’s an interesting theory nonetheless.

Speaking of Kate, when you sit down and think about it, it’s interesting that she’s really the only member of the Oceanic Six that has adjusted to home life. Jack became an addict, Sun became consumed with vengeance and hatred, Sayid became a cold blooded killer, Hurley seemingly lost his mind, and then there’s Kate. Sure, she’s living a lie – perhaps more so than anybody else – yet she’s adjusted. Adding depth to this observation, consider that Kate had more reason than anybody else (excluding perhaps Locke) to NOT want to return home.

The next comment comes from my blog:

Just speculating here, but maybe the invisible stuff only applies if you don't go on that "special course" that has to be calculated? So the freighter people and the Dharma groups followed the course and thus can see the island, but had they just flown over it they wouldn't have seen anything? I'm guessing but that may be it. And perhaps the second island is considered "part" of the first island.

What confuses me is if the island moved in space as well as time (which I think we were led to believe, and you'd think would have to be the case if the island just totally disappeared from view...unless a full island is appearing on top of the same island in the past...), then what's with stuff like Eko's brother still crashing? And if it's only moving through time then...how the hell does that work? I'm thoroughly confused but in that good, Lost way.

It is my assumption that the island is moving in time and space. Yes, the Nigerian plane still crashed, but who is to say that the island wasn’t in another location when that happened? Actually, I think it’s entirely possible that these time flashes aren’t arbitrary. Perhaps they’re occurring at moments in time that the island has moved.

Then again, maybe the island is merely “stuck” in time, and it won’t reappear until this apparent time vortex (or whatever you want to call it) is resolved.

This question actually brings me to the first matter I want to discuss. I’m curious as to why certain people were affected by the time jumps, but others weren’t. For example, Sawyer, Locke, Bernard, and Rose were among the Oceanic survivors that transported through time along with the island. Yet the Oceanic tailies survivors who had joined the Others had vanished. For that matter, Juliet – who is technically an Other – was impacted by the time jump, while the rest of the Others were not (I am, of course, excluding Alpert from all of this, because we don’t know what his deal is). Likewise, Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles were affected, most likely due to their close proximity to the Oceanic survivors. Yet, once again, the Others vanished, despite their physical closeness to Locke and the tailie survivors. I’m interested in seeing what the determining factor was with who jumps with the island, and who vanishes. It can’t simply be “if you were already on the island when the Oceanic plane crashed, you don’t jump through time with the island,” otherwise Juliet would have vanished. And it can’t be “only Oceanic people jump” because not only did the tailies vanish, but the freighter folk remained intact. I really hope that this gets examined.

I’d also like to discuss one theory discussed on the Entertainment Weekly website, regarding Daniel’s appearance with the Dharma Initiative. Since we already knew that Daniel was tinkering with time travel, I had naturally assumed that this either occurred before he ended up on the island (when he was still mastering his craft) or after he got off of it (perhaps going back in time in order to prevent a catastrophe). The columnist there provides a far more interesting explanation, however: Perhaps Daniel, Miles, Charlotte, Sawyer, Juliet, and everybody else continues going through time, ultimately ending up in the early days of the Dharma Initiative. And what if they actually play a significant role in creating the drama that their future selves had to endure? Even more interesting: Is it possible that a young Ben, upon first coming to the island, actually meets these castaways as they travel through time?

And speaking of time travel, I have to wonder something: Should Desmond have recognized Daniel when he encountered him outside the hatch? In “The Constant,” a pre-island Desmond meets Daniel. Does this not change the past, since Desmond wasn’t physically traveling to the past, but rather consciously?

Another matter to ponder: Why, exactly, does Sun want to kill Ben? Why does she blame him for Jin’s death? Her motivation isn’t entirely clear. We, the viewers, know that Ben WAS responsible (at least partially so) for the freighter explosion, but she doesn’t know that. For all she knows, the freighter folk came up with that scheme, and they fall under the direction of Widmore, the very man she’s making a deal with.

There are also a lot of people predicting that Miles was the baby at the beginning of the premiere (with Dr. Candle). This reminds me of when people were first predicting that Christian is Claire’s father, because he was arguing with an Australian woman. Most people argued, “Not all Australian people are related.” I’m tempted to make a similar argument here….that just because we saw an Asian baby in the past doesn’t mean that he/she later grows up to be one of the Asian leads. Then again, Christian DID end up being Claire’s father, so what do I know?

Anyway, that’s it for me tonight. Remember: This column is only as good and entertaining as the e-mails I receive – so don’t hesitate to drop me a line!!! Visit my blog or send me an e-mail!