TV

The creators of LOST have said that they’ll answer many of the unanswered questions in a featurette on the DVD. But until that happens, it’s still fun to come up with answers using the bits and pieces we do know.

Q. Who built the Statue of Tawaret (aka the four-toed foot)
A. Egyptians

Sometimes, the most straightforward answer is the correct one. In the show, we’ve seen a temple filled with Egyptian hieroglyphs and a statue of an Egyptian fertility deity. The simple answer is that they were created by Egyptians who landed on the island a long time ago.

We assume that the island has had many guardians throughout its existence. Jacob was a guardian. Mother was a guardian. Before Mother, there were other guardians and other inhabitants (as indicated by the skeleton in the source of the island). After Jacob and Jack, Hurley picked up the slack.

When I watched “Across the Sea” I theorized that Mother was also a black smoke monster and hated it. This is how she managed to single-handedly destroy the villagers. At the same time, she called it “a fate worse than death.” She was tired of her job as guardian and raised the two children to take her role as well as her life. All of this happened around the first century.

Previous guardians had also been the smoke monster as well. And here’s where I think the Egyptians come in. Many groups have come to the island in the past and it’s how the previous guardians have chosen their successors. The Egyptians came to the island before the events of “Across the Sea,” worshipped Mother (or her predecessor) and built the statue in her honor. They also built the temple to worship the island guardian. Remember that the smoke monster was depicted as a guardian at the temple.

Who can say what ultimately happened to the Egyptians. But if the fates of the Romans and Dharma Initiative are any indication, perhaps they learned about the source of the island and had to be purged.

Well, I don’t think anyone saw that ending coming.

It was a satisfying episode that managed to give nearly all the characters happy endings without cheapening their on-island tragedies. Reading the message boards today, it looks like the vast majority of people liked the two and a half hour finale of LOST. But a very small and vocal majority really hated it. It figures that when you don’t answer every aspect of the island’s mythological nature, you’ll face the wrath of people who invested in the mystery.

If you haven’t seen the episode yet, I’m guessing a friend, coworker, or family member has already spoiled it for you. Either that or you visited Google, saw the Hot Trend, and saw all the articles embedded in the search results. Just be warned that the discussion below contains tons of spoilers.

There are no less than three different mainstream interpretations of the ending being debated as I write this. One is that the characters died on Oceanic Airlines in the initial crash and the entire series has been their adventures in purgatory. I don’t subscribe to this theory because not all the characters at the end were on the plane. Also, it doesn’t jive with Christian’s explanation at the end.

The second theory is that Jack was a survivor of the crash but had a hallucination of the entire show as he was clinging to life. Ultimately, he found his meaning and ‘let go’ of his life to die peacefully. This is supposed to explain the parallels between the first scene in the bamboo field and the last scene of the eye closing. It sounds a lot like Jacob’s Ladder or An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge. But ultimately, my problem with this theory is the deterioration of the sneakers hanging on the branch (signifying that a lot of time had passed) and Jack’s wardrobe change.

The last theory is the one I subscribe to. I wasn’t thrilled with it when I initially saw it. But after a night of tossing and turning, I grew to love it. Basically, everything that happened on the island in the past six seasons really happened. The island really was magical. There really were guardians. They really did crash and survive. However, the flash sideways exists as sort of a limbo/purgatory far into the future where the characters went to after they died. Because of their connections and relationships on the island, all the deceased souls stayed behind in this limbo making peace with their past lives. Desmond helped them find each other again and together move on to the afterlife.

Some characters died before Jack. Others died after Jack. But in this timeless limbo world, they all found happiness. I liken it to the last scene in Titanic when the elderly Rose passed away in her sleep and sees all the people aboard the Titanic again, young and happy.

As for the on-island stuff. Hurley and Ben likely had centuries of fun protecting the island. But a more benevolent Hurley was probably far more ‘chill’ with the rules than Jacob was due to his more happy-go-lucky nature.

Claire probably reunited with Aaron. Kate found fame as the unluckiest woman alive (both Oceanic 6 and Ajira 6 in a span of three years). Sawyer tried to turn good. Alpert learned to love life again. Miles embraced a giant bag of money. Lapidus became a hero pilot. Desmond got sent home by Hurley to be with Penny and young Charlie, inheriting the Widmore fortune.

You see, in the end, these things are kept ambiguous. But no matter how long they lived, they ultimately died and went to limbo in what amounts to a season-long cast reunion party.

The best parts of the show? All the ‘aha’ and ‘omg’ moments.

• Hurley: “I got a bad feeling about this”
• Richard not only survived Smokey’s attack, but he got his first gray hair
• Miles and his duct tape saves the day
• Lapidus’ lashing out over the walkie talkie
• All Smokey ever wanted was to leave the island, but even as the world collapsed around him, he couldn’t admit Mother was right
• Jack and Smokey’s Matrix Revolutions battle, complete with Leonidas’ 300 leaping attack
• Jack’s doubting Thomas moment
• There was another ‘malevolence’ the island really was bottling up and it wasn’t Smokey
• Jin about to laugh his ass off when he realizes his old friend Sawyer is a cop in the sideways universe
• Hurley becoming the new guardian with a water bottle and muddy water
• Sideways Jack’s neck and abdomen wounds explained
• Juliet’s comment about ‘it worked!’ was really about unplugging the vending machine as she was flashing in and out of death, not about Jughead
• Plugging and unplugging the vending machine paralleling the plugging and unplugging of the island source
• Dr. Chang and Roger Linus’ age discrepancy explained, finally!
• Ben and Hurley’s unseen adventures and their camaraderie
• Ben’s face when he finally became important
• Hopefully Hurley’s reign as island guardian was one of complete transparency
• Eloise not wanting to lose her son again because of her overwhelming guilt of raising him to be killed in real life
• Aww… Michael was still stuck on the island as a whisper, live together, die alone
• Ben staying behind to make things right, presumably with Alex and Danielle
• So when Rose told Jack to ‘let go’ on the plane in ‘LA X, Part 1,’ it was a hint about the reality of the sideways universe
• Vincent doesn’t let Jack die alone; man’s best friend indeed

As for what I didn’t like?

• No explanation of why Walt or Aaron were considered special
• How does this tie in with the island sinking?

Some final thoughts:

• Eko wasn’t on the show because actor demanded 5x the amount the producers wanted to pay him for his cameo. I wonder how they would have fit him into this season if he had agreed to show up.
• Walt was another character that had to be written off the show due to his sudden growth spurt. With all the talk about him being special, could it be that many of Desmond’s special abilities originally were meant for Walt?
• If we didn’t all hate Ana Lucia, what would have been her arc? The same goes for Paulo and Nikki.
• The six seasons sort of mirror each other in the sense that S1 and S6 focus largely on the island’s supernatural properties and the idea of crashing/escaping. S2 and S5 focus on science and the DHARMA initiative. S3 and S4 focus on the microcosm that is Ben vs. Widmore.

Ultimately, I liked that the creators kept many of the mysteries to themselves. A thorough explanation about every little detail would have really taken away a lot of the show’s charm. I liked that many questions were answered. But if I watched the show from the first season again, I wouldn’t automatically be able to explain everything in every scene.

The island is magical and special. It just is. It reminds me of how Jedi Knights and the Force used to be special too. But now, we know they’re just empowered by tiny organisms called Midichlorians. Suddenly, Jedis aren’t so cool anymore.

The journey has been about the destinies of the characters from the beginning and this was a great way to send off the series. Thank you for six great years, LOST. I’ll even overlook that Bai Ling episode.

In hindsight, last week’s mythology-laden episode was pretty important. Anyway, tonight’s episode ‘What They Died For’ involves the candidates back on the island. A lot of questions are answered. Peripheral characters are killed off rather unceremoniously, and a new guardian is appointed. Also, the sideways universe is finally starting to lead to… a concert! Will someone be singing ‘Eyes On Me?’ All in all, a good episode going into the finale.

Instead of going into bullet points, I’ll just list some of the questions finally answered:

Q. Where was the mysterious cave of light?
A. Turns out it was near the bamboo thicket Jack woke up in when Oceanic 815 crashed.

Q. Why was Kate’s name crossed out?
A. She became a mother. Although, she can still be a guardian if she wants to.

Q. Why were names written on the wall?
A. It’s implied that Jacob was keeping track of his candidates (all people wallowing in a purposeless life) and crossed them out when they found their purpose.

Q. How did Ben summon the monster from underneath his house?
A. He didn’t. Smokey was dicking with him the entire time.

Q. Why did Widmore bring Desmond back to the island?
A. To use as a failsafe should Smokey succeed in killing all of the candidates.

Q. How did Widmore find the island?
A. Jacob visited him.

Q. Who rigged the plane with C4?
A. Widmore did when they landed.

Q. Who is the boy?
A. Jacob’s apparition, minus the ashes.

Q. What is the Hurley Bird?
A. Oh wait. They didn’t answer that one.

Still lots of questions remain unanswered. But hopefully, they’ll answer more in this weekend’s finale event.

Based on Smokey’s final line about destroying the island, Jack’s ascension as guardian of the island, and Desmond’s role as a failsafe, here’s my speculation about how the finale might play out:

Smokey will kill everyone and then manage to destroy the light, sinking the island. But as the new Jacob, Jack uses his God-like powers to create the alternate universe (a new ‘game’). Smokey has influence in this world as well, giving all the characters wonderful lives to trick them. Desmond the failsafe awakens all the candidates and they go to destroy Smokey.

Jack’s ex-wife will be Juliet. Miles will succeed in dragging Sawyer to the consortium where Jack’s son is playing piano. Juliet will meet Sawyer there and ask him to coffee moments before Desmond detonates a bomb or something to wake everyone up. Or wait, maybe they’ll all meet their respective loves: Charlie/Claire, Jack/Kate, Sawyer/Juliet, Sayid/Shannon, Daniel/Charlotte, and Miles/Big bag of cash.

Well, that’s that. Anyone going to a viewing party this Sunday?

My flight from Hawaii was supposed to land at 8:40p yesterday and I was fully prepared to race home and watch LOST. Alas, delays prevented that from happening. Thanks to streaming episodes from Hulu, I was able to catch up today.

I’ve been reading a lot of message boards and it seems the majority of people hated the episode. I guess I was also a little disappointed. We were promised an episode that would blow our minds with the origins of Jacob and MIB. Instead, their origins weren’t very interesting. However, I did like that the episode answered a few key questions like the origin of the skeletons Jack and company found in the first season and who designed the donkey wheel.

The bullet points:

• Ha, even as newborn babies, Jacob and MIB were swaddled in their respective colors.
• So, Jacob was just some naive mama’s boy?
• Latin-speaking Claudia names her son Jacob? Are these people Roman Christians?
• Wow, Mother is crazy.
• MIB seems to have a healthy curiosity for things.
• If MIB thinks all the humans are terrible people, why does he want to leave so bad.
• Is the ghost of Claudia just a clever ruse?
• Where did the idea to build a donkey wheel come from?
• How was Mother able to burn down the village? Does she have Smokey powers?
• MIB’s knife has a very long history it seems.
• Was MIB able to kill Mother because she wasn’t about to ‘speak’ to him, thus starting the misconception that the guardian shouldn’t be allowed to speak?
• Showing us the Adam & Eve scene from the first season was wholly unnecessary.
• So, was Smokey created when MIB died, or was he merely released from the cave of golden light?
• How did this lead to Smokey and Jacob’s wager?

Debunked theories:

• Smokey is a nanomachine cloud
• The skeletons in the cave are Rose & Bernard

So what did this episode teach us? Well, it showed that MIB and Jacob aren’t gods who have been on the island since the beginning of time. Jacob inherited the guardian role from Mother in the first century, who inherited it from someone previously. There have been guardians on the island for a long time.

Was Smokey created when MIB was thrown into the cave of light, or merely released. Perhaps Smokey is a natural entity of malevolence trapped in the electromagnetic cave. Seeing MIB’s dead body in the river suggests they’re two different people.

We know Smokey can take the form of the dead, along with some of their memories and motivations. Remember that Fake Locke also said “don’t tell me what I can’t do.” So perhaps Smokey inherited MIB’s form as well as his goal of getting off the island.

The other theory is that MIB became Smokey when he entered the cave. Perhaps his earthly body was destroyed and his soul merged with the gold light and they became Smokey. I suppose things will become more clear in the last three and a half hours of LOST.

Something that was unexplained was how Mother was able to destroy the human camp. My theory is that she had Smokey powers. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the guardian is supposed to have both the knowledge necessary to protect the island (wine) as well as the willpower to destroy those who threaten the island (Smokey).

When Mother saw twins, she was surprised and secretly happy. It seems she had a plan to put together a plan to separate the two halves of the guardian role. One would be pure of heart and the other would be violent and chaotic. Mother intentionally brought the twins up, manipulating them with her rules and appearing as Claudia’s ghost so they would turn against each other. Then, she manipulated both of them into gaining half of the guardian’s powers.

Jacob received the knowledge with the wine and MIB received the power of Smokey. Neither of them are whole. The can’t kill each other. And together, they have to protect the island. However, Smokey/MIB wants to leave the island. And if they do, Jacob will be unable to protect the island and the light will go out, dooming all people in the world.

In the end, one of the candidates will likely take on full guardianship (both halves) and become the sole guardian of the island. Maybe the last scene will be this individual walking into the golden cave.