In the past I have always loved going back and reviewing past episodes of Lost. After each passing season I have found it really helpful to see where we have been to better understand where we are headed. I started watching the show from day one. When the show started on tv, I was right there, front and center. I will happily confess that I had little hope of this show capturing my interest. My husband had heard the buzz and was determined that this was supposed to be a really good show. When I heard J.J. Abrams was attached, I was interested but only a little. I have been a big fan of his previous projects. However from what I was seeing from the commercials, this looked like some kind of ‘Survivor’ meets soap opera, kind of show. I did not have high hopes. After we see Jack, and the camera pans left on the beach to all that carnage, I was a little more interested. When that unseen thing comes and rips the pilot out of the cock pit I was torn between glee and dread as I feared they were going to turn this into ‘Survivor’ on Jurassic Park Island”. Once the polar bear came barreling through a tropical jungle I was intrigued. However like many others, I was not hooked until we see Locke in the travel office and we realize that he is in a wheel chair! This was going to be a special show. Ok, I was officially impressed. Weird radio transmissions, exotic animals in climates they shouldn’t be able to survive in, mystery monsters, and now miraculous healing. Where are we indeed!
Having said all that, I must admit that the second time around I had trouble taking in all the nuances of the dialogue. It was nice seeing all the old characters that have died. I would normally have said “come and gone”, but on this show the only way off is in a coffin, so to speak. Walt would be the lone exception to that rule. Even if he weren’t safe and sound back in New York, he would still be gone. That little boy that we see in this first season is unrecognizable now that Malcolm David Kelley’s puberty kicked in. It was tough for me to watch with innocent eyes. We have seen so much since then. This is a different show every season. This was the character season. A few mysteries were hinted at. But nothing like what was to come in later seasons. The only online activity that I participated in, during the early seasons, was the Alternate Reality Games. I started listening to podcasts about 2 years ago. I still remember with a chuckle, asking my husband, “What’s a podcast?” Once I started looking around the iTunes store, I found a seemingly endless array of Lost related podcasts. I dove in. I still remember how my mouth dropped open as I heard other people’s theories. They blew me away. Little by little I subscribed to every Lost podcast that iTunes carried. To this day I have only dropped a couple. About half of them have pod-faded, or gone away. The rest I struggle to catch up on. And to be honest that’s as much Lost community involvement as I can claim, until season 5. I loved the mysteries. I loved to theorize. I was hungry to try to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until episode “316″ that I started interacting with the Lost community. I called into the Black Rock initial reaction podcast and was so warmly received that I have been hooked ever since. I love checking in at the forums and trading ideas with so many intelligent fans. I send in my theories and feedback to various podcasts. It’s so interesting to see people’s different takes on what we think. I love the characters. I love the sci-fi. But it’s the overarching mysteries that have me so obsessed. I explain all this because at this point in the evolution of my fandom, it’s been more
difficult than I had expected to go back to the beginning and just take it in. Normally when I watch Lost I just sit there and enjoy the ride. I let it wash over me and don’t over analyze. But this season I have had to take notes for podcasts. I’m having to analyze and take notes on what I think might be more crucial and mean more in respect to past events or speculation to future events. By the time “The Incident Parts 1 and 2 had aired, my mind was reeling with all the bits and pieces along the way that now meant something totally different. So when I started this rewatch, it was difficult for me to concentrate on the set up aspect of it. So if where I go with the rest of this article sounds a little crackpot, I hope you’ll understand. Perhaps I am addicted to the mystery. Maybe I am looking for clues where they don’t exist.
In the infamous scene where Jack wakes up in the bamboo grove I caught something I had never noticed before. As Jack raises up a bird screeches off in the distance. It sounds as if he is screeching, “Jack!”
As Jack reaches the carnage of the plane wreckage, he is paralyzed by the chaos. It takes him a while to acclimate to the reality he now finds himself in. Once he does acclimate, he seems to race from victim to victim trying to save everyone he can. This is where the hamsters in my brain, began to race in their little wheels. It seemed to me that much of the writing of the pilot episodes, would work really well as a reset episode. I could easily see these two episodes being redone for season 6. It would work well if the writers had the ‘77 Losties blink out at the last moment of the season 5 finale to the pilot episode. If they mean to do this I would rather see them do it then, rather than the series finale. I’m not actually predicting they do this, because I think it could be really cheesy. However what I am saying is that it seemed like that might have been there intention when this show was written. I couldn’t help notice that the logo for Oceanic is a series of concentric circles. As many of you may know, the original title of Lost has been reported to be “The Circle”. I must admit that I cringed and groaned when I learned this. I have feared that the writers would leave us at the beginning of the crash, in the final moments of the series finale, left to imagine that our beloved characters where destined to repeat the cycle over and over like Sisyphus. We’ve already seen hints of this with Locke’s dream of a dead Horace chopping down the same tree over and over to build his infamous cabin. It was also repeated in the plot of a book that Sawyer was reading called “The Invention of Morel”. But I challenge the fans to rewatch “The Pilot Parts 1 & 2 with this reset idea in mind. So many times the dialogue would work really well to have this episode redone in season 6. Moments like when Jack says to Rose “It’ll be over…”, as he is interrupted by violent turbulence on board 815. When Locke and Walt have there famous talk on the beach about backgammon and the state of Walt’s life, it is interesting to note that Locke is void of emotional reaction. Most people would have some reaction to a child telling you that before barely surviving a plane crash, his mother died suddenly. Locke is dead-pan, matter of fact. Yes he always treated Walt as an adult, but that lack of emotion would also lend itself to a reset in the fact that if you are reliving the same situation, you wouldn’t react with the same spontaneous emotions that you would on the first run through. Locke’s lecture on the history of backgammon seems even more haunting now, more powerful. “Two players. One is light. One is dark.” This seems to sum up the whole of Lost at this stage of the game. In the first season Locke was always a mysterious figure
to me. As the seasons passed his character changed roles many times. This was the season of the hunter/wise-man. I remember be suspicious of and fascinated by this character in season one. I look forward to seeing how I view him this time around, in light of what we know he becomes and what he never was. What I had forgotten was that bone chilling moment Tabula Rasa. After a heart warming musical montage where all our characters are seen performing random acts of kindness and even forgiveness, the scene turns to Locke as an eerie score screeches to a crescendo to land on Locke. The effect is to leave us scared to death of Locke. But why? We’re left wondering all season who this man really was and what were his motives. But really, mystique aside, Locke never really set out to do anything bad. Don’t judge him by the manslaughter he would be guilty of later in the season. Very few characters in this series can claim they never killed anyone. Even the hero of the show, and self proclaimed leader of the survivors, Jack, murdered the marshall in episode 3, “Tabula Rasa”. So why did the producer’s have Michael Giacchino lead us to think Locke was evil. It my experience, the musical score never lies. So what does that mean? We never found John Locke to be evil. So what does that leave us? Well that leaves me with “The Incident”. By the closing credits we realized that John Locke was dead and Jacob’s Nemesis had taken his place. So could that mean that the score was foreshadowing that in season one? It’s certainly possible. Darlton has assured us repeatedly that by the end of the series we would realize that they knew how the series would go as far back as season one, as far back as the pilot. I’m left wondering if the other possibility is that in a reset, this man might even be Nemesis.
On the beach, when Jack is racing from survivor to survivor, something occurred to me. As I thought about the idea of a reset, it occurred to me that Jack was playing this scene over again, knowing he had very little time. He had to get to all the patients, and get to them in the right order. He had to spend very little time with each of them and then move on to the next victim, or else he would waste that next patient’s last moments of time. He starts with the man trapped under the landing gear. He enlists the help of a nameless red shirt, and the man we would later come to know as John Locke. Moments before, this man felt the first movement in his legs that he’d had in over four years, unbeknownst to the viewers. We had no way of knowing that this great feat of strength he performed in lifting the landing gear would have been impossible only minutes before. Next he goes to Claire to calm her down and ease contractions down. Then he hands her off to Hurley because he can see that Boone’s incompetent CPR skills are about to kill Rose. Once he saves her, he is alerted to the fact that the wreckage is about to collapse right over Hurley and Claire. Now he must race back to move them to safety before they are both crushed. Jack barely accomplishes all this in time. I got the sense that he was racing through a puzzle that he might even have some sense of.
I wouldn’t want you to think that I was ignoring Nemesis. We see the first appearance of Christian Shephard on island. The second time Jack sees him he takes off to chase him down. He disappears into the trees. As Jack is about to round a corner, who he finds is not the man we will soon learn to be his father, but John Locke bringing a boar. We know that in season 5, Smokey and Locke were never seen at the same time. There is a very strong theory, including mine, that as of season 5 they are the same entity. It is also supposed that Christian may in fact be Smokey as well. The fact that Christian turns a
corner and perhaps turns into Locke works perfectly with my reset idea. The fact that Locke is bringing a boar also alludes to Nemesis as well.
It is interesting to note that Claire’s unborn child suddenly comes back to life (figuratively or literally?) after Jin offers her some sushi. It was always interesting. However in light of “The Incident” I can’t help but wonder if Jin was acting as a limited conduit for Jacob’s healing powers. Jacob touched Jin’s shoulder and gave him his blessing. Could that encounter have helped heal Aaron in the womb?
Perhaps my reset notion is a bit far fetched. However I will leave you with one last example to woo your imagination. In “The Pilot Part 1″ we see Charlie write ‘Fate’ on his fingers. In “Part 2″ we see him write ‘Late’. I never understood that in season one. I tried really hard, but I never came up with anything other than the fact that Claire’s baby was late, and he seemed to be focused on Claire. Now I see so much more. In Charlie’s tragic death scene he uses his last moments of life to give Desmond a message. It was a message to try to protect and save his friends and loved ones back on the island. He wrote on his hand “Not Penny’s boat”. He wrote on his hand. Was it merely foreshadowing? Or was it in preparation for that Charlie to do a reset.
One thing is for sure. The black and white theme that Locke starts on the beach, can now be known to be the main clue for the whole show. The mysterious Jacob has finally been revealed in season 5. We know that our Losties were in fact, always destined to come to this nameless island and serve some higher purpose. They were touched by fate. Destiny. That theme was driven home for me in the imagery of Jack standing in the gaping mouth of the fuselage wreckage at the end of “Part 1″. As he stands there, an arm can be scene hanging down from over head. It was reminiscent of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”. In this famous work of art, we see the hand of God out-stretched to Adam to give him life with his touch. In the same way we can see that Jacob has touched Jack with destiny. In fact Jack has found his most meaningful ‘life’ on this island, with these people. The Bible tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and he created man and gave him life. I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with us, as we all go back to the beginning of Lost.
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