So remember in Season 1, episode 1, Pilot, when Charlie is writing "Fate" on his fingers? Abrams had this whole thing planned from the get go. i've gone back and watched the first episode again (this time rewatching them all with my almost 9 year old... something i had hoped to one day do once he was old enough... which he is now). First thing i mention is this because it demonstrates that the theme of freewill versus fatalism was key to the entire series.
Another thing that i noticed was that the so-called "Smoke Monster" who i will just call "The Temple God," was the main character of the very first episode, and we were somehow tricked into not even noticing it! It was at the treeline the first night, it killed the pilot (for a very good reason i'll have you know... more on that in the next post), and it spared Jack, Charlie and Kate (perhaps even personifying as Jack to comfort Charlie, as there is no indication that Jack actually saved Charlie and then just ran off).
Why did the pilot have to die? God i would love to tell you, but like the creators of the show, i am trying to keep you hooked. i'll post about why in the next two days. Needless to say, the Temple God never intended to kill Jack, et al, as they were "needed;" which is why they were brought there ON PURPOSE, from the beginning...
In the first episode they let you know right away that they had been to this Island before. They give clues that we ignored because it would have been crazy to pay attention to them. First, again regarding the Temple God, Rose said to Shannon in the BACKGROUND (a hidden clue, not a central conversation), "That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it." Shannon then asks, mockingly, where she was from (i.e. where are you from if THAT sounds familiar to you). Rose had been there before, as they all had been, in time-space loop of sorts.
Oh and speaking about the beginning, notice the opening of the first episode?
Kinda sorta exactly like the opening of Season 6, from the trailer...
In case you didn't notice, even the reflection in his eye is the exact same thing. Once again, i rest my fucking case. They are back on the Island, but things DID change, the background was thus WHITE as opposed to the normal black that it has been every season and at the beginning of Season one. Thus, they are back there (because the bomb can't stop them from coming there, since they never crashed because of the energy burst in the first place, this was merely Desmond's hypothesis that there was no purpose... this is the show's way of showing you Desmond was wrong about this and thus arguing that such a view of life itself is errant... do remember that the show is preaching, and Abrams has something to say about life through the metaphor of the series).
But Abrams had this figured out from the get go. Look at the pilot write up:
A man awakes in a jungle. He is bruised and bloody, and doesn’t know where he is. A yellow Labrador Retriever watches him from the trees, then suddenly runs off. He forces himself up and winces in pain, leaning against a tree. He checks his jacket pocket and finds a small bottle of vodka. Recognition of where he is begins to float across his face. He winces back the pain and begins to run through the trees, reaching a beautiful beach.
He hears sounds ? ? people screaming. He wanders around a bend and finds what has brought him here ? ?
Notice the order of these things: Jack hears no screems and yet her rises up and runs, and runs... and runs, through the bamboo forest, until he gets to the beach and THEN hear's screams. He knew (though didn't know he knew), that he was supposed to go to the beach. Watch this scene a few times. He is walking to the left of the screen and only mid screen does the scene of the wreckage materialize MID-SCREEN. It does not come in from the left side of the screen, it just POPS into the middle of the screen. Watch it frame by frame and you will see this.
Oh and Jack's tattoo? What it REALLY says is "Ying Ji Chang Kong" ("Eagles cleave the air") from a Chinese poem "Changsha:"
Alone I stand in the autumn cold
On the tip of Orange Island,
The Xiang River flowing northward;
I see a thousand hills crimsoned through
By their serried woods deep-dyed,
And a hundred barges vying
Over crystal blue waters.
Eagles cleave the air,
Fish glide under the shallow water;
Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.
Brooding over this immensity,
I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?
I was here with a throng of companions,
Vivid yet those crowded months and years.
Young we were, schoolmates,
At life's full flowering;
Filled with student enthusiasm
Boldly we cast all restraints aside.
Pointing to our mountains and rivers,
Setting people afire with our words,
We counted the mighty no more than muck.
Remember still
How, venturing midstream, we struck the waters
And the waves stayed the speeding boats?
...more on all of this later, but remember that this poem, allegory for the ENTIRE SHOW, was so significant to the writers that they put the tattoo on Jack and then made an episode where Jack BELIEVES FALSELY that the tattoo says something else, about him not belonging, and that it was an accidental thing that he had not intended. You see where i'm going with this?
