The Final Commercial Episode...

Right?

That was a little irritating. The ending was pretty good. i have to admit that i wished the positive side had been real. i'm glad to see that they left the ending open ended, so that we can infer a good long "time" of Hurley and Ben on the Island (and possibly Jack who said that he would survive the wound).

Not sure if the end was Jack really dying or if it was symbolizing the end of the show. If he made it out of the cave it seems that he either was not able to die from that wound (as he said), and climbed his ass out (which i'm not sure how, with no rope), or he had the same "Smoke Monster" effect and was blasted out. In either event he wouldn't have actually been dying.

More thoughts later... still digesting. In any event, he was right and Desmond was right, just in different ways. The Island and all of that DID matter and were important, and yet what Desmond was seeing (Purgatory, Yetzirah, the Barzakh, et al), was the ultimate ending, so there was nothing to fear anyway (in dying or potentially dying in the physical world of the Island).

They were NOT dead all along on the Island. Please don't fall for that red herring. Too much on and off the Island business for that to have been the case. But the parallel waking up was actually just another "sphere" of where Time-Space was irrelevant. THUS, that is why Whitmore, Daniel and Elowise were there when they shouldn't have been on a bomb-blast time-line.

i was disappointed that the "other side" wasn't physics but metaphysics... but oh well. i liked the purgatory stuff on the season 6 time-line. The more i think about it, Jack definitely turned into a benevolent smoke monster and didn't die (until many, many years later).

More later, more later...

The End: What the Fam and i have figured out...

While waiting on the playground for Gideon and his momma to get back from a field trip, Elijah and i discussed the ending of the show this coming Sunday...

Elijah came up with a very good idea that was fitting with some ideas i've been kicking around with folks at work and at home. That is the idea that one time line itself would be destroyed. You would observe that in a previous (and recent) post, i posited the quantum theory that the time"line" split in two and would converge. i believe that Elijah has corrected my assumption, however, that the "new" line would be the one to absorb into the former.

His idea was that the line with the Island will be destroyed completely, along with everyone on it. i suppose i had been thinking something like this, and talking about something like this with folks. What i didn't conclude, until then, was that everyone on the Island side would die.

...once Shanté and Gid got back we talked on the way home about it. As often happens, all the dots started connected in the midst of explaining a single connection that had been made. What i came to when the bottom fell out of the proverbial bucket was this:

• Yes, the Quantum theory of the split time"lines" is right, but the Island line will bow to the no-Island one because the energy in the Island - the "Light" - WANTS to be released and disbursed as in the other side. 
• Technically, the "other side" already won when the bomb detonated... they just don't know it yet and won't until they all fully "wake up." This will not happen FULLY yet, because they are all doing what Desmond is doing, though they are doing it on a microcosmic level. Everyone on the side with the Island HAS to die (as does the Island), for them to be fully released and awakened into their "other-side" selves... More on that in a minute.
• The writers alluded to the fact that Jack will not be the new "Jacob" for long. Jack asks, after accepting the job, how long he will have to do it (in typical Jack fashion). Jacob doesn't say anything like "for a very, very long time." Instead he says "as long as you can," as if alluding to the fact that he will give too much away if he says anything at all about it. This means that the show will NOT end with Jack being alone on the Island. 
• The show will try to make us skeptical of Desmond in the episode on Sunday.... But he will bring everyone to the concert. Some were already going there. This is a point in Time-Space that they are being drawn to by the energy not by Jacob, not by Desmond; they were already (in many cases: Jack, Dogin, Daniel), going to be there. No one made them all get on that flight, even with no Jacob, and no Smokey. The Energy, the Light, that they erroneously call "the Island" is what is drawing them together even OFF the Island (of course, let us not forget that the Island is a metaphor). 
• i was WRONG about one side physically crossing over to the other side. In actuality, what will happen is the Smoke Monster thinks he is going rogue but he is doing exactly what Jacob (and "The Island"), wanted. Once released, they will all wake up - making a "quantum leap," so to speak - AT THE CONCERT, together.

In the aftermath:

• Jack and Kate will probably get together.
• Sawyer will IMMEDIATELY break down and go for Juliet.
• Sawyer will use his role as a cop to protect Kate, as will Miles. 
• Aaron will be important but they may not spill that out. i will post on that after the show...
• Sun and Jin will be back together and probably at the concert too. 

i can't wait to see the conversation between Daniel and Desmond after the limo ("i'm saying... i think i already did" conversation); the conversation that was so big they had to save it for the final episode!

The Water of Light

So i promised a post on the water... i hate to say that i am posting this just because i said i would, but what can i say? i got busy, the kids puked a bit, my parents got sick. i had to nurse everyone back to health! But anyway, here are my three cents (accounting for inflation!)



The water in the Temple is channeled from the Water of Light in the cave. i don't know how and i doubt they plan on explaining how. The point is that at some point someone routed it there. Ben was shot by Sayyid back in the 70s, Dharma time-loop. Richard says that he can heal Ben by taking him to the Temple (like Sayyid in season 6), but that he will lose his innocence and will not remember being shot.



Thus, when Sayyid is taken, he is changed in a purely negative way. Ben was innocent so the Utilitarian transformation of the Water made him cold and calculating but not purely evil (believe it or not!). Sayyid, on the other hand, is less socially awkward and more likable person, but his karma is clearly filthier. He not only tortured repeatedly, but his past "redemption" was for his own gain of his loved one, not on any higher principle. He shot an innocent boy rather than attempting to reason with him and avert Ben's future in a non-violent way. That is, violence against innocents is his first reaction in achieving a Utilitarian means to an end. Do remember that Modern Political Philosophy drives a lot of this plot (ala Locke, Rousseau, et al).



We see the same slight glimmer in the Water of Light cave, still present in the scene of Sayyid in the Temple pool. It serves to reason that this Water transformed him - with filthy karma - into the most cut throat embodiment of Utilitarianism... just as it did to Jacob's brother...



Personality-wise, we see in the last episode that Jacob's brother was a likable person... just like Sayyid. But just like Sayyid as well, he operates out of a passionate hatred. He kills out of hate, out of ego, not out of principle. He didn't kill to punish a murderer who killed his innocent mother. He killed only after decades when the same woman prevented him from leaving the Island. He killed because he didn't get his way.

Sayyid too killed out of Ba`ath nationalism, out of employment, out of selfishness. He did not kill out of principle.  They were thus both transformed in the same way. Sayyid's transformation was from contact with the Water's residual properties of the Light. Jacob's brothers was from direct contact with the Light itself. Thus he, like his surrogate mother, was transformed with full potency.

Now the question i leave you with is what happened in the parallel time strain, to this Light and the power thereof? Did it's release benefit all of the characters in some strange disbursement of power and life-blessing? It seemed at first that the show was trying to show that their lives would have been perfect without Jacob, but perhaps it was this disbursement that made everyone's lives a little better? i'm not sure what i think about that.

Let's see what they have for us tonight!

"Across the Sea"

So now you think you know what's up right?

Or don't you?

i don't really quite understand how people think about Lost. i mean i do and i don't. i think some things are obvious to everyone but then i sound like i'm talking down to people when i say "This was completely obvious!"

In this case i thought it was supposed to be. However, after finding out that pretty much no one i know noticed this, i have reevaluated that the writers were trying to make it more subtle and i just picked up on it.

What is it that i'm referring to, you might ask?

Well, i could comment on how hot Claudia, the woman who gave birth to Jacob and "The Bad Twin," was...



But a picture is really worth 1,000 words...

Instead i'll limit today's post to one topic only: The "Surrogate" mother was a Smoke Monster herself. If this isn't obvious to you, i'll explain:

Aside from when she said "if there were other people on the island, i would know about it," we see that she is able to get down the ladder to the "Dharma Wheel," without Jacob's brother having heard a sound. He simply senses her there once she's down. If you recall from the season 4 finale, this was a very, very, very deep hole. One could argue that the light source here is too strong for it to be so deep. Regardless of this potential faux pas, we see that they are EXTREMELY deep under the Orchid in Season 4. Imagine going a mile deep down a rackety old ladder and not making noise. Imagine doing that and then standing on the OPPOSITE side of the ladder than the guy you came down there for...

Then she carries Jacob's brother up that same mile long ladder? What kind of person could do this? THEN she fills in that entire hole that the whole community had been digging out, in the time that it took for Jacob's brother to wake up? No.

Then she kills this entire warrior community. Again: No. Not unless she is a Smoke Monster.

Then recall that before Jacob tosses dude down the magic chute, his surrogate mother urges him not to go down there under any circumstances. He asks if he would die and she urges that he would face a fate worse than death. When Jacob tosses dude he tells him it is to give him what he wants by kicking him off the island. He does not think he is capable of killing his brother, as the surrogate mother said as much. He also was told that going down the Light Chute would not kill one.

In our next installment: The Water of Light...

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Below is a quick image that i have sketched out for some co-workers. This is what is going on with the Theoretical Physics behind the show.

It is my position that they will simply cross back over in the final episode. They will first all wake up and then consult with Eloise and Daniel (who there is no logical explanation for the presence of in that timeline). We will see a missing chunk of Daniel and Desmond in the limo talking too...

Basically, the timeline did not fork, it split like a thread of many layers connected at both ends... more like a band though... there is elasticity to it. This is one working hypothesis of Quantum Physics for what would happen in such Time-Travel.

Why didn't the Smoke Monster didn't kill Sayid?

The more important issue to first consider is that the Smoke Monster did in fact speak to Sayid. The dagger that Dogen gave Sayid would have killed dude, had Sayid killed him before he greeted him, he would have died. Dogan is thus being made look bad to the viewers. However, his immediate response to Sayid was that the latter had let the dude speak. Sayid denied this, having overlooked the short greeting that he was unable to prevent.



In short, this means the dude can be killed - according to the "rules" - just like Jacob.

More to come...

The "L" Word: It's that time again...

Okay, so the show's about to start in a few hours. i'm dying. It's my birthday. Literally.

Our big TV from the early 2000s finally died but my parents got us a dope smaller one (that's super crisp), for my birthday and THUS for the Season Premier!!!

i saw the leaked first four minutes on YouTube (i could link it, but why bother since it is about to be aired?). Shanté noted that Jack's hair is different (longer), in this version of the plane!



i noticed that he hasn't chugged his drink (cause he's not an alcoholic anymore!!!), and she noticed that Charlie doesn't run by (because he's not a druggie anymore!!!)



Also... the captain apologized for the turbulence (from the Island), but there is no crash because there is no incident and thus no Swan (and no Desmond not typing in the numbers!)

i expect, based on this, two parallel/divergent time strains (likely in competition with one another). Let's see if i'm right!