The Sun-Sentinel's Article on Lost

For those who haven’t seen this on other LOST blogs, the Sun-Sentinel recently published an article by Tom Jicha saying that LOST had finally gone too far by revealing that something on the island had cured Rose’s cancer after the plane crash. The writer of article listed off all the things he was apparently previously okay with, including polar bears on the tropical island and the mysterious healing of Locke’s paralysis. For some reason, Rose’s cure pushed him over the edge.

Of course, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion and I do not begrudge Mr. Jicha for saying that LOST is overly unrealistic. What surprises me is that he made it this far into the show when he obviously has a problem with suspending disbelief. Why didn’t he quit watching when Locke wiggled his toe for the first time, or when Sawyer shot the polar bear, or when the monster first made noise and shook the trees in the season premier? Even if he were okay with all that, shouldn’t he have quit watching when he learned that someone in an underground bunker had to push a button every 108 minutes? Rose’s cancer cure seems pretty insignificant compared with some of the other crazy stuff that has occurred on the island.

Mr. Jicha concludes his article by theorizing that the show’s writers have no idea where the story is going. I strongly disagree with that idea. We have received multiple assurances from the show’s creators, producers, writers, and cast that there is a complete story and that LOST is not going to wonder off into Twin Peaks territory. The producers of LOST make fun of the theory that they have no idea what is going on by routinely joking about upcoming zombie attacks in their podcast. This is not to say that I believe that every single bizarre element of the show will be scientifically explained (instant healings of cancer and paralysis are at best pseudoscience) but as long as they work within the context of the story, then I am fine with them.

The Tree Frog

When Hurley was asking Sawyer for some medicine in episode 2x18: Dave, he brought up the tree frog that he had helped Sawyer track. I originally thought that the tree frog storyline was superfluous at best, but hearing Hurley refer to it again made me wonder if it has some relevance to the plot. (Why would he have mentioned the frog if it was simply filler used to pad a midseason episode?)

After originally seeing episode 2x14, I guessed that the frog was probably poisonous and that by crushing it in his hand, Sawyer had doomed himself. However, I quickly forgot about that theory because if the frog were poisonous, either Sawyer or Hurley would probably at least have developed some skin irritation in their palms by this point.

Barring a season finale shocker revealing that that frog was a Dharma test subject or a beloved pet of Alvar Hanso, I think that that the tree frog story line served simply as a contrast for the wild boar in episode 1x16 that demonstrated Sawyer’s struggle to abandon his cruel tendencies. In both episodes, an animal was bothering no one but Sawyer and he tracked them with the help of another castaway. After successfully tracking the boar, he decided to let it go when he heard whispers in the jungle repeating the last words of the man he had killed. After finding the tree frog, he heard no such whispers, nor did he waste time in killing the animal even when Hurley suggested a humane alternative plan.

Perhaps the Dharma personal, black smoke, or whatever force monitors the events on the island was testing him with the annoying creatures. If so, it’s probably safe to assume that he failed the second test.

I realize that hoping for a significance to the tree frog may be wishful thinking on my part. I want the tree frog to matter because I hate to think that LOST would pad half an episode with a tedious and pointless story when so much other incredible stuff was going on, such as Henry Gale’s capture and interrogation and the castaway’s reaction to Sawyer’s theft of the guns. Then again, this season did feature a less-than-thrilling story wherein Sun lost her wedding ring while digging in her garden and then found it at the end of the episode. Sure, you could argue that finding the ring was another instance of the island delivering a person’s deepest desires when they exercised faith—such as Charlie recovering his guitar—but I think they were just killing a bit of time.

Thoughts on Episode 2x19: S.O.S. – The Healings

This episode continues the recent trend of the show not directly answering mysteries, but rather toying with theories that may or may not explain them. In episode 2x11, Locke handled Ambrose Bierce’s book, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which hinted that everything on the island was a fantasy happening in the moment before the plane crashed. In episode 2x18, Dave’s explanation for the strange events was that Hurley was dreaming of them while in a coma. In the most recent episode, we learn that Bernard took Rose to a faith healer named Isaac of Uluru who channeled the magnetic energy of Ayers Rock to cure people. After Isaac failed to cure Rose, he said that other places might have the power to heal her, which implied that the island was the right place for at least her, Locke, and possibly Jin.

Unlike the other theories that I mentioned above, this one is believable. If it’s true, it adds an interesting twist to the island mystery. Sick people couldn’t simply be healed by visiting Ayers Rock, Isaac had to channel the energy into them to cure their ailment. If a similar healing energy exists on the island, then simply being there wouldn’t have cured Locke and Rose. Someone would have to be channeling the healing energy into them.

If people did need someone channeling energy into them to enjoy the healing power of the island, then it would explain why only select people have been cured. Shannon’s asthma was never healed; Boone’s shattered leg was not healed, and Jack has never commented on an unusually rapid recover in Sawyer’s gunshot wound or “Henry Gale’s” crossbow wound even though he has monitored their progress. Perhaps the island is not the right place for these people to be healed (Isaac claimed that each healing location is not right for all people). Alternatively, all of the examples of people not receiving cures are because the person channeling the energy is not directing any of it towards them.

A person channeling the energy would also explain why Locke lost the use of legs after he and Boone discovered the Nigerian drug plane in episode 1x19. Whoever was sending Locke the energy he needed to walk didn’t want him to climb to the dangerously perched plane and risk his life so the energy flow was temporarily cut off. Boone was allowed to make the climb because he, for whatever reason, was viewed as expendable, as demonstrated by the lack of healing for his severe wounds, which resulted in his death.

The theory may also explain Jin’s newfound ability to produce children. (Assuming Sun is being truthful about not sleeping with another man.) Obviously, the Others want children—they keep kidnapping them—so if the Others are in control of channeling the healing powers of the islands, they may have directed some of that power to Jin’s reproductive problems to assure a greater supply of kids.

New Updates Coming and Request for Your Links

I’m sorry for the long delay between posts. I had a nasty flu this week that felt like a mini-mono so I was pretty much out of commission. I do have several new posts that are almost ready so look for those in the coming days.

In addition to making a few new posts, I’m also going to use the three-week break between new LOST episodes to upgrade the layout of this blog. I’ve been learning about CSS in my spare time and I’m working on a new blog design that I like much better than the plain black blogger template that I’ve been using. This is going to be my first CSS project so I could run into unforeseen problems, but I expect to have it ready in time for the next episode. I’m also experimenting with a Black Smoke Website, which I’ll give more detail on soon.

One of the changes I want to make with the new blog and website is to have an expanded links section. Obviously, I’m not going to have anything as thorough as Lost Links, but I would like to provide a decent list of interesting LOST websites. If you write a LOST blog or produce a podcast that you’d like me to link to in the sidebar (or if you just read/listen to a good one), please email me and let me know about it. I’ll add the links with the new template.

Again, I’m sorry for the lack of new content. I’ll try to get a new post up by tomorrow night.

The Visions in Episode 2x18: Dave and Henry Working in Tandem

Throughout the show, many of the castaways have seen visions on the island. The visions have always served some purpose, such as Jack finding fresh water after following an apparition of his dead father and Eko baptizing Aaron because Charlie envisioned the infant in several dangerous situations. Other visions have taken the form of animals that represent people murdered by castaways, such as the boar and horse seen by Sawyer and Kate. Locke, the character who knows the most about the visions (including how to induce them), claims that they show people unique hallucinations that they need to see to overcome certain issues and realize their priorities. (Where he gained this knowledge remains a mystery, but I suspect that his encounter with the black smoke monster, which he described as seeing the beautiful “heart of the island”, consisted of more than simply staring at it as Eko did.)

In Episode 2x18, Hurley became the latest castaway to see a vision. While Hurley’s vision was of Dave, a former schizophrenic figment of his imagination instead of a real person, it nonetheless served a purpose, just like the visions seen by other characters. Dave wanted Hurley to remember his fear of the numbers.

When Hurley was in the mental institution, his greatest concern was being overweight. He felt that because of his weight problem, he had killed two people when he joined a crowd on a balcony that was already supporting 15 too many people. To punish himself and prevent healing, he created Dave, an imaginary fellow patient who constantly goaded him to steal food. Dave encouraged Hurley to take graham crackers from Lenny’s plate, lasagna from someone’s leftovers in the hall, and escape from the institution to get cheeseburgers and chili fries.

On the island, Dave continued to play off Hurley’s fears, though Hurley’s fears had changed and so did Dave’s methods. Hurley was no longer as concerned about being overweight as he was about the curse that he believed gambling with the numbers brought upon him. He believed that using the numbers caused his mother’s broken ankle and house fire, his Grandmother’s heart attack, and even the crash of Flight 815. Dave never tempted Hurley with food on the island. Far from encouraging him to eat, Dave actually mocked Hurley’s weight problem and even knocked goldfish crackers out of his mouth by throwing a coconut at him.

Instead of food, all of Dave’s conversation on the island related to Hurley’s fear of the numbers. Dave initially appeared because Hurley felt the numbers curse was responsible for the amazing coincidence of discovering the food drop immediately after he destroyed his stash. In their conversations, Dave explained the many improbable ways that Lenny’s numbers had shaped Hurley’s world since leaving the mental institution. He mocked the computer that required the numbers to be entered and claimed that the numbers frequent appearance proved that nothing on the island was real. Dave also claimed the only way to escape the numbers was to kill yourself. (This was the method that Sam Toomey, the Australian man who correctly guessed that a jar held 4,815,162,342 beans, used to escape the numbers curse.) However, Dave’s goal was not for Hurley to commit suicide, but rather to provoke his fear of the numbers.

Dave was not a reoccurrence of the schizophrenic hallucination Hurley had when institutionalized. He was a vision caused by some force on the island in the same way that it caused visions for other characters. Dave acted differently on the island than he did in the institution. Not only did he not encourage Hurley to eat, he mocked him for being overweight by asking how it was possible for him to not lose weight on a deserted island. His mannerisms in the mental institution were very Hurleyesque, but on the island he quoted Hurley’s “Dude” less often and strove to get Hurley into isolated positions rather than “interacting” in groups as he did in the back-story. Before leaping from the cliff, he quoted not Hurley but Desmond by saying, “See you in another life.” Most significantly, his message directly paralleled what Henry Gale told Locke: the numbers and the computer are a joke.

Henry Gale claimed that the timer reset after a brief moment of scary symbols and noises. Just as Dave was manipulating Hurley’s fear of the curse, Henry was manipulating Locke’s fear of not fulfilling his destiny. The underlying crux of both Dave and Henry’s remarks was ‘don’t push the button.’

Dave’s claim that everything is occurring inside Hurley’s head is false. So is Henry’s claim that he didn’t enter the code and push the button. If Henry’s story were true, he could have told it immediately after the blast doors opened to further his goal of integrating among the castaways. (After some initial shock, he would have received their eternal thanks if he revealed that the monotonous chore had no effect.) Instead, he didn’t tell Locke that the button was “a joke” until after his false identity was revealed. Henry Gale and Dave’s stories being told simultaneously to the two characters with the strongest feelings about the numbers indicates that for some reason the Others don’t want the castaways to key in the code anymore. By creating doubt in both Hurley and Locke, they’ve doubly insured that the timer will soon run out.

New Frappr Map

I’ve added a Frappr Map for readers of the blog to use. Just click on the link in the sidebar and add yourself. If you’ve never used Frappr before, it’s free and very easy—just put in your name and zip code and you’re done. It will be fun to see where everyone is from.

Chris Attempts to Debunk Popular Theories for Episode 2x18: Dave

Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite game: Chris Attempts to Debunk Popular Theories. The last time I played, I argued against the theory that Henry Gale was an Other. I scored half of a point for correctly arguing that “Henry’s” Wizard of Oz-themed name didn’t prove that he was lying (there actually was a balloonist named Henry Gale who crashed on the island) but my overall argument proved false. Let’s see if I can do better this time.

Today’s first popular theory: Eko is building a church.
While certain unresolved story lines haven’t appeared for some time (i.e. has Locke abandoned his interest in Aaron?), the writers haven’t let us forget that Eko is building something. The past couple of episodes have all dedicated a few minutes to advancing Eko’s story, and they’ve all been secretive about it. From the beginning of his project when he was marking and cutting down the trees, Eko has kept mum about his purposes.

The most common theory on the internet is that Eko is constructing a church. There is some evidence to support this idea. First, Eko is the only character on the island that has shown a consistent interest in a formal religion. (Locke talks a lot about faith but doesn’t seem to know much about specific religious beliefs and Claire’s failure to mention anything vaguely spiritual after her recent baptism suggests that she’s not extremely devout.) Second, the last time there was a mystery about Eko’s activities (what was he carving on his staff) it turned out to be scripture references.

However, carving Bible verses onto a staff and building a church are very different endeavors. Eko’s staff is a personal object of significance only to him. Building a church would mean that Eko intends for other people to embrace his style of spirituality, which is a goal that he hasn’t pursued before. (He baptized Aaron and Claire, but only at Claire’s request. Also, before burning the heroin, Eko gave one of the statues to Charlie, which didn’t exactly call him to repentance.) Eko wouldn’t require a church to begin preaching, yet he has never made any effort to sermonize to anyone. It would be very surprising if he suddenly decided to start proselytizing to his fellow castaways.

However, the biggest reason that I don’t believe Eko is building a church is that it would be a stupid idea—both in terms of plot and audience expectations. Based on what we have seen of the other characters, Charlie was the most frequent churchgoer prior to the plane crash, yet he mockingly referred to Eko’s scripture engraved staff as a “Jesus Stick.” I can’t imagine him, or any of the other characters, wanting to attend church on the island. Even Jack would be volunteering for button-pushing duty to avoid attending the services. Additionally, the audience will be greatly disappointed if all of the mystery and suspense that the show has built up surrounding Eko’s activities is resolved in the way everyone was expecting. The show has invested too much time in Eko’s story to give it such a dull conclusion.

Today’s second popular theory: LOST is taking place in a character’s (or characters’ collective) mind.
In the last episode, Dave brought up some good points about how Hurley’s post-institutionalized life has strangely involved the numbers that Lenny constantly repeated. His question of how Hurley could see the numbers so often in the real world is a valid one. (Never mind that every character’s back-story has involved one or more of the numbers.) However, if Dave’s story were true, how would he—being nothing more than a figment of Hurley’s imagination—know that Hurley was still in the institution?

Although Dave’s monologue has been the most blatant suggestion that the events on the island are taking place in someone’s mind, it is not the first. Just as Locke handling Ambrose Bierce’s book, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, doesn’t prove that someone is experiencing the island adventure in the split second before he or she dies in the plane crash, neither does Dave’s story prove that everything is happening in Hurley’s comatose mind. Each castaway simply has too much complexity to represent some singular aspect of Hurley’s psyche. Dave didn’t attempt to describe the significance of any of the castaways to Hurley’s multi-personality syndrome other than Libby, which indicates that such descriptions would have proved detrimental to his cause. (I’ll have an entire post dedicated to Dave and his story soon.)

However, the biggest reason that I can say definitively that the events on LOST are not the imaginations of Hurley or some other character is that the LOST producers do not want to have to go into hiding because of an angry mob of fans. If the series finale features anything remotely similar to a character waking up and saying “Wow, what a crazy dream” then millions of LOST fans are going to storm ABC demanding recommencement for their hours of wasted time. Fortunately, I cannot believe that the creators of the show would conclude one of this generation’s great works of art with a hackneyed ending.

That’s all theories I have to debunk this week. I’ll be updating the blog with a few thoughts on the episode as well as publishing another essay this week so stay tuned.

Thoughts on Episode 2x17: Lockdown – The Island Story

There were obviously many great new developments on the island in this episode. To make things easier, I’m going to divide this post into sections.

The Poker Game
The poker game between Jack and Sawyer gave a few interesting clues about Jack’s back-story. Jack said that he gained his surprising expertise in poker while in Thailand. The amount of time required to master the game suggest that he didn’t pick up the skill in his spare time while visiting the Malay peninsula on business.

Also in the Poker game, Sawyer questioned the origins of Jack’s tattoo. Granted, Jack was busy bluffing at the time, but he didn’t answer the question. Kate also questioned why Jack had a tattoo in episode 1x6 (a scene shown during the clips episode designed to help new viewers catch up to the plot) and Jack didn’t answer her either. Jack’s refusal to discuss why he got his tattoo indicates that he prefers to keep that time in his life secret.

In the flashback in episode 2x11, Jack is shown shirtless and sans tattoo. Sometime between his divorce and turning his father in for operating while intoxicated, Jack “got the art on his arm.” Assuming, as Sawyer did, that the tattoo is connected with Jack’s visit to Thailand raises the question of how Jack reacted to his divorce. Did he take a sabbatical in Thailand to recover from the loss and let his wild side loose? The poker game revealed that there is a darker side to Jack and I expect we’ll be seeing more of it in the coming episodes.

Henry Gale
Henry Gale (I will continue to call him that until we know another name for him) almost had the perfect opportunity to imbed himself among the castaways in this episode. Because the lockdown occurred when Henry and Locke were alone, Henry was able to gain Locke’s complete trust and oath of protection. Yet Henry did not have any actual control over the unusual happenings and he even requested that Locke go get Jack when he heard the lockdown warning. Did Henry do something to initiate the lockdown or did he simply take advantage of the situation?

Henry gave Anna Lucia perfect directions to the grave and the hot air balloon. Obviously, someone designed a complicated plan to infiltrate Henry among the castaways. He had all the details of his story memorized and he stuck to it through several questionings and a beating. The goal was obviously to have the castaways accept him as one of their own, as they had done with Ethan. What information did they hope to gain by infiltrating a spy into the castaways’ camp?

Henry Gale stole his identity from a real person. There are also several questions about the real Henry Gale. Was he really a marooned millionaire miner? How long was he on the island, what contact did he have with the Others (the obviously knew about him), how did he die, and who buried him? Did the Others simply use his identity as a cover story since there was a balloon and a grave to back it up? It will be interesting to see if we get more information about him in the coming episodes.

The Map
There has been a lot of great discussion about the map on the blast door. There are images of it here, here, and here and you can hear a great summary of it on this week’s LOSTcasts. I don’t have a lot to add to their discussion about what the map contains, but I do have some questions about how it got there.

This is what we know about the map so far. Someone painted the map onto the blast door with a special paint that is only visible by black light. The blast doors seem to have come down in this episode for a routine event—possibly connected with the food drop—and they were down for 45 minutes. The castaways have been inside the hatch for between three weeks and a month and this is the first time they have seen the blast doors close.

The Orientation video described the Swan Station assignment as isolated and instructed the worker not to use the computer for communications. The quarantine markers are further evidence that the Swan Station workers were not to explore the island or make contact with the other stations. The mapmaker, or more likely mapmakers (due to the variety of writing-styles found on the map) apparently wanted to keep the map a secret. Unlike the mural in the hallway, the blast door was a canvas that was hidden most of the time, and the invisible paint provided extra security. Whoever drew the map obviously had some knowledge of the island (there are references to the island’s intranet as well as dates that certain events occurred) but more importantly, they exhibited far more curiosity about their surroundings than the Oceanic 815 castaways have. Based on the efforts they took to hide the map, they had more curiosity than Dharma wanted them to have.

Painting the map on a retractable blast door helped conceal it, but it would also make it difficult for the Swan Station worker to have access to it. It is hard to imagine Desmond and Kelvin (or whoever) updating the detailed map during the 30 seconds of black light that is only available, at most, once a month. There must be a way to manually control the door and the lighting or the map would have been impossible to create.

The map also provides further evidence that someone on the island has a great affinity for dead languages. Egyptian hieroglyphics are in the computer counter and Latin is used sporadically throughout the map. The scientists associated with Dharma obviously have some linguistic training and a reason to use it. (I’d be on the lookout for Germanic Runes in future episodes.)

The Food Drop
The food drop proves that Dharma is still active and working on a large scale. It contained a large amount of prepared food as well as several boxes, each printed with the Dharma logo. However, if Dharma is still active, then why haven’t they sent replacements for Kelvin or Desmond? Why didn’t they stop the castaways from blowing open the hatch with dynamite and subsequently moving in? If they need to ensure that someone pushes the button, how can they trust the castaways—who have now twice nearly let the timer run out—to do the job? I can’t wait to find out the answers to some of these questions in the coming episodes.