Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Lost - "The Substitute"



Oh my. I'm so addicted to the show, yet feel so Lost.

Okay, let's see what's going on. As the whole series has been, we've got entirely separate stories going on simultaneously (just to drive us bonkers, of course). In the past we had flashbacks. Now we're in some sort of sideways-flash ... a "what if" Oceanic 815 had never crashed scenario. But, for a sideways flash, we have tons of discrepancies with what we thought was the real deal from the flashbacks.

For example:
  • In previous flashbacks, we accepted Hugo as a lucky unlucky man, winning the lottery but feeling he was bad luck to all who come in contact with him -- sort of a Reverse Midas. Ah, not so. In the sideways flash, he's still the lottery winner, but he's a successful business man, as well. And a generous one, too.
  • In flashbacks, Locke got fired for his walk-about mission. Well, that remained true. But in sideways Hugo saved him by getting him a job through one of his (apparently) many companies.
  • In flashbacks, Helen left Locke. In sideways, they're making plans to get married and even hint that his relationship with his father is okay. Say what? How? That would have to be after the kidney fraud. If his father didn't shove him out the window, why is he paralyzed from the waist down?
  • In flashbacks, Ben grew up on the island and never left it. In sideways, he's a teacher of European history on the mainland. Huh?
  • We also saw continued relationships betwixt the Oceanic 815 folks in sideways. Rose works for Hugo's temp agency, although she has the cancer cured by the island. The first person interviewing Locke for the job (the "what animal are you" person) in sideways was the "therapist" Hugo's father hired in flashbacks to convince him he wasn't cursed by the winning numbers.
What's been going on at the island is even more confusing for me. Is Jacob a force for good or evil? Could it be that the Man in Black (now Locke or Fake Locke or even FLocke) be actually good? After all, we know Ben can be one evil bad dude ... he was in cahoots with Jacob.

And how about the blond kid? Could that be Aaron in some sort of weird time warp kind of way? And where are Walt and Michael? Shouldn't this include them, too? Don't even get me going on the name and number list on the cave wall. It's obvious that FLocke wants to recruit Sawyer, but that's all that's obvious on the island for me at this point. I think the stones on the scale, white and black, signified good and evil. But I don't know.

My head hurts. What animal are you?

7 comments:

Divyesh605 said...

Jackie - you left out an important thing...the NUMBERS...they represent each of the Oceanic passengers that Jacob visited.

Jackie S. said...

Yes, yes they did. I'm sure I left out more. I told you I'm LOST!

Donna in Alabama said...

What do the numbers represent? You know they will have to have some significance. When Sun, Ben, the pilot and the other lady were burying Locke, where were all the other people who were on the beach with them when the smoke killed the four guys?

There are so many possibilities and no way to know how they will tie this together.

Can't wait until next week!

Anonymous said...

I do not know the answers, and am so far LOST! that I don't even know many of the questions. But, I am enjoying the ride and the philosophical debate this show brings to the surface.

So with that confusing comment as my disclaimer, I will add:

If the SOB Bomb was set off and changed the course of the flight, then it and various chain reactions (past and present) also changed many other things, including the existent of Dharma...or at least Ben's childhood participation in it. Maybe we are being shown what life Ben would have led if he wasn't involved in the island? We are presented with the idea that our devious Ben would be a teacher. Kate will still be on the run. Aaron's Mom would still be pregnant. Jack would still be trying to 'fix' people. And so on.

Every change on the island brings about a different set of circumstances with our characters. We are left to wonder what changed who the most or the least and was it for the better or the worst.

That, I believe is what Lost is saying with the various oddly related storylines.


What we, as the audience, are being asked to believe is that the basic person stays the same no matter the circumstances of their lives. Or, are the writers illustrating that is not true, that circumstances decide who the basic person is? It seems that some part of each person remains true to their core identity, no matter the type of life they are living at any given timeframe.


I wonder, though, if on the last episode we will see that all the characters are currently leading lives of quiet desperation and that the island is the only thing that offered them a course to their true selves? Will the writers lead us to the irony of the island not being the catastrophe of their lives, but the gift they all needed? And, will they all decide to find a way to go back and let their lives take the course Dharma and the plane crash set for them?

I do not know. I will be watching, though. And, I will enjoy the ending, no matter how far fetched or strange it might seem.

Becky said...

I wish I had known you were blogging the show. I will be here next week.

Jackie, I walk through the entire show "lost". But I am still hooked and watching every week.

Becky said...

Anyone here?

Jackie S. said...

There's a new post for tonight's episode. (Not that anyone's there, but ...!)