Lost: We're Here! And Where is Here?
I was looking at my title picture for Lost and I was thinking that although the show was about Jack Shepard, a simple country doctor who not only saved some people and an island and a world (not sure about a constellation or galaxy), the picture has Locke front and center. Locke was saved by Jack too. Locke the man was saved and Locke the Man in Black was given his greatest wish, to leave the Island. Or not, the Fake Locke was killed on the island and his body left on a cliff to be eaten by seagulls rather like Prometheus. The Man in Black, unlike our simple country doctor, Jack, did not accept his fate on the island. He fought it to the end. And so he ended, dead on the island.
How to Schedule the Reveals
I was concerned when I went to the ABC schedule and saw that this show was beginning at 7 and ending at 11:30. I knew that it had been expanded, but four and a half hours? Were there that many mysteries to be explained away at the end? I've only watched the last season, so I knew that I didn't have that many questions about what was going on.
Then I further investigated (and ABC has the worst and most counter intuitive web site that I have come across since I tried doing Tiny Pic in Portuguese) and discovered that the actual program was on from 9 to 11:30. I only saw about 10 minutes of the prior program with the writer/producers and why would anyone watch it? The writers/producers have made a very successful TV program but I thought that they acted like they were trying to teach a fifth grade class some Texas history about the Alamo by using Pee Wee's Big Adventure as their textbook. And yes, I know that Pee Wee's Big Adventure is not a textbook, but I'm not sure if the Lost writers/producers or the Texas Board of Education understand that I can comprehend that concept or history.
So if anything pertinent was in the first two hours of the programming block, I missed it.
Some things that I might have missed:
- What was the Island? And I don't mean what dimension of space and time did it occupy, but what was IT? It could time travel and move on its own and scratch its own belly; but what was it? Was it animal, vegetable, or matter or energy? Was it a portal to another dimension? Was it the Twilight Zone? Was it the Zit on a Giant Alien's face? Perhaps this was addressed in the previous program.
- It's interesting that Purgatory or whatever the Hospital World of our simple country doctor, Jack23, was, was the ordinary World. The Real World, the Island, was the Extraordinary World that could play hopscotch amongst the time/space continuum. The afterlife is humdrum. The Real World is a Wonder of Science and Nature. OK, I like that sort of philosophy. Why worry about metaphysical mysteries when the real physical mysteries are the most compelling to solve?
- What was that baby doing at Jack's Wake? The best time of that baby's life was the few brief moments that it was born in purgatory? Geez, that is a depressing thought especially for its parents, one of whom was the Crazy Pregnant Blonde Lady.
- What was Jacob's Wake like? Did his brother show up for it? Did his two moms? Did any of the candidates?
- Where did Jack get that nasty tattoo on his inner left arm?
- Did Hugo cut his hair for Jack's Wake?
The Great Me Answers All
I had thought that the Garbage Island was a metaphysical construct where all the souls lost at sea were thrown away and put back together on a Island made of Garbage and Tar Balls by an ocean current gyre. But the Island was real (for what it was worth) and the Hospital World was Purgatory or the Hospital Waiting Room, so to speak. All the souls were in the waiting room waiting to hear news of the operation or the procedure that doctor Jack performed to save each of their souls (and not just Locke's).
And Drunk/High Desmond was the reason that no one should allow the unlicensed to practice medicine. He goofed it up.
And that Concert was the reason why musak is played in Hospital Waiting Rooms. No one wants to hear Drive Shaft and Faraday, the non musical prodigy, bang and clang on string instruments.
And notice that Kate and Drunk/High Desmond were sitting at Table 23?
And notice the FUSION sign behind Kate at the concert? I told you that that light on the island was plutonium trash.
And do you know how much radioactive waste is generated by Hospitals? And where is that deposited? On Garbage Islands.
Notice the connection between the plutonium waste light and all the pools on the Garbage Island? There is the Temple Pool, the Heart of the Island Pool (and that is not the Heart of Darkness), and the pool where Jack ends up after he stops the Heart of the Island Pool back up again. Water and Light. Does this mean that Lost is coming down on the Light is a Wave and not a Particle Debate?
All the answers in this episode were about the Hospital World. No answers to the Real Island World were given.
Love in the Hospital World was an electro-magnetic force that activated the memory neurons in the brains or souls of the dead. And maybe it re-animated the lovers with its power just as the airplane that Kate and her companions left the Garbage Island on was re-animated by its electrical system. It was the electrical powering up system that was emphasized when the pilot prepared to fly away.
Bar the Door Katie
The Matriarch Cult acquitted itself quite well. Kate prevented herself from bashing in the skull of the Crazy Pregnant Blonde Lady when Crazy Pregnant Blonde Lady dropped another child. According to the flashbacks, she had dropped a child on the island.
And that was odd to me. I know that she had the Jawboned Toothy Hair Ball Baby on the Island, but the Crazy Pregnant Blonde Lady had better hair when she had her Hair Ball Baby. I guess all her Hair went into nourishing the Jawboned Toothy Hair Ball Baby and just left her with spilt ends and the frizzles when she had the Hospital World Baby. And that poor Hospital World Baby had a very sad life; it was at Jack's Wake. And it was bald.
I like to think that Jawboned Toothy Hair Ball Baby was raised by Hugo and Weedy Guy and took over the Island after Hugo passed on. That might explain Hugo's short hair at Jack's Wake. The Hair Ball Baby must be fed, probably on creme conditioners and three in one fortifying shampoos.
Crazy Pregnant Blonde Lady did realize her sanity limitations. "The Baby will think that I'm crazy!" Which baby was she talking about? I don't think that the Jawboned Toothy Hair Ball Baby would have judged her too harshly. And the other Bald Baby didn't last too long or have a very good life as a comparison.
Pulling the Plug
Blonde Reading Guy, who was a detective who worked sudoko puzzles and crossword puzzles, deduced what Fake Locke was up to. Fake Locke would use Drunk/High Desmond to destroy the Garbage Island.
Blonde Reading Guy was trying to get his candy bar out of the Hospital World's vending machine and on some advice from the OBGYN who told him not to put his whole arm and hand up it, Blonde Reading Guy pulled the vending machine's electrical plug and got his treat. (At first, I thought that this was a commercial for a vibrator. And what was it with a commercial every five minutes? And some of the commercials were about the Island. Target should have been selling shampoo during that birth scene. E Mail me, I work freelance.) But when Blonde Reading Guy pulled the plug, all the power and lights went out in Hospital World. He blew up the submarine in much the same way.
But Drunk/High Desmond pulled the water plug on the big bong in the Garbage Island Grotto and the Island lost all the lights although it did experience an increase in destructive power. Ah, destructive power---reminds me of the Smoke Monster. Our simple country doctor, Jack, had to re-insert the plug into the hole to restart the Island. I see why Jack was married to an OBGYN now. Target should have had some condom commercials at this point in the show.
The Obvious
First of, let me get it out of the way:
- Jack ≈ Jacob
- Locke ≈ Lost
- dog ≈ God
When Jack died on the island, he looked up into the sky to see the airplane fly over. Perhaps it was the actual plane with Kate and her companions in it. But the plane flew over when Jack's Dad opened the doors in the church in the Hospital World. I think that it was his soul's release. All those airplane sounds during the program were the soul's release of each of the Island people in the Hospital World as they realized what they were and where they were and remembered their lives before they accepted what had happened to them.
When Jack is at his Wake in the Church, whenever his Dad talks and touches him, the dog, Vincent, is by him, touching and licking him in the Island World. There is no greater or simpler love than that of a dog for its person.
The dog wakes up Drunk/High Desmond after his well rescue and reminds him of his purpose. When the coffin is delivered for Jack's wake, the delivery guy asks Drunk/High Desmond who he is, "A priest or something?" Drunk/High Desmond says, "Or something." Desmond is the facilitator.
The Finale
Now that's how you do a finale. I wasn't invested in the show. I only watched the final season and wasn't too interested in most of what I saw. But the finale? Everybody dies and I cry. Now that is an ending! Now that is Hamlet! Or close enough, for what it was.
There were no answers to a lot of the practical and metaphysical questions, but there were conclusions to relationships and characters' evolution. I didn't know who many of the characters were, most of the women characters meant nothing to me. But I knew enough about the others to understand where it ended up.
Another Respected Theory
