Airplane Mode
Set me aflame and cast me free,
Away, you wretched world of tethers.
Through the endless night and day
I have never wanted more.
Always thought that I would stand
Before the faceless name of Justice
Like some law unto myself,
Like a child of god again.
And if rain brings winds of change, let it rain on us forever;
I have no doubt from what I've seen that I have never wanted more.
With this line I mark the past, as a symbol of beginning;
I have no doubt from what I've seen
That I have never wanted more.
There's a little switch on HAL, my iPhone, that puts it into "airplane mode." It turns off all the internal transmitters so that you can still use applications and play music when you're on a plane. I think about that sometimes, about hitting that little switch and entering radio silence. About cutting off communication.
Airplane mode.
So: what just happened?
Q: What is the island?
A: I think the island is the physical beachhead of the bridge that lets the dead back into the world. Imagine that after death we reincarnate; all those souls/minds/consciousnesses/whatever have to go somewhere to emerge back into reality. I think the island is where that happens; a Well of Souls, if you will. And I think the concentration of all that being is what creates the weird energy, as a kind of byproduct - Darlton are fascinated by the idea of a physical manifestation of consciousness, that's why they love quantum theory so much - which in turn creates the bizarre spacetime jumping properties. Not all of the island is part of the physical world. The ghosts trapped on the island (the whispers) are in trouble because the island is basically an edge case - wonky things can happen if you die there.
Q: How happy are you that Frank is alive?
A: YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Q: What was CJ Cregg's deal?
A: I think the well of souls needs a human conduit on the other side. There has to be a human aspect of the link to complete the connection back. But equally, I think that person is both good and evil, because the island isn't a reservoir of pure good or pure evil - it's just a great big well of potential. CJ calls the light pure good, but Jacob says that the island holds pure evil. I think that CJ was both island guardian and smoke monster. The monster is supposed to be the judge of the island, and I think it's been there just as long as the island has - the Egyptian carvings in the temple suggest that it was around at least as far back as when the Egyptians were there, which I suspect was pre-Romans. While Jacob had certainly taught the others that Smokey was something to be feared, they were also told to submit themselves to it for judgement, implying that it has a history outside of Jacob and his brother. CJ also seems to have wiped out that whole village in a very violent fashion all on her lonesome, which probably requires more than a perfectly-delivered press briefing. She tells Jacob that the light is dangerous, and that to be exposed to it is a fate worse than death - then she welcomes death when Jacob's brother stabs her. I think Jacob and his twin messed it up. I think there weren't supposed to be two of them. Each of them took half of CJ's role - Jacob became the guardian, Smokey became the judge. And that's why Smokey couldn't leave the island; if he had, half of that being would be gone, and the balance would be destroyed. Did Jacob know that? I'm not sure.
Q: Did Jacob and Smokey screw things up?
A: Yes. In addition to splitting up the power of the island in a way that wasn't supposed to happen - and, as a consequence, tending to always see everything as sharply divided, black and white - they twisted the island's nature by playing games with people to prove points to each other. I think the island has always drawn people to it. I think it's part of its and our nature. But Jacob and his brother corrupted that by using these people as pieces in their own little games. Jacob felt that he was alone, and kept others at arm's length; even Richard didn't know his plan. And that will always come back around. That will always bite you in the ass. You shape someone like Ben Linus into a pure and perfect weapon, and someone's going to figure out how to turn that weapon on you. What about you - Jacob lost the ability to care about the people he was supposed to be protecting. He cut himself off. He was alone. And so he had to die, and we usher in a new leader - Jack, and then Hurley, the people who sometimes care too much.
The world is not a game. We are not pieces. There is no supernatural contest of good and evil being played out with the entire world as the board. There are just people, and sometimes they mess things up. There are no rules but the ones we make up.
Q: What was the Sideways world, and why were they all there?
A: The sideways world was sort of a waiting room, a kind of limbo (in my mind it's denoted by the same concept as "air traffic holding pattern/superconducting storage ring," but people look at me funny when I say that). And this is really the important part of all this, so put down your cookie and pay attention if you actually care about my theories on the matter.
This is all real, and what we do here matters. Buddhist theology states that this world is an illusion, and freeing ourselves from it is how we attain enlightenment. But Lost actively disputes this. The world is not an illusion, nor is it a test, or a preparation for some kind of complicated afterlife. This is real, we are here, and this is now. The way we perfect ourselves and move on to nirvana - which seems to be essentially where everyone went at the end - is not through ourselves, but through other people, through what we do here and the choices we make.
What's important is who we are to each other, not who we are to an arbitrary authority. Jacob said that he brought the castaways to the island because they were "alone." But throughout the entire series we've been shown that they were anything but. All the characters continually moved in and out of each others' lives. None of them were ever alone. They were all always connected. What was important was realizing that. It doesn't matter who the characters were to some higher authority, be it a demanding father or a supernatural island guardian. What mattered was who they were to each other. When we are supposed to "let go," we aren't supposed to let go of each other - we're supposed to let go of ourselves, of our past, of guilt and regrets, of our own individual hangups, and reach out to others. And they wait in sideways until they're all together, because that's what makes them whole, what makes them greater than just mortal - their connections to each other, and what they are together. Live together, die alone, in a strange and inverted way.
There is no absolution, only forgiveness. We can't wipe out the past; we can't hit the reset button and make it all go away. Jacob can't absolve Richard; Richard has to forgive himself. Losing his memory doesn't make Ben innocent, making the right choice does. The bomb doesn't reset anything. We learn to accept what happened, and change what will. We have to go forward, not back. It never repeats; everything else is just progress. It's not just reincarnation, not just living and dying and living again. The pilot repeats in the finale, but it's not exactly the same. The same story happens, but it's different.
Q: Okay, but what was Sideways?
A: Ah, got a little off-track there. Yes. Back to the idea of limbo or a kind of holding pattern, think of Sideways as representing the last steps each character needed to take in order to move on together. Of course they all had to wait until they were together, but each person in Sideways lived a life that reflected the last emotional regrets and guilts they had to let go of. Jack regrets never having a child, feels guilt over his divorce from Sarah, and still hasn't let go of his Dad (Smokey continually turning up in his form probably hasn't helped). Kate wishes she were innocent (I really think she was, in the Sideways reality). Sawyer wishes he'd done something better with his life. Daniel Faraday regrets not having worn a totally sweet hat and rocked the fuck out. Rose and Bernard regret not having a regular life together. Claire regrets not having known her American family, and still feels guilt about giving Aaron up for adoption. Locke wishes he still had Helen, but he's also kept confined to his wheelchair by his still-present guilt and turmoil over his relationship with his father. Ben feels guilt over never having been "special" (he comments to his dad that he feels like a loser) and regrets having killed his father (hence he's alive and being cared for by Ben). As they each let go of those things, they come together and get ready to move on. Locke tells Jack, "you never had a son," because that's a regret Jack has to let go of in order to go on. Jack in return has to fix Locke because Locke has to let go of his guilt and anger and accept help. But that's not the last ingredient for Locke - he has to have that adorable scene with Ben outside of the church, where Ben asks for forgiveness, and receives it, and in turn tells Locke that he is special, and always was, and by the way I believe that you don't need that chair. I believe that you can do it. And so he does. And Ben stays behind to help Alex and Danielle, and maybe even Richard when he comes along.
But of course reincarnation isn't an answer. There is no absolution. They are innocent of any faults they may have had on-island by virtue of forgetting; but without those memories, they don't have that all-important connection to each other. They can't move on until they remember what they were to each other. Wiping out their pasts could make them "pure" in a certain sense, but a blank slate means nothing. What is key is knowing, remembering, understanding, then accepting and moving on; not erasing the past, but putting it behind you.
Q: What about the other people in Sideways, like Eloise, Ana-Lucia, and Keamy?
A: I think that Sideways took place entirely within the island (in a metaphysical sense). I think they were there within the well, and some of the people they encountered (such as, as mentioned, Ana-Lucia, Eloise, and Keamy) were really there, and some of them (such as Jack's son) weren't real, because they had never existed. Desmond comments that Ana-Lucia "isn't ready yet," which could either mean that she will go around again - have another life, and another chance at reaching out to someone - or that she's still waiting for the people who were important to her to appear. Eloise is an interesting case; she seemed to know what was happening, but to prefer to stay within the well. I'm not sure what was going on there.
Q: Why weren't Richard and Frank in Sideways?
A: Well, obviously Frank has no issues to work out :D . Honestly, though, I think because neither was ever really emotionally connected to the rest of the survivors. Although I can imagine Ben waiting for Richard before he moves on. Actually, Richard's an interesting case. He was absolutely convinced that he was going to go to hell, but then with his wife he seems to have finally forgiven himself. I bet he's out there making a new life.
Q: Why did we end with Jack dying in the bamboo and Ajira 316 taking off?
A: I've always harbored the suspicion that Lost would end with a plane taking off, so that was not surprising. I think these two shots, apart from being really cool, are key to the central ideas we're playing with - circularity without repetition. Jack lies in the bamboo, but he's drifting off, not waking up. A plane flies over the island, but it's taking off, not crashing. The same, but different. We don't just repeat things. Smokey's wrong, it's not always the same. The finale was the pilot, but different. There's an old image from, of all things, Dinotopia that I really like here - that existence is a spiral, because time goes forward, but history repeats. The widening gyre, in some sense. We go through the same things - all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again - but they are different. We remember the old, but we don't let it rule us. We change and move on.
Q: But what would you change?
A: While the finale ended with everyone in more or less the right places, I didn't always like the way that they got there. I was expecting a much more intricate and dramatic denouement. Smokey's death scene felt underwhelming, and this may be my underlying Ben bias showing through, but I thought Ben ought to have killed him, for a nice symmetry with Jacob. I also felt Ben should have been pulling more of a con; that always makes for a good one. We never found out what was going on with the temple, and we never found out what happened to Charles Widmore. I wanted to see a greater depth of emotion between Ben and Richard; Richard has been a primary father figure in Ben's life, and they've known each other for a long time. I would have liked to see that come through much more strongly.
There are some things we did see that I thought were ridiculous. The heart of the island set, for example, was just silly. The island is not dependent on a giant Freudian rock in a hole. It is not a literal cork, you guys. I would have been much happier if they had even just copy-pasted the wheel - have Desmond turn it, and Jack turn it again.
I know that many people liked the finale because they felt it hearkened back to the essential idea of Lost as a character-driven drama. That's all well and good, but on an immediate level, as a piece of entertainment, it did disappoint. While I love what it said, once I puzzled it out, I don't like the way it said it. Simply measured against the other season finales, it lacked in plot and somewhat in dialogue (though never in acting. Thirty seconds with Michael Emerson when Hurley asks him to be his lieutenant are worth some actors' entire careers. He says three words, but an entire conversation - an entire life - is passing across his face.)
Q: Emmys for Darlton?
A: THROW EMMYS AT THEM. HARD. You get Emmys, so damn many, but I want to slap you around a little bit nonetheless.
Q: Anything in particular bother you?
A: Glad you asked! *Ahem* YOU CANNOT LAND A 777-ER ON A SHORT, SANDY RUNWAY IN THE JUNGLE, MUCH LESS TAKE IT OFF AGAIN. Do you understand that a 777 weighs AT LEAST 150 TONS?? They cannot land at some airports because their weight will literally crack the tarmac. If that plane had ever touched that beach, it would have sunk in up to the fuselage. Not to mention the fact that a jet turbofan can be essentially imagined as a giant, extremely high-precision vacuum cleaner. Which you just stuck next to a pile of sand. Gratz. Let's not get into the fact that getting one ready for takeoff in about ten minutes with a sole pilot is also pretty out there, because I kind of believe that maybe Frank has a gift too, like Miles and Hurley and Walt, except that his gift is he can fly anything ever built. Because really, the idea of a commercial airline pilot who is also randomly licensed to fly helicopters? Darlton, they are two completely different things.
There are other things that bother me, but I really just had to get that one off my chest.
Q: What answers do you still want?
A: Now that we know the timeline didn't really fracture, was the Incident really what Miles had suggested - not the release of the energy pocket, but the combination of the energy and the bomb? What was the nature of the Swan Station containment system, and why did it require the numbers as a code? Was the fact that the last six candidates corresponded to the numbers the cause of their power, or another symptom of it? Why was the radio tower on the island broadcasting the numbers, and who recorded it? When did the Egyptians visit the island? I suspect it was before the Romans. Did they stay for a long time? They erected some seriously big structures, such as the temple (which seems to have been remodeled later on) and the Tawaret statue. Why did they build a statue of Tawaret, and why did they build the underground portions of the temple and the altar to Smokey? Did they actually worship the place, or did they just understand its significance? Did they die out, or leave voluntarily? Was one of them the first guardian? Who was the first guardian, and why was the system put in place? WHAT HAPPENED TO RADZINSKY? Were the members of the DI who remained behind at the time of the Incident afflicted with timeline weirdness - is that why Locke had a dream of Horace? There are so many more, but I'm going to cut myself off here.
Q: So what was Lost, really?
A: It was the story of the end of Jacob's reign and the beginning of Hurley's. It was the story of people asking questions (even when they didn't) and trying desperately, on so many levels, to figure things out. It was, in many key ways, the story of the redemption of Benjamin Linus, and what that means. It was the story of people who crashed as strangers, and became closer than friends. It was one episode in a saga the scope of which we will never truly understand. Because that's what existence is like - it is so huge, and we are only here for a little while, and there is so much mystery and so much out there that we will never even know we never know.
Q: And what happened in the end?
A: Well now, that's a tricky question. Here's what I believe happened after Ajira 316 landed in Guam (a week late, and can you imagine that ATC call? "Ajira 316 Heavy, requesting clearance!" Can you imagine how they explained that one?)
After Charles Widmore's death, the executors of his will discover that he has left everything to his sole daughter, Penelope Hume. Penny hires Richard Alpert, the relatively unknown head of Mittelos Bioscience, to manage the company, over the objections of the board - they have doubts about his lack of experience. A few years later he's running the empire, and Penny returns to the wandering life with her family. Miles is Richard's deputy, and surprises both of them by being very good at his job. On weekends, when he can be bothered, he likes to debunk phony spirit mediums.
Frank Lapidus splits the diamonds with Miles and retires to the Sierra Nevada in a small private plane. Richard offered him a job flying privately, but he's done working someone else's schedule. He flies tourists on charters when he feels like it, and drinks lemonade on his porch when he doesn't, and no one ever makes him take off a broken 777-ER from a sandy, too-short runway.
Ben and Hurley's first order of business is to bury Jack, up on the bluff with the rest of the 815 survivors he tried so hard to protect. Then they fix up one of the houses, for themselves and for Desmond, while they wait for Penny to come find him. The rest of the Others must be coaxed out of the jungle, terrified by the shaking and the fury. Hurley tells them not to be afraid, and because it's Hurley, they listen. He tells them the truth about all that happened, and tells them they can leave if they wish. Many of them do, tired of the madness they've been witness to; and back in the world they remember, and encode the tale in songs and art and story, telling the world in secret something it's not ready to know. Some don't, and to those Ben gives the job of rebuilding the temple, and the spring runs clear again.
Hurley shows Ben old movies, most of them for the first time. Ben tells Hurley stories about life back in the Dharma Initiative, and about how there was one chef who used to make the most amazing waffles. Every other week they barbeque with Rose and Bernard, who give them a sound talking-to when they need it. Sometimes they visit the others off-island, just for the sake of seeing old friends. Ben is particularly fond of visiting Richard; they joke about getting old, until after a few years they notice that Ben isn't anymore. Ben thinks far too much about this, until Richard tells him that maybe the island just wants him around for as long as possible. Richard needs a birthday now, and the first time he's asked for it he replies, "December 19th," without thinking; it's the only one he can remember. Desmond and Penny visit sometimes, when their boat is caught in a storm or a hot calm, when the compass needle swings wild and the radio breaks up; then Desmond takes the helm and steers them through the reefs, and Hurley already has a couple of beers cold when they dock at the old barracks. Charlie is growing up so fast, and his parents never tell him that the island isn't real.
Hurley is the smoke monster now, and the story of how they found that out is another one entirely. Suffice to say that it involved a very surprised Ben, and a whole lot of "Dude." Hurley mostly uses the ability to become an indestructible pillar of black smoke to give people the biggest damn hugs they've ever experienced. The ghosts on the island bother him for a while, until Ben points out that now that he's the guardian of the island, he can probably do something about them. It's not easy, coaxing them back into the well, but Hurley has time. Sometimes Ben goes exploring; he maps the island, something he's always wanted to do and never had the time for. He even tries to map the tunnels and passageways that wind beneath it, starting from the wheel and working outwards, but they always seem to be different, and he realizes that maybe some things can't quite be written down. Hurley keeps telling him to look out for a bird shouting his name.
People still find the island, of course. People will never stop looking for answers, for redemption, for healing, for the truth about themselves and others; for power, for wealth, for what they've lost. But Ben and Hurley don't play games. They know better. So they watch them, these castaways, and help when they're needed, and stay away when they're not. Ben doesn't want to make you change; he wants you to want to change. And one day Hurley feels the cold in his bones, the weight of the world, and there's a weariness in Ben's voice; and so they choose names, and write them on a wall, and wait to see which ones will come to them. And that's another story too, another tale of learning and letting go. Another story the same but different, remembering without repeating. Not forgetting, but forgiving. It's never the same. It's always progress.
It never truly ends.
Away, you wretched world of tethers.
Through the endless night and day
I have never wanted more.
Always thought that I would stand
Before the faceless name of Justice
Like some law unto myself,
Like a child of god again.
And if rain brings winds of change, let it rain on us forever;
I have no doubt from what I've seen that I have never wanted more.
With this line I mark the past, as a symbol of beginning;
I have no doubt from what I've seen
That I have never wanted more.
There's a little switch on HAL, my iPhone, that puts it into "airplane mode." It turns off all the internal transmitters so that you can still use applications and play music when you're on a plane. I think about that sometimes, about hitting that little switch and entering radio silence. About cutting off communication.
Airplane mode.
So: what just happened?
Q: What is the island?
A: I think the island is the physical beachhead of the bridge that lets the dead back into the world. Imagine that after death we reincarnate; all those souls/minds/consciousnesses/whatever have to go somewhere to emerge back into reality. I think the island is where that happens; a Well of Souls, if you will. And I think the concentration of all that being is what creates the weird energy, as a kind of byproduct - Darlton are fascinated by the idea of a physical manifestation of consciousness, that's why they love quantum theory so much - which in turn creates the bizarre spacetime jumping properties. Not all of the island is part of the physical world. The ghosts trapped on the island (the whispers) are in trouble because the island is basically an edge case - wonky things can happen if you die there.
Q: How happy are you that Frank is alive?
A: YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Q: What was CJ Cregg's deal?
A: I think the well of souls needs a human conduit on the other side. There has to be a human aspect of the link to complete the connection back. But equally, I think that person is both good and evil, because the island isn't a reservoir of pure good or pure evil - it's just a great big well of potential. CJ calls the light pure good, but Jacob says that the island holds pure evil. I think that CJ was both island guardian and smoke monster. The monster is supposed to be the judge of the island, and I think it's been there just as long as the island has - the Egyptian carvings in the temple suggest that it was around at least as far back as when the Egyptians were there, which I suspect was pre-Romans. While Jacob had certainly taught the others that Smokey was something to be feared, they were also told to submit themselves to it for judgement, implying that it has a history outside of Jacob and his brother. CJ also seems to have wiped out that whole village in a very violent fashion all on her lonesome, which probably requires more than a perfectly-delivered press briefing. She tells Jacob that the light is dangerous, and that to be exposed to it is a fate worse than death - then she welcomes death when Jacob's brother stabs her. I think Jacob and his twin messed it up. I think there weren't supposed to be two of them. Each of them took half of CJ's role - Jacob became the guardian, Smokey became the judge. And that's why Smokey couldn't leave the island; if he had, half of that being would be gone, and the balance would be destroyed. Did Jacob know that? I'm not sure.
Q: Did Jacob and Smokey screw things up?
A: Yes. In addition to splitting up the power of the island in a way that wasn't supposed to happen - and, as a consequence, tending to always see everything as sharply divided, black and white - they twisted the island's nature by playing games with people to prove points to each other. I think the island has always drawn people to it. I think it's part of its and our nature. But Jacob and his brother corrupted that by using these people as pieces in their own little games. Jacob felt that he was alone, and kept others at arm's length; even Richard didn't know his plan. And that will always come back around. That will always bite you in the ass. You shape someone like Ben Linus into a pure and perfect weapon, and someone's going to figure out how to turn that weapon on you. What about you - Jacob lost the ability to care about the people he was supposed to be protecting. He cut himself off. He was alone. And so he had to die, and we usher in a new leader - Jack, and then Hurley, the people who sometimes care too much.
The world is not a game. We are not pieces. There is no supernatural contest of good and evil being played out with the entire world as the board. There are just people, and sometimes they mess things up. There are no rules but the ones we make up.
Q: What was the Sideways world, and why were they all there?
A: The sideways world was sort of a waiting room, a kind of limbo (in my mind it's denoted by the same concept as "air traffic holding pattern/superconducting storage ring," but people look at me funny when I say that). And this is really the important part of all this, so put down your cookie and pay attention if you actually care about my theories on the matter.
This is all real, and what we do here matters. Buddhist theology states that this world is an illusion, and freeing ourselves from it is how we attain enlightenment. But Lost actively disputes this. The world is not an illusion, nor is it a test, or a preparation for some kind of complicated afterlife. This is real, we are here, and this is now. The way we perfect ourselves and move on to nirvana - which seems to be essentially where everyone went at the end - is not through ourselves, but through other people, through what we do here and the choices we make.
What's important is who we are to each other, not who we are to an arbitrary authority. Jacob said that he brought the castaways to the island because they were "alone." But throughout the entire series we've been shown that they were anything but. All the characters continually moved in and out of each others' lives. None of them were ever alone. They were all always connected. What was important was realizing that. It doesn't matter who the characters were to some higher authority, be it a demanding father or a supernatural island guardian. What mattered was who they were to each other. When we are supposed to "let go," we aren't supposed to let go of each other - we're supposed to let go of ourselves, of our past, of guilt and regrets, of our own individual hangups, and reach out to others. And they wait in sideways until they're all together, because that's what makes them whole, what makes them greater than just mortal - their connections to each other, and what they are together. Live together, die alone, in a strange and inverted way.
There is no absolution, only forgiveness. We can't wipe out the past; we can't hit the reset button and make it all go away. Jacob can't absolve Richard; Richard has to forgive himself. Losing his memory doesn't make Ben innocent, making the right choice does. The bomb doesn't reset anything. We learn to accept what happened, and change what will. We have to go forward, not back. It never repeats; everything else is just progress. It's not just reincarnation, not just living and dying and living again. The pilot repeats in the finale, but it's not exactly the same. The same story happens, but it's different.
Q: Okay, but what was Sideways?
A: Ah, got a little off-track there. Yes. Back to the idea of limbo or a kind of holding pattern, think of Sideways as representing the last steps each character needed to take in order to move on together. Of course they all had to wait until they were together, but each person in Sideways lived a life that reflected the last emotional regrets and guilts they had to let go of. Jack regrets never having a child, feels guilt over his divorce from Sarah, and still hasn't let go of his Dad (Smokey continually turning up in his form probably hasn't helped). Kate wishes she were innocent (I really think she was, in the Sideways reality). Sawyer wishes he'd done something better with his life. Daniel Faraday regrets not having worn a totally sweet hat and rocked the fuck out. Rose and Bernard regret not having a regular life together. Claire regrets not having known her American family, and still feels guilt about giving Aaron up for adoption. Locke wishes he still had Helen, but he's also kept confined to his wheelchair by his still-present guilt and turmoil over his relationship with his father. Ben feels guilt over never having been "special" (he comments to his dad that he feels like a loser) and regrets having killed his father (hence he's alive and being cared for by Ben). As they each let go of those things, they come together and get ready to move on. Locke tells Jack, "you never had a son," because that's a regret Jack has to let go of in order to go on. Jack in return has to fix Locke because Locke has to let go of his guilt and anger and accept help. But that's not the last ingredient for Locke - he has to have that adorable scene with Ben outside of the church, where Ben asks for forgiveness, and receives it, and in turn tells Locke that he is special, and always was, and by the way I believe that you don't need that chair. I believe that you can do it. And so he does. And Ben stays behind to help Alex and Danielle, and maybe even Richard when he comes along.
But of course reincarnation isn't an answer. There is no absolution. They are innocent of any faults they may have had on-island by virtue of forgetting; but without those memories, they don't have that all-important connection to each other. They can't move on until they remember what they were to each other. Wiping out their pasts could make them "pure" in a certain sense, but a blank slate means nothing. What is key is knowing, remembering, understanding, then accepting and moving on; not erasing the past, but putting it behind you.
Q: What about the other people in Sideways, like Eloise, Ana-Lucia, and Keamy?
A: I think that Sideways took place entirely within the island (in a metaphysical sense). I think they were there within the well, and some of the people they encountered (such as, as mentioned, Ana-Lucia, Eloise, and Keamy) were really there, and some of them (such as Jack's son) weren't real, because they had never existed. Desmond comments that Ana-Lucia "isn't ready yet," which could either mean that she will go around again - have another life, and another chance at reaching out to someone - or that she's still waiting for the people who were important to her to appear. Eloise is an interesting case; she seemed to know what was happening, but to prefer to stay within the well. I'm not sure what was going on there.
Q: Why weren't Richard and Frank in Sideways?
A: Well, obviously Frank has no issues to work out :D . Honestly, though, I think because neither was ever really emotionally connected to the rest of the survivors. Although I can imagine Ben waiting for Richard before he moves on. Actually, Richard's an interesting case. He was absolutely convinced that he was going to go to hell, but then with his wife he seems to have finally forgiven himself. I bet he's out there making a new life.
Q: Why did we end with Jack dying in the bamboo and Ajira 316 taking off?
A: I've always harbored the suspicion that Lost would end with a plane taking off, so that was not surprising. I think these two shots, apart from being really cool, are key to the central ideas we're playing with - circularity without repetition. Jack lies in the bamboo, but he's drifting off, not waking up. A plane flies over the island, but it's taking off, not crashing. The same, but different. We don't just repeat things. Smokey's wrong, it's not always the same. The finale was the pilot, but different. There's an old image from, of all things, Dinotopia that I really like here - that existence is a spiral, because time goes forward, but history repeats. The widening gyre, in some sense. We go through the same things - all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again - but they are different. We remember the old, but we don't let it rule us. We change and move on.
Q: But what would you change?
A: While the finale ended with everyone in more or less the right places, I didn't always like the way that they got there. I was expecting a much more intricate and dramatic denouement. Smokey's death scene felt underwhelming, and this may be my underlying Ben bias showing through, but I thought Ben ought to have killed him, for a nice symmetry with Jacob. I also felt Ben should have been pulling more of a con; that always makes for a good one. We never found out what was going on with the temple, and we never found out what happened to Charles Widmore. I wanted to see a greater depth of emotion between Ben and Richard; Richard has been a primary father figure in Ben's life, and they've known each other for a long time. I would have liked to see that come through much more strongly.
There are some things we did see that I thought were ridiculous. The heart of the island set, for example, was just silly. The island is not dependent on a giant Freudian rock in a hole. It is not a literal cork, you guys. I would have been much happier if they had even just copy-pasted the wheel - have Desmond turn it, and Jack turn it again.
I know that many people liked the finale because they felt it hearkened back to the essential idea of Lost as a character-driven drama. That's all well and good, but on an immediate level, as a piece of entertainment, it did disappoint. While I love what it said, once I puzzled it out, I don't like the way it said it. Simply measured against the other season finales, it lacked in plot and somewhat in dialogue (though never in acting. Thirty seconds with Michael Emerson when Hurley asks him to be his lieutenant are worth some actors' entire careers. He says three words, but an entire conversation - an entire life - is passing across his face.)
Q: Emmys for Darlton?
A: THROW EMMYS AT THEM. HARD. You get Emmys, so damn many, but I want to slap you around a little bit nonetheless.
Q: Anything in particular bother you?
A: Glad you asked! *Ahem* YOU CANNOT LAND A 777-ER ON A SHORT, SANDY RUNWAY IN THE JUNGLE, MUCH LESS TAKE IT OFF AGAIN. Do you understand that a 777 weighs AT LEAST 150 TONS?? They cannot land at some airports because their weight will literally crack the tarmac. If that plane had ever touched that beach, it would have sunk in up to the fuselage. Not to mention the fact that a jet turbofan can be essentially imagined as a giant, extremely high-precision vacuum cleaner. Which you just stuck next to a pile of sand. Gratz. Let's not get into the fact that getting one ready for takeoff in about ten minutes with a sole pilot is also pretty out there, because I kind of believe that maybe Frank has a gift too, like Miles and Hurley and Walt, except that his gift is he can fly anything ever built. Because really, the idea of a commercial airline pilot who is also randomly licensed to fly helicopters? Darlton, they are two completely different things.
There are other things that bother me, but I really just had to get that one off my chest.
Q: What answers do you still want?
A: Now that we know the timeline didn't really fracture, was the Incident really what Miles had suggested - not the release of the energy pocket, but the combination of the energy and the bomb? What was the nature of the Swan Station containment system, and why did it require the numbers as a code? Was the fact that the last six candidates corresponded to the numbers the cause of their power, or another symptom of it? Why was the radio tower on the island broadcasting the numbers, and who recorded it? When did the Egyptians visit the island? I suspect it was before the Romans. Did they stay for a long time? They erected some seriously big structures, such as the temple (which seems to have been remodeled later on) and the Tawaret statue. Why did they build a statue of Tawaret, and why did they build the underground portions of the temple and the altar to Smokey? Did they actually worship the place, or did they just understand its significance? Did they die out, or leave voluntarily? Was one of them the first guardian? Who was the first guardian, and why was the system put in place? WHAT HAPPENED TO RADZINSKY? Were the members of the DI who remained behind at the time of the Incident afflicted with timeline weirdness - is that why Locke had a dream of Horace? There are so many more, but I'm going to cut myself off here.
Q: So what was Lost, really?
A: It was the story of the end of Jacob's reign and the beginning of Hurley's. It was the story of people asking questions (even when they didn't) and trying desperately, on so many levels, to figure things out. It was, in many key ways, the story of the redemption of Benjamin Linus, and what that means. It was the story of people who crashed as strangers, and became closer than friends. It was one episode in a saga the scope of which we will never truly understand. Because that's what existence is like - it is so huge, and we are only here for a little while, and there is so much mystery and so much out there that we will never even know we never know.
Q: And what happened in the end?
A: Well now, that's a tricky question. Here's what I believe happened after Ajira 316 landed in Guam (a week late, and can you imagine that ATC call? "Ajira 316 Heavy, requesting clearance!" Can you imagine how they explained that one?)
After Charles Widmore's death, the executors of his will discover that he has left everything to his sole daughter, Penelope Hume. Penny hires Richard Alpert, the relatively unknown head of Mittelos Bioscience, to manage the company, over the objections of the board - they have doubts about his lack of experience. A few years later he's running the empire, and Penny returns to the wandering life with her family. Miles is Richard's deputy, and surprises both of them by being very good at his job. On weekends, when he can be bothered, he likes to debunk phony spirit mediums.
Frank Lapidus splits the diamonds with Miles and retires to the Sierra Nevada in a small private plane. Richard offered him a job flying privately, but he's done working someone else's schedule. He flies tourists on charters when he feels like it, and drinks lemonade on his porch when he doesn't, and no one ever makes him take off a broken 777-ER from a sandy, too-short runway.
Ben and Hurley's first order of business is to bury Jack, up on the bluff with the rest of the 815 survivors he tried so hard to protect. Then they fix up one of the houses, for themselves and for Desmond, while they wait for Penny to come find him. The rest of the Others must be coaxed out of the jungle, terrified by the shaking and the fury. Hurley tells them not to be afraid, and because it's Hurley, they listen. He tells them the truth about all that happened, and tells them they can leave if they wish. Many of them do, tired of the madness they've been witness to; and back in the world they remember, and encode the tale in songs and art and story, telling the world in secret something it's not ready to know. Some don't, and to those Ben gives the job of rebuilding the temple, and the spring runs clear again.
Hurley shows Ben old movies, most of them for the first time. Ben tells Hurley stories about life back in the Dharma Initiative, and about how there was one chef who used to make the most amazing waffles. Every other week they barbeque with Rose and Bernard, who give them a sound talking-to when they need it. Sometimes they visit the others off-island, just for the sake of seeing old friends. Ben is particularly fond of visiting Richard; they joke about getting old, until after a few years they notice that Ben isn't anymore. Ben thinks far too much about this, until Richard tells him that maybe the island just wants him around for as long as possible. Richard needs a birthday now, and the first time he's asked for it he replies, "December 19th," without thinking; it's the only one he can remember. Desmond and Penny visit sometimes, when their boat is caught in a storm or a hot calm, when the compass needle swings wild and the radio breaks up; then Desmond takes the helm and steers them through the reefs, and Hurley already has a couple of beers cold when they dock at the old barracks. Charlie is growing up so fast, and his parents never tell him that the island isn't real.
Hurley is the smoke monster now, and the story of how they found that out is another one entirely. Suffice to say that it involved a very surprised Ben, and a whole lot of "Dude." Hurley mostly uses the ability to become an indestructible pillar of black smoke to give people the biggest damn hugs they've ever experienced. The ghosts on the island bother him for a while, until Ben points out that now that he's the guardian of the island, he can probably do something about them. It's not easy, coaxing them back into the well, but Hurley has time. Sometimes Ben goes exploring; he maps the island, something he's always wanted to do and never had the time for. He even tries to map the tunnels and passageways that wind beneath it, starting from the wheel and working outwards, but they always seem to be different, and he realizes that maybe some things can't quite be written down. Hurley keeps telling him to look out for a bird shouting his name.
People still find the island, of course. People will never stop looking for answers, for redemption, for healing, for the truth about themselves and others; for power, for wealth, for what they've lost. But Ben and Hurley don't play games. They know better. So they watch them, these castaways, and help when they're needed, and stay away when they're not. Ben doesn't want to make you change; he wants you to want to change. And one day Hurley feels the cold in his bones, the weight of the world, and there's a weariness in Ben's voice; and so they choose names, and write them on a wall, and wait to see which ones will come to them. And that's another story too, another tale of learning and letting go. Another story the same but different, remembering without repeating. Not forgetting, but forgiving. It's never the same. It's always progress.
It never truly ends.