*Spoilers*

We’re finally into the last season of Lost, and a lot of fans are nervous about how credible the show will be at the very end. Will it answer all of those questions we’ve been wondering about? Some of the questions we were worried might never be answered already have been, especially concerning things like the Dharma Initiative. But what about the smoke monster, the “ghosts,” Richard’s ageless-ness, and most importantly, if they’ll go back on the idea that it isn’t possible to change the future in the past.

Somehow, the writers have found a way to have their cake and eat it to by having the atomic bomb from last season change the future AND not change the future. There are several scenes inersperced with the island scenes showing an alternate version of flight 815, and it seems to be a timeline in which the island doesn’t exist, or least, is underwater, as suggested by a CGI sequence showing the foot of the statue underwater. These scenes were really great because they were alternate versions of scenes we saw in the pilot and in several flashbacks throughout the series. Now we actually see Bernard on the plane, because he has a chance to come back from the bathroom since the plane doesn’t crash. Charley doesn’t flush his cocaine because people aren’t knocking on the door while the plane’s about to go down. And Hurley isn’t causing bad luck with his lottery winnings because the numbers aren’t associated with the island anymore.

This is all fascinating, but it raises a couple of obvious, new questions. 1. If the island isn’t bringing all these people together, something else is, because even after the plane lands in Los Angeles, a lot of people meet each other who seemed fated to the first time around. Locke and Jack, Kate and Sawyer, etc. What’s bringing them together this time if the bomb burried the island in the ocean? 2. Would Jacob have manipulated the lives of the members of 815 if there was no island? I still don’t fully know what his agenda is, but after the flashbacks last season of him meeting a lot of our main characters in ways that seemed to at least help them eventually get to the island, I assumed he wanted this to happen. But the same has to be true of this timeline– Jacob has to be doing things to eventually get everyone on that plane. The biggest proof of this is Locke– without Jacob, he would have died after being thrown out of that building by his father.

It looks like the smoke monster is finally going to be explained, and it also seems like it’s the most important thing on the island. Looks like it and Jacob have been at an enormous power struggle. I’ve had a lot of different ideas about the smoke monster. At one point during season four, I thought maybe it was something machanical, controlled by whoever was in charge of the Others. At the end of that season, Ben goes into a back room, and then the smoke monster appears, so I though maybe he was controlling it. Obviously, I was wrong about that. I later thought maybe all the “ghosts” we meet (Christian, Charlie, Anna Lucia, etc) were really the smoke monster. Maybe it could appear as dead people, kind of like the First in season seven of Buffy. Or maybe it was made up of everyone who died on the island, which would explain why they all had the same personalities, more or less, and why they had those memories. I now think that theory is closer, but it’s still not spot-on because we see some “ghosts” off-island, especially Christian, and we’re told in this episode that the smoke monster wants to leave.

I think it’s a combination of two things, now. There have been a few points in the series (and I need to go back and re-watch some things to find out exactly where), in which the smoke monster appears after a “ghost” does. I think sometimes the ghosts really are ghosts– don’t know what the explanation will be for that– but sometimes they’re the smoke monster. Somehow the smoke monster has the memories of whoever it appears as– maybe it can assimilate information out of someone’s brain after they die, considering it appears as Locke, yards away from Locke’s actual body, and seems to know everything Locke knows. I love the idea of the smoke monster appearing as John Locke by the way, but I don’t think this is the first time it’s taken human form.

Obviously, the two timelines are both happening simultaneously. Both seem to be valid. The bomb created the new one, but somehow left the old one intact. I don’t think they’ll stay that way, though. I think eventually they’ll converge somehow– either the new versions of our characters will wind up meeting the old ones, or more likely, some will trade places somehow. Jack 2 might switch places with Jack 1, etc. Sounds absurd, but then again, most of season 5 had Jack and company working in the Dharma Initiative. If this isn’t the direction they’re going, I don’t know what the point is of this new timeline. I also wonder if this isn’t the first time another timeline has been created. Daniel told us over and over again that the future can’t be changed in the past, but somehow this explosion created what looks like an alternate timeline. What’s to say that other times characters tried to change things didn’t also create new timelines?

The other reason I think these timelines have to converge somehow is because this new format is taking the place of flashbacks and flash-forwards. The flashbacks were always directly related to what was happening in the present, and the present eventually caught up to the flash-forwards. If we can consider this a pattern, then the two timelines have to directly connect somehow.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

For a moment, it really was nice to finally see “something nice back home,” but of course, we knew it wasn’t going to last. That’s the drawback to the flash-forward format. From previous forwards, we already knew that Jack and Kate don’t stay together even if there relationship looks promising for a moment. They have more chemistry here than I’ve ever seen between them– Jack and Kate both usually rub me the wrong way, Jack with his often-obnoxious hero complex and Kate who has to do the depressing, tragic and usually illegal thing, no matter what the situation. Finally, seeing them together raising Aaron, they were almost making sense. Of course, once Jack heard Hurley’s warning that someone was coming to visit him, he can’t just ignore his dead father’s ghost and try to live his life.  He has to immediately start drinking himself silly and almost become his father. *eye roll* I appreciate seeing the events leading up to his depression and growing the beard, and now I completely buy why all of that happens, but I hated suddenly liking characters I’ve been annoyed with for several seasons now, knowing that’ll all get yanked away again in twenty minutes.

Looks like Claire might finally get the big news about Jack being her step-brother. I never doubted the writers would get back to this eventually and I expected it soon, considering that if Aaron is about to get off the island, there’s a good chance she either doesn’t survive or gets left behind. But I admit, I didn’t call that she would be haunted by Jack’s father. I’m assuming there’s an important correlation to the present and future here that hasn’t been revealed yet.

I’ve speculated for a long time that Jacob has something to do with all of the “hallucinations” people have had in the show (Jack’s father, Kate’s horse, etc.). I’ve even mentioned the bizarre idea that Jacob himself is all of them. I think I’m probably wrong about the latter– the fact that Miles sees Jack’s father means he must be a ghost, since Miles has the ability to detect them. If that’s the case, he’s a far more important character than I ever expected he’d be. I still wonder if Jacob is involved with the ghosts somehow, or if he is just another ghost himself. The various ghosts we’ve seen so far could only be viewed by certain people, and Locke couldn’t see him in the cabin last season, so that’s a good clue. And this week’s coming episode focuses on Locke finding Jacob’s cabin again– hopefully this ghost idea is explored further. The one “hallucination” that isn’t a ghost, though, is Walt, as far as we know. Michael’s flashback a couple episodes ago seems to confirm that he is alive, or at least that he was the last time Locke “saw” him at the end of last season. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Why does Jack’s father’s ghost find him both in the present in the future? This episode confirms that Charlie really was a ghost and not a figment of Hurley’s imagination. So they can leave the island. I wonder why they do this. Or, is there something to what Hurley said. He claims that they never left the island, which I’ve suspected but kind of hoped wasn’t the case. If it is, it would make everything far more complicated and a little hokey– are the characters from the expedition not real? Have they been there the whole time? The creators have promised us it’s not all just in someone’s head or some lame cop-out like that, but even if the idea were clever, I’d feel a little cheated if Hurley was right.

I didn’t love the explanation that Jack just changed his mind about going to live with Kate and help raise Aaron. He seemed almost terrified of the idea when Kate suggested it during her flash-forward. I would have liked to have seen the conversation or had a little explanation of it, other than, “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

After I wrote last week’s review, I had another thought about the man in the casket from Jack’s first flash-forward last season. Could it maybe be Sayid? Maybe Jack and Kate learn he’s a traitor to them and working for Ben, and then something happens and he dies. He would be a good candidate for a character no one would attend a funeral for and that Kate might refuse to go see but Jack would. Any thoughts on this one?

The writers are doing a good job of positioning the characters where they need to be to get off the island soon, so I’m sure it will happen by the end of the season, if not in a couple of episodes. Any ideas on why Jack was able to get sick on the island while others have been cured? Will this be a trend in those that get off? Sun has to leave or she’ll die because she’s pregnant, and now Jack has proven that he can get sick on the island. Will Hurley get sick and that’s why he leaves? Or will different people have different reasons for leaving? I’d love to hear your own speculations– things are getting really interesting!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan