LOST Consciousness

Sept. 2004

Oceanic 815 crashes on the island, as a result of Desmond failing to enter the numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) push the button within 108 minutes,  which releases small amounts of the island’s special store electromagnetic energy, preventing it from accumulating strength and becoming destructive. The Oceanic 815 flight crashes approximately 27 years after the Dharma Initiative builds the SWAN station.

Two months later

Locke lets the Swan station, which is where the electromagnetic energy is kept at bay, fail by destroying the computer through which the numbers are entered. Locke believes it is a pointless exercise and wants to set everyone free from being manipulated. (There is an interesting parallel here between Locke and the Man in Black who eventually inhabits him and emphasizes free will.) Desmond realizes that the button really does make a difference, having discovered the relationship between not entering the numbers and the Oceanic 815 crash.a

Desmond turns a key in a failsafe mechanism that releases all of the energy at once. He re-experiences his life, encounters Faraday’s mother, Eloise Hawking, who introduces the idea of “cosmic course correction” and proposes that it is his fate to push the button. Her influence on him sets in motion his once again ending up on the island.

Three months later

Freighter deployed by Charles Whidmore shows up, deposits Naomi, Miles, Charlotte, Lapidus, and Faraday on the island.

Desmond experiences consciousness time-shifting and establishes a link to Faraday (for whom he functions as a Constant) and Penny (his Constant).

Ben turns “the wheel,” setting in motion time-shifting of our favorite characters and of the island itself (how else to explain its sudden disappearance from the point of view of the Oceanic Six in Lapidus’s helicopter).

The Oceanic Six (after a helicopter crash and being saved by Penelope Whidmore) and Desmond and Ben return to the world

2007

3 years later, Oceanic 5 (Aaron, Claire’s child, is left with Claire’s Mom) plus the body of Locke get on Ajira flight

Ben, Sun, Lapidus, and Locke’s body return to island in “current” time, 2007. They are joined by Ilana and others who appear to be sworn to protect Jacob. Refer to themselves as the good guys. Unclear what their intentions are. But they’re too late.

Whatever force has inhabited Locke is able to persuade Ben to kill Jacob with a dagger. Jacob dies a physical death, though he seems to disappear after Man-in-Black Locke/Nemesis Locke (Nemesis) kicks him into the fire in the center of his little home under the Taweret statue.

–>1977

Jack/Kate/Sayid/Hurley travel back in time after three years off the island, joining Sawyer/Juliet/Miles/Jin/Faraday in Dharmaville (they’ve lived there for three years and assimilated with the Dharma initiative) for a couple of chaotic days.

Faraday returns to the island and persuades Jack that they can change the future… by blowing up a hydrogen bomb. After shooting Faraday, his mother is convinced that she needs to help Jack carry out this mission, and she leads him and Sayid to the bomb. Richard knocks her on the head and removes her from this perilous mission, but not before Jack has the bomb.

Jack drops the bomb into the Swan station and Juliet hits it repeatedly with all of her strength. Does she set it off? We still don’t know. What we do know is that the drilling that was already happening at the construction site for the SWAN station had already begun releasing electromagnetic energy, the same energy responsible for the time-shifting. And, sure enough, Season 6 begins by correlating Juliet’s last moments with the bomb to two different future timelines.

2004 (LA X)

Just about all of the Losties are back on Oceanic 815 and they land in LA. The island is underwater.

2007 (one hour after Jacob is murdered by Ben and Nemesis)

Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Jin/Hurley/Sayid/Miles/Juliet have flashed to the island. They are captured by a different group of Others while trying to save Sayid. This is the same timeline that Sun and Lapidus and Alpert and Ben are in. We’re going to see what happens on the island after the murder of Jacob. Our Losties, I’m speculating have heroic roles to play in restoring the balance between Jacob and Nemesis.

Here is a graphical representation of this overall timeline snapshot.

LOST TIMELINES

A More Detailed Breakdown of Events After Ben Turns the Wheel in 2004

First, regarding John Locke

Locke skips into timeframe with Nigerian plane passing right over his head (the one with Eko’s brother in it). He recognizes it, finds it, and is shot in his leg by an adult Ethan Rom circa 2001.

NOTA BENE

It is, I think, worth noting that in season 1, Locke’s leg mysteriously begins hurting him just as he approaches this same aircraft crash site! Technically, Season 1’s events take place in the future relative to the time when Locke’s leg was shot while he was skipping through time in Season 5. If there is a relationship between his sudden leg pain and being shot by Ethan near the plane, this would seem to suggest that the time-skipping was going to happen no matter what. Does this lend some credibility to the idea that the Losties are trapped in a time loop? Does “course correction” reproduce the loop or unravel it?

Locke escapes Ethan shooting him when he transports to 2007, where his “consciousness twin/body-inhabited-by-Nemesis*” (*the guy on the beach with Jacob at the end of Season 5) orders Richard Alpert to take out the bullet AND give him a compass AND tell Locke to leave the island and get Oceanic 6 to return. Locke asks, “How?” Alpert relays the Nemesis’s message: Locke will have to die (which is going to happen by his own hand before it occurs “accidentally”, through … the choice?… of Ben ). What is going on here? Is the Nemesis consciousness that is working through Locke imprisoned in time, trying to escape from the realm of mortals? In the Season 6 premiere, he says he wants to go “home.”

Then Locke joins Sawyer’s group (Juliet/Miles/Faraday/Charlotte), travels to fifties, establishes contact with Alpert, gives him the compass that Alpert circa 2007 just gave him. This is what sets in motion his “specialness,” though when Alpert visits young Locke in the 1950s, he doesn’t make a positive impression when, instead of selecting the compass, he reaches for the knife. How many Lockes are there in the world? Locke does refer to a brother who we have never seen in any flashback. Hmmm.

Finally, Locke jumps down a well and turns the wheel Ben turned in 2004. At least it seems to be the same wheel. He gets there in a different way. After turning it, Locke ends up in 2007. Meets Widmore first. Widmore tells him that it is critical that Locke be on the island for the “war” that’s to come, or else the good guys won’t win. Locke fails to convince Oceanic 6 to return, is killed by Ben, and… definitely returns to the island, just not alive. See Above.

Sawyer/Juliet/Miles/Jin/Faraday/Charlotte are traveling through time. They come upon Richard Alpert and a young Widmore. Locke gives Alpert his compass (the one Alpert just gave him in 2007), and Faraday meets his mother as a young woman, implores her to bury hydrogen bomb. They skip through time, Charlotte gets desperately sick, eventually disappears/dies. They see the four-toed statue intact (after Locke goes down the well, before the final resetting time shift).

Regarding Sawyer/Juliet/Miles/Jin/Faraday/Charlotte and the rest of the Losties

Soon after Ben turns the wheel, most of the Losties seem to be killed. We know that Bernard and Rose lead a pleasant life in retirement.

After Locke turns wheel, Sawyer/Juliet/Miles/Jin/Faraday/Charlotte end up in 1974 and join the Dharma Initiative. Presumably, other versions of them exist off-island. They are joined in 1977 by Jack/Kate/Sayid/Hurley. Again, it seems appropriate to assume that there are alternates for these people alive in the off-island world, too.

Sayid nearly kills young Ben. Ben is saved but will lose his memory of the incident that harmed him and will lose his … “innocence.”

Jack/Kate/Sayid/Hurley/Jin/Miles/Sawyer/Juliet presumably die on the island in an atomic blast at the site of the Swan station concurrent with the Dharma drilling that releases the island’s EM energy. (This is what the writers have led us to believe, but they haven’t actually shown us an explosion. We don’t know for certain what has happened. It may have been a time-shift or something unique like what Desmond experienced when he used the failsafe.) Jack and Sayid are inspired to detonate the bomb by Faraday’s impressive and provocative presentation of a theory according to which the LOSTIES can take actions that ensure that their alternate selves (the ones alive off-island in the seventies) will lead lives uninterfered with by the Island. Would this amount to course correction or course change?

POST SEASON SIX PREMIERE

Season 6 Premiere Episode LA X

The show begins by twice showing the final moments of Juliet’s attempt to set off the bomb in 1977. After the first, we experience the LA X timeline, the one in which the island is on the floor of the ocean and has been there for a long time, but clearly after the Dharma Initiative).

LA X TIMELINE (ISLAND DESTROYED)

This is the first timeline we’re introduced to in Season 6. This is a genuine alternative timeline. All or most of our characters appear to be back on flight 815 in 2004 heading to and landing in LA. Hurley considers himself the luckiest man alive (but then, what was he doing in Australia? originally he went there to explore how the numbers may have cursed him). Sawyer, Jin, and Sun don’t seem to have changed much. Jack seems to be the only one of them who is at least semi-aware of the fact that this scenario is a relief, a sign that something has been accomplished. There are subtle differences. He receives only one bottle of vodka from the stewardess and fails to add it to his drink. His conversation with Rose is altered, but similar. He bumps into Kate (she steals a pen from him which she tries to use to get out of her restraints). He saves Charlie’s life (with Sayid’s help). Charlie says, “You shouldn’t have done that. I’m supposed to be dead.” He has a touching conversation with Locke in the LOST AND FOUND section of the airport. “They lost my father.” “No, they just lost the coffin holding his body.” Hmmmm. Jack tells Locke that “nothing is irreversible” and invites him to get in touch for a free consult about his spinal injury.

It’s also worth pointing out that Claire is part of this timeline and may or may not be pregnant.

OCEANIC 815 CRASH TIMELINE (ISLAND EXISTS)

At face value, there appear to be two alternate timelines spawned by Jack depositing the bomb and Juliet hitting it repeatedly. There is a timeline in which the island ceases to be inhabited by people post Dharma Initiative but at least a full decade before Oceanic 815 flies by, unaffected by it. And there is the timeline that the show has occupied for all of its seasons, the one in which they have crashed and are struggling to escape and often striving to be heroes. OR… is all of this a therapy session? LOL!

What could be more poignant than an entire season in which we root for our characters to escape the Oceanic 815 crash timeline while seeing simultaneously that what they have escaped to is far from idyllic?

In the timeline “LA X” (X here separated by a space, a clever way of indicating that we’re not just at an airport but in an alternative ‘verse), Jack and most of the other main characters from flight 815 are back on the plane heading to and landing in LA. Okay. There is no mistaking the idea that Jack knows he is different. He may not know that he has been through an ordeal that has aged him, but he clearly doesn’t recognize certain changes in his appearance, it’s evident in his response to seeing himself in the mirror. He is bleeding on his neck. WOW, does that ever open up possibilities. Is that an injection site? The final injury sustained getting himself into this timeline? Hard to believe it is an injury sustained during turbulence.

THOUGHTS & QUESTIONS

In his first series dialogue scene with Kate, Jack talks about how he dealt with fear during a difficult surgery. The version of the story he tells is quite different than the truth, revealed in the very last episode of season 5, in which we see his father intervene and prompt him to count to 5 and regain control of his fear. Is this more than a character revealing moment? Does it relate to why it is so important to some that Jack never leave the island?

The size of the explosion on the island is TBD. Extent of destruction and death is important clue as to whether we’re in a new timeline post-explosion. The last time the screen went white like it did at the end of Season 5 was the end of Season 2, when Desmond initiated the fail safe. Are all of the LOSTies exposed to that blast dead… or was there even a blast? Maybe the LOSTies have time-shifted?!? In which case Juliet banging on the head of an atomic bomb was a big head-fake, which would be lame, but would at least lead us to a more credible storyline.

Actually seems safe to assume that the explosion didn’t destroy the island. Faraday’s mother, knocked out by Alpert after leading Jack and Sayid to the bomb, clearly goes on to give birth to him and to lead him in the direction of doing everything he has always done. As Faraday says to his Mom before he dies, “You knew all along.” <chills>

Faraday’s interaction with Desmond and Jack seems to be pivotal to the story that will unfold in Season 6. Interestingly, Desmond is convinced that there is no such thing as destiny, and (up until the final act of Season 5) Jack is increasingly convinced that he has a role to play, a kind of predetermined role, one of which he isn’t fully aware.

The off-island versions of the Losties may now never come to the island. It’s hard to believe that if they do, it would be under identical circumstances. But if they arrive there, will we ultimately see Desmond’s prediction come true so that Charlie’s sacrifice is not wasted?

There seems to be a big problem with the causality loop involved in the Nemesis’s possession of Locke and influence on past events that produce his emergence. If the show writers find a way to explain this without relying too heavily on magical revelations, I will be impressed.

Is the timeline in which Sun, Locke, and Ben exist the same as the one in which Jack’s crew blows up tries to blow up the Swan construction site? Sun has seen a picture of the Losties and Richard Alpert has confirmed that they’re dead. But we haven’t seen them die, yet. Richard wasn’t lying. In that case, are we going to see them die in this final season, but die in a manner that makes it possible for them to lead their lives in the LA X timeline? I think that’s likely. We are seeing a future in 2007 in which Oceanic has actually crashed, but one in which events will transpire that prevent this particular timeline from continuing, making LA X possible. Then again, the crash of Oceanic is not the only way that we’ve seen the Oceanic Six end up on the island, it’s merely one path we’ve seen that eventually leads to them being on the Ajira flight. There’s some untwisting that needs to be done here lest cosmic course correct steers our characters back to this island once more. I do NOT want the show to end with Jack waking up in the forest on the island… again….. UNLESS it’s clear that this time he’ll be able to make the progress needed in order to end the loop once and for all.

How would Oceanic have crashed or did it ever have to? Was that simply one of many ways in which the people touched by Jacob were going to end up on the island? Notions of inevitability clash with Jacob’s free will mantra and with my preference for how things play out. I hope these wonderful characters are not all depicted, in the final analysis, as puppets on strings.

Ilana, the only non-Oceanic 6 character approached by Jacob, made sure that Sayid was on the Ajira flight. Clearly, that was Jacob’s primary concern. I think that’s going to be the key to Jacob’s return to the physical realm.

Does Jacob see the future or has he already experienced it because he is aware of being trapped in a time loop and every time through it gives him the extra knowledge he needs to “progress” toward “the end” he wants (and which Nemesis doesn’t want)?