After watching the first two hours of the final season of Lost one thing is clear: the writers are not pulling any punches. They easily could have just wound down all the action and spoon fed all the answers to the audience. That is obviously not what is going to happen. In fact, I think they’re bringing more ambition to the final season than they have to any of the previous five. Sure, there were some big answers doled out in “LA X,” but there were also some intriguing new questions introduced.
I don’t think multiple timelines was ever a consideration on my part when I was thinking about the repercussions of detonating “Jughead.” I know that there are a bunch of people confused about the turn of events, but I’m totally on board. I think it is incredibly ambitious, and leaves the show with a whole lot to do in a relatively small number of episodes. At the same time, I think it’s the best of both worlds. As viewers, we don’t have to start everything over from scratch, but we do get to see what life would be like for all of our characters if flight 815 didn’t crash.
It’s still a little early for a lot of speculation, but that won’t stop me from doing a little theorizing. I’m guessing that somewhere down the line the two timelines that we are seeing will somehow come together. We’ve already seen some crossing over between them. Juliet was able to get a message to Sawyer, letting him know that “it worked.” I got the feeling that alternate-timeline-Jack was beginning to feel the other reality in his life. There seemed to be a moment on flight 815 where he felt deja vu or some uneasy feeling. Also, Christian’s body has gone missing, and I can’t believe that this was simply a matter of poor luggage management. The island had something to do with it — even if it is laying on the bottom of the ocean. My guess is that there is going to be more and more overlap between the timelines heading into the climax of the series. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.
The other big new mystery, in my mind, is that new set (or subset) of Others that are living in the temple. They certainly appear to know a lot about the battle between smokey and Jacob. I’m very curious to see how big of a role they are going to play in the final season and what sort of relationship they have with Ben and Richard. There is a lot more to the story of the Others than we know, and I’m looking forward to learning about it.
Now, I’m not expecting to get answers to any of these questions tomorrow. This is still Lost, and I don’t expect the pace of the show to completely change this year. There is one thing that I hope becomes a little more clear in the second episode: is Jacob inside Sayid’s body?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Feb 08, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
I agree. It goes to the idea of “destiny” – if it’s their destiny to end up on the island, it won’t matter that flight 815 didn’t crash on it; they will get there somehow. All that detonating the bomb might have done (and I think that Jacob’s death can’t be ignored as the real reason for the alteration) is change the sequence of events.
Bob you are aware that there’s a Juliet in the new timeline, right?
I mean “V” took a break to re-tool in Octiber (?) and is on hiatus right now.
I think it’s quite possible that you’ll see Juliet fall down a couple of more shafts on “Lost”.
Oh and I think the “Is Jacob now Sayid” was the most obvious thing ever on the show, I mean I don’t want to come across as a total dick but it was so obvious he wouldn’t get revived by the water because it was not clear, it was obvious he would be alive at the end of the show and it was so extremely obvious that Jacob would possess him. Or be him.
The REAL question that sprung to my mind right then and there was if the Smoke Monster was Christian in earlier Seasons until it got hold of a different body (Locke) later on, or if that’s a THIRD person, maybe a neutral party in the battle between Jacob and the Smoke Monster. I know, totally dickish but when Sayid woke up I immediately thought about Christian helping Locke to turn the wheel. I mean if Christian’s body is missing in the new timeline what does that mean? Locke’s body didn’t vanish when Smokey took his form – and Sayid’s body didn’t remain either, so did Jacob really possess him?
There’s just no apparent logic here, nothing is similar, so these are all wild guesses :-)
I hesitate to call anything “obvious” in regards to Lost. I don’t think it’s a sure thing that Jacob is in Sayid, but I do think it makes the most sense.
I didn’t mean it in the “that’s the way it is” sense but rather in the “Cuse and Lindelof took us by the hand and pushed our faces right into it” kind of way.
I know that it’s the best way to describe it this way – “I didn’t think of it, but reader (…) said that Jacob is now Sayid” (read it somewhere else on the net that way) or that you say you didn’t think of it yourself that early (your brother uttered the thought pretty early I have to admit, I wasn’t thinking that Jacob wanted Sayids body but rather that he wanted to save Sayid). You know. That kind of obvious. But “seemingly” would sound idiotic too I have to admit.
I guess that’s the nature of Lost. Once you say something out loud, you get criticized/attacked for it, and this way you get around that. What I don’t like about that as a result the discussions following always end up with people saying that they might be wrong because nothing is certain on Lost. For instance last week Ivey pointed out that there was a circle of ash around the cabin which the Smoke Monster couldn’t cross – and I think he’s absolutely right about that. But he wasn’t that sure himself.
On other discussion threads I even read people assuming that Smokey was in the Cabin instead of Jacob and that the ash kept him IN.
When you go back to freezeframes of that show, people even assumed it was Christian’s face that showed up when Locke entered the cabin.
Which would all make sense if not for the fact that Smokey was free right at the beginning of the show when it killed the pilot.
To me, that all makes it quite frustrating. There’s a reason for Lostpedia I guess but that doesn’t help things Either.
There’s just no real middle ground between the easter egg hunters and those people who don’t really watch the show or think about it that much who still comment on it.
All this really makes me not that interested in discussing Lost anymore. I always come across as being a total ass. I mean I’ve been right 90% of the time when I predicted something just by thinking about what would be logical (like Jin survinving – and people kept beating me up the head with Sun standing in front of his gravestone) and it is not at the least gratifying.
I can’t even criticize Lost when it is totally bogus, even then people tend to scold me that I have no idea what I’m talking about. You always come across as a total dick and if you try not to, you aren’t really discussing but guessing all the time, pretending as if you don’t really have a clear vision of what’s lying ahead or what is fact. *sigh*
Let’s just assume for a moment that it’s a given that Jacob is in Sayid. My questions regarding this are….can Jacob only inhabit Sayid since Jacob is dead? Or is this something Jacob could do before and could Jacob have been using Christian’s body? I can’t recall anytime that Christian really affected events, more so he just kinda showed up when they were happening. If I’m missing something particularly mean that Christian convinced someone to do, than this may invalidate my idea.
It can be exhausting keeping it all straight. Like I said in last weeks post, it’s not hard for the writers to make us look like fools.
I was thinking about the message that only Claire raise her child. Remember when there was a “Claire” in the cabin who did not have the behaviour of Claire? Perhaps that is what the message was referring to? Perhaps whoever that inhabitant, (whoever it is) is/was the real dangerous one…?
But the whole show is full of variables.