Happy Anniversary, Ellen DeGeneres.

Ten years ago today she officially came out on her sitcom. And, like the 19 women crammed into my one-bedroom apartment to watch along with millions of others that night, I was profoundly affected by her monumental decision to do so.

It pains me to think what life in the television industry would be like today if Ellen had not pried open that door; one that had only been slightly ajar with the weight and hesitation of many actors who cowered behind it, fearful for their careers.  

There is a very strong chance that many of my favorite television shows from the last ten years would not have been created, aired, or even possible had Ellen not taken the brave steps that she did in 1997.

I cannot imagine the very first Amazing Race without Team Guido. Arrested Development without the ambiguous and never-nude Tobias Funke. The Office without Oscar the accountant. Project Runway without Tim Gunn. Six Feet Under without David & Keith. Survivor without the naked tax evader, Richard Hatch. [That there have been so very few gay women on reality shows and lesbian characters on television since Ellen is a topic for another blog altogether].

Shows like Will & Grace, the American adaptation of Queer as Folk and The L Word were given the green light only after and because of Ellen’s landmark “Puppy Episode.”   
 
I love that gay and lesbian characters are almost ubiquitous on mainstream and cable television nowadays, to the point where they are almost passé. Even the soap opera All My Children recently featured a transgender character!    

As I watched Ellen host the Oscars earlier this year, I was struck by the magnitude of what she was doing, what it represented and how it indicated the current social climate. Granted, it is the entertainment industry. But I was thrilled by how much of a non-issue her sexuality has become.  The success of her daily talk show speaks volumes. And I applaud her every step of the way. Ellen is a pioneer and a true role model.

My friend Matt always says that he’s proud of my pride. After April of 1997, when Ellen preceded the coming out episode by declaring “Yep, I’m Gay” on the cover of Time magazine, I was just that much more comfortable. In the community, at work, with family, in my own skin.

Which is why I was finally able to write this article.

It was time to stop hiding behind my blog. From the beginning, I’ve made a concerted effort to keep my identity separate from my online persona and taken great lengths to avoid revealing any details about my personal life on this site. But as I tackle and contemplate writing about controversial topics like the Isaiah Washington debacle on Grey’s Anatomy or the very disconcerting pattern of celebrities who are forced to come out in the media, I realized that my perspective as an out lesbian is important to the entries that I write and publish.

Whew. Publishing this kind of personal information, even if only on my small hobby of a blog with very few readers, is far scarier than coming out to my own family. It is now out there for the eyes of the world.

As Ellen did ten years ago tonight, I suppose this is me, coming out on my blog.

Naomi said “I am not alone,” which Mikhail translated as “thank you.” Did someone else parachute in with her? Were there others in the (alleged) helicopter that crashed? OR…is Penny actually there somewhere as well? Why else would Desmond have seen her in his last future flash?

Of course, this is Lost. So Naomi is probably a liar and an Other. She might have told Hurley about the real Flight 815 just to add to the collection of psychological games tormenting the Losties in this crazy experiment.

Mikhail obviously saw the flare that Hurley accidentally shot up in the air. He literally ran to find where it came from and looked quite surprised to come upon Desmond and the Losties…because he was looking for Naomi.

How did Mikhail survive the sonic barrier? Kate checked his pulse and said his heart had stopped. Was Mikhail prepared for just such a situation…did he carry an emergency Dharma pill to pop so that he could pretend to play dead when necessary (you know, the foam-at-the-mouth-heartbeat-stopper kind)? OR, as Mikhail indicated when referring to Naomi’s wounds…did the island heal his injuries rather quickly? And if so, does that mean we’ll be seeing dead Others again (Ethan, Goodwin, Ms. Klugh, Pickett, Colleen, etc.)?

Did Jack tell Juliet about Sun’s pregnancy? Does he really trust her that much? He probably thought it was very convenient and helpful to bring a fertility doctor to the beach where one of his friends was pregnant. Dumbass.

But if the Others had information about each passenger, their info would have shown that Jin and Sun were unable to conceive. Juliet should have been surprised to hear that she was pregnant, but I don’t think she was. She also wasn’t surprised to hear that Sun had an affair with another man; I’m sure that the Others knew that already.

Does Sun believe Juliet? Her lingering pose outside of the Staff Hatch after her ultrasound was telling. Did Sun follow her back into the Hatch and hear what she recorded for Ben? We’ve certainly learned that Sun is much smarter and more conniving than she appeared to be in the first season…

I am convinced that when Ben told Kate she was going to have a very difficult two weeks right after they were captured (see photo above) at the beginning of this season, he told her she would have to sleep with either Jack or Sawyer. That’s why they made her shower and put on a pretty dress. The Others were forcing her to get pregnant under the threat of death (either her, Jack or Sawyer). Last night we learned that Juliet was going to get Austen’s sample next (Kate’s last name is Austen). This theory might explain why Kate was acting elusive and uncomfortable when talking to Sun about Juliet’s island baby bad news.

QUESTIONS

If women who conceive on the island die, would they live if they terminated the pregnancy?

Why would the Others drag dying pregnant women all the way over to the Staff Hatch from their safe village inside the barracks?

If pregnant women and their babies die on the island, how is it that Ben was born there? Oh yeah…he wasn’t. Liar pants.

Who, besides Kate, are the other women that Juliet referred to for getting samples? There aren’t many viable candidates among the Losties that we’ve been introduced to. Watch out Naomi, you might be next!

Why does Naomi speak so many languages? Is it a coincidence that Mikhail and Ms. Klugh also seem(ed) to be multilingual?

How did Sun find Jin’s father, and so quickly?

Why would Jin’s mom ask for blackmail money in American dollars?

MY OVERALL (CONSPIRACY) THEORY ABOUT THE SHOW

From the beginning, I have theorized that the Losties were never actually on Flight 815. There was a real Flight 815, which was purposefully crashed…probably by Dharma. But the Losties boarded a simulated flight. They were specifically chosen. The flight and turbulence were fabricated, and they were all drugged by the oxygen masks. Before being removed from the plane, each passenger was injected with some type of memory chip or implant, causing what we see as flashbacks. And yes, some of them died; they had to in order to make it seem real. The deceased are the ones that didn’t fit the Dharma criteria for the island experiment. The “survivors” were placed in very specific locations on the beach, in the jungle and in the water with the wreckage.

Obviously, it would have taken a tremendous financial and logistical effort to organize and pull off this kind of scheme. But we’ve been introduced to several very wealthy flashback characters that are less than thrilled with or have been abandoned by the people who are on that island: Mr. Paik, who is disappointed that she married a fisherman’s son. Charles Widmore, who disapproved of Desmond dating his daughter. Sabrina Carlyle, Shannon’s stepmom who cut her off from the family inheritance. David Reyes, who Hurley refused to give lottery money to.  One or all of these people has more than likely contributed generously to the funding of the Dharma Initiative. And the heretofore unseen Jacob is the puppet master overseeing this entire experiment.

Major Hole in My Theory: How/why were the Others able to see the plane break apart above them if it was a pseudo crash?

Do people really parachute out of helicopters? Seems kind of dangerous, with the blades and all…unless of course the parachutist has military training. I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that it was a helicopter that crashed into the ocean, even though the Losties thought it was. Also, helicopter fuel tanks don’t hold very much, so it must have taken off from a location close to the island…

Did Naomi, the parachutist, jump before the helicopter (or whatever) started to crash, or during? She certainly drifted and landed quite far from the helicopter crash site.

Now we know for sure that Penny has discovered the whereabouts of Desmond. She sent Naomi to the island after her team saw the electromagnetic anomaly blip on their radar in the arctic listening station (which occurred when Locke imploded the Swan Hatch two to three weeks ago in Lost time).

The book in Naomi’s backpack was Catch-22 in Portuguese. Penny’s listening station team was speaking Portuguese.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’ve been searching for your long lost love for years. You finally locate where he disappeared to, and you send in…one woman to find him. Penny either knows about the dangers of the island (probably because Daddy Widmore helped finance Dharma) or she has a tremendous amount of faith in Naomi, who must be quite a friend/savior/superhero to take on that job.

The cable on the beach leads into the ocean. Is it connected to the sonar which directs the sub to and from the island?

How/why are there so many copies of that Desmond/Penny photo?!

When Desmond visited Ruth, his ex-fiancé, and tried to explain why he left her for the monastery, she said it was a good thing that a “shepherd” hadn’t found him lying in the street, because then he would have joined the sheep. Yeah, but he’s with a (Jack) Shephard now.

Did you catch that Ms. Hawking, the old woman from the ring shop in Desmond’s last flashback, was in the photo with Brother Campbell on his desk?? So she IS real. Although the picture looked like quite the PhotoShop hack job.

In Desmond’s flash, he saw all three guys holding the parachute to catch the parachutist, including Charlie. So…was he meant to save him after all? As the events took place in real time, had Charlie been shot with the arrow, he wouldn’t have been able to help hold the parachute with Jin and Hurley.

FILE UNDER: RANDOM

I had to look this up because I am not at all familiar with anything Biblical…there was reference to the sacrifice of Isaac. In the Bible, Isaac is the father of Jacob (the Others’ leader with the list that we haven’t met yet) and grandfather of Benjamin (as in Ben Linus, the Others’ 2nd in command under Jacob). ALSO, Naomi (the parachutist) is a Biblical name that appears in the book of Ruth (Desmond’s ex-fiancé).

Desmond has future FLASHES, and Charlie & Hurley were arguing about Superman and the Flash. Does that make Hurley Superman?  

There was another use of the phrase, One of Us. Brother Campbell told Desmond that he was “one of us” at the monastery.

How is it that no one else on the island also heard the helicopter and/or saw the beacon?

So Flight 815, the real Henry Gale’s hot air balloon, Rousseau’s boat and now the parachutist’s helicopter have all crashed above and/or into the island, marooning them. And yet the sub is able to travel back and forth without issue (except perhaps when it enters through the invisible barrier around the island, which would explain Ethan’s statement to Juliet that ‘the last leg of the trip can be rough.’) So whatever protective barrier (which I like to think of as the Truman Show Dome) surrounds that island must allow underwater and/or subterranean access and also have some kind of trap door that opens up top (to let the Dharma food drops through).

** SPOILER ALERT **
Here is the schedule for the rest of the season.

4/18/07
Episode 3.18
“D.O.C.” (Date of Conception)
Jin & Sun-centric
Looks like we’ll finally find out who Sun’s baby-daddy is.

5/2/07
Episode 3.19
“The Brig”
Locke-centric
Apparently, the flashbacks will show us recent events on the island, including what happened after Locke discovered that Cooper (his Dad) was being held captive by the Others. Something tells me that we’ll finally find out that Cooper is the real Sawyer, and hopefully Mr. James Ford (island Sawyer) will as well.

5/9/07
Episode 3.20
“The Man Behind the Curtain”
Ben-centric
Rumor has it that we’ll see if Ben really was born on the island and we’ll learn more about Dharma and the DeGroots.

5/16/07
Episode 3.21
“Greatest Hits”
Charlie-centric
I haven’t heard much about this one yet, but it does not bode well for Dominic Monaghan…flashbacks can lead to death (see: Boone & Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby, and Nikki & Paulo).