‘LOST’ SEASON FINALE: LIVE TOGETHER, DIE ALONE
Here are my long-winded observations and questions about last night’s epic season finale of LOST. You will notice that I tend to contradict myself on occasion, with theories all over the map; I have a LOST hangover due to lack of sleep, too much coffee, and too many hours contemplating a television show that has consumed my tightly-wound, conspiracy theory-loving, pop culture soul.
CHARLES WIDMORE
The name Widmore has appeared many times on LOST: on Sun’s pregnancy test and on the basket of the crashed air balloon, to name a few. We know that Michael worked for a construction company and rumor has is that it was Widmore Construction.
Was Widmore’s race around the world a set up for Desmond? Widmore did want him as far away from his daughter as possible and he had the funds to go to such lengths.
Did Mr. Widmore assign Kelvin to monitor Desmond?
CHARLIE
Charlie’s behavior was strange. He seemed to be amused by discovering Locke crying in the jungle, and didn’t seem very affected by the explosion in the hatch. Was he infected way back when Ethan kidnapped him and left him hanging for dead? Did the explosion somehow cause short term memory loss? Does he really know what happened to Locke, Eko and Desmond? He’s always had a fascination/obsession with baby Aaron and Claire, just as the Others did…
CLAIRE
After the electromagnetic anomaly that all parties on the island experienced (the violent bright light and noise), when Desmond supposedly turned that key, everyone resumed their day without mentioning or questioning it, as if it never happened. Only Claire seemed to remember it and asked Charlie questions about it. Why would she be the only one? Is she using the pneumatic injector that Charlie found for her? If so, do those Dharma drugs have anything to do with clarity and immunity to memory loss?
DESMOND
The Charles Dickens book that Desmond was carrying around, Our Mutual Friend, is about wealth and mistaken identity. Clearly a reference to the Widmore family, the Bad Twin script found on the beach, and a popular theory about twins/cloning on the island.
Was Desmond’s return to the island accidental or was he in cahoots with the Others? It does seem convenient that he reappeared just as Locke was having a crisis of faith about entering the numbers.
Do we know why Desmond was in prison before he embarked on his ill-fated race around the world? The obvious answer is that Mr. Widmore had something to do with it, to keep him away from his daughter Penny.
Desmond initials are DH. Any connection to DHarma?
Desmond’s full name is Desmond David Hume. There was a famous philosopher named David Hume, who was Scottish, like Desmond. Apparently Hume was influenced by another philosopher named John Locke.
FOUR TOED STATUE
Does the statue of the four toed foot have anything to do with the fact that some of the Others walk around barefoot? Was that statue their idol/leader?
There is certainly a theme with missing limbs, so a missing toe isn’t that surprising: Dr. Candle’s left arm in the first Orientation film was prosthetic. The farmer that turned Kate in was missing an arm. The wife of Leonard’s (Hurley’s institution pal who originated the numbers) military friend is missing a leg. Do any or all of these have anything to do with the ‘incident’ referred to in the first Orientation film?
Is the foot statue a remnant from The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the
Or was it part of the Atlantis, commonly referred to as the LOST Continent? The existence and location of Atlantis has never been confirmed, and that fits with Henry Gale’s assertions that no one knows where they are and that Michael will never be able to find his way back to the island once he leaves.
Or perhaps it was part of an underwater city that receded long ago. That may explain why an old slave ship (The Black Rock) wound up in the middle of the island.
THE GUYS IN THE SNOW STATION
They were speaking Portuguese. Significance?
When the guys called Penny Widmore, they said they found ‘it,’ not ‘him.’ Was there a tracking device on Desmond’s boat that was somehow activated or reactivated when the electromagnetic anomaly occurred?
One of the guys in the station looks alarmingly like Jack. Are the producers just messing with us or does Jack have a twin? If so, which one is the ‘bad’ twin?
Their scene in that station, at the very end of the finale, was the first to occur off the island and in real-time.
‘HIM’
My top candidates for the leader of the Others:
Mr. Paik (Sun’s dad)
Christian Shepard (Jack’s dad)
Charles Widmore
I’m not convinced that Alvar Hanso exists, so I’m sticking with characters we’ve actually met.
HURLEY
We see Jack, Kate and Sawyer all get shot by paralyzing darts, but not Hurley. Was he spared, much like he was when he was released by the Others in the end?
JACK
Was Jack’s plan to get captured by the Others? Did the group agree to it after Michael’s confession? After Michael confessed to killing Ana Lucia and Libby, the group continued on without much ado. When Michael was taking off in the boat with Walt at the end, they all made very specific and lingering eye contact. Had Michael told the group about receiving a boat as part of his deal with the Others? Did he assure them he’d go find help and come back to rescue them? Did Jack inform Michael about Sayid out on the sailboat? Was Michael heading out to find Sayid? Perhaps this is why Hurley’s response to Michael’s confession did not result in the kind of rage we expected. Was he was placated for the time being by Michael’s willingness to help?
KATE
Was the blinking at the end between Jack and Kate an indication of a secret plan between them or just an acknowledgment of reassurance/affection? If the two of them do have a plan, it is clear that Sawyer is not in on it.
When Kate and Sawyer killed an Other who was following their group, why didn’t we get to see his face? I have a suspicion that he was Dr. Candle/Dr. Wickman.
Where did Kate’s binoculars come from? Why on earth did she have them at the funeral?
KELVIN
The man in the army who forced Sayid to interrogate his friend was Inman. Not Kelvin Inman, Joe Inman. Perhaps another twin? Either way, he provides a connection to both Sayid and Kate, because Kate’s dad was in Inman’s military unit.
Kelvin was ex-military and Goodwin had a military knife before Ana Lucia killed him. Is the island an abandoned military facility that Dharma took over for their experiment?
LIBBY
Is
Is David,
husband, Hurley’s invisible friend Dave from the institution, or a
figment of her imagination? Did she seem him with Hurley? Were they the
only two who could see him? If her husband was real, she said he died
after getting sick. We are certainly familiar with folks getting sick
and dying on a certain island. Was her husband part of Rousseau’s crew?
Maybe he bought Libby that boat so she could get her sea legs and want
to join him on his journey.
It’s looking more like Libby is in on this whole thing, and she works for Dharma or Hanso. She was a plant at the institution, monitoring Hurley. She was a plant at the airport, giving Desmond a boat. She told Hurley that he stepped on her foot on the plane, and yet he was in the main fuselage section while she was in the tail section. Do we know for sure that she was even on the plane? Only the front fuselage section had the flight manifest, and no one has checked it again since the arrival and merge of Libby & company.
MICHAEL
Michael admitted that shooting Libby was an accident, but he didn’t say anything about Ana Lucia. Was he asked to kill her? Gale knew that she killed Goodwin and told her she is a killer…but then again, Eko confessed to killing a few Others himself. Perhaps because he was a man of faith who apologized, Gale forgave him.
Michael’s forehead and hand look infected. Did the Others infect him when they injected him and told him they were taking his blood?
Are the Others letting Michael go because he’s not LOST anymore, because he found Walt? Before that plane crashed, he was an absent dad and didn’t fight very hard to keep Walt when his ex relocated across the continent with him. Perhaps the Others, who view themselves as the good guys, are somehow fulfilled by the sacrifices Michael made in order to retrieve Walt and deemed them both worthy of rescue/release.
MISC. THEORIES & THOUGHTS
There were several references to snow, including a snow globe. And we’ve already seen a polar bear on the island. Is the island inside of a dome, an experiment set in a frozen landscape? And if so, if Michael followed Gale’s coordinates to be rescued, does that mean he’d drive the boat to some kind of exit portal? By ‘rescued,’ did Gale mean released from the experiment?
The prehistoric-looking bird that swooped down over Hurley and the group is the first bird we’ve seen on the island. Kind of odd, considering that they’re supposedly in a jungle and in the South Pacific.
Does anyone else think that it was strange or question why Jin and Sun know how to sail?
Why is it that when the electromagnetic anomaly occurred, all metallic items (like the Dharma food cans on the beach) were affected but the Others’ guns were perfectly fine? Were they plastic/fake?
Is there anything to the fact that there are three very specific groups of survivors? The first is Sayid, Sun and Jin. The second is Eko, Locke and Desmond. The third is Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Will these trios play significant roles together next season?
THE OTHERS
Henry Gale said he was taking Jack, Kate and Sawyer home with him. Is ‘home’ headquarters, the Question Mark area in the center of all of the hatches? Is that where the other kidnapped kids are?
Kelvin referred to the Others as the Hostiles. He worked for Dharma, so there must be two separate groups of Others. But which group are the scientists and doctors, and which group includes the children with dirty bare feet that don’t leave any tracks?
The Others are openly disdainful of Tom/Zeke. Henry Gale told the Losties that he was a nobody, and Ms. Klugh ripped on him in front of the Losties for removing his beard. Perhaps in season three we’ll learn more about the politics and relationships of the Others. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Others with very similar Lostie counterparts, personality and otherwise.
Do the Others wear disguises to distinguish themselves from their identical twins that are also on the island?
PENNY WIDMORE
How did Penny know to look for an electromagnetic anomaly?
Does her father know she’s funding a search for Desmond?
Was the real Henry Gale employed by Penny Widmore to fly his hot air balloon in search of Desmond? There was a Widmore logo on the side of the balloon.
We learn that Penny had a fiancé. Perhaps she’s not looking for Desmond at all. Perhaps her fiancé was on Flight 815.
ROUSSEAU
Crazy French lady Danielle Rousseau must be associated with the Others. There is no way that their leader, Gale, would be captured by one of her nets unless he was trying to get caught. Her net looked just like the ones that the Others had in their fake camp. If she really has been on the island that long, she has to know that her daughter Alex is alive and among them. Is it possible that her supposedly dead team/crew is actually the Others?
SWAN HATCH
If the hatch did blow up, was the electromagnetic field destroyed? If so, will Locke become paralyzed and will Rose get sick again?
Did Desmond actually turn the key? Did turning the key just shut down the computer and electromagnetic system rather than blow up the entire hatch?
Charlie was still in the hatch when it supposedly blew up, and he survived. So Eko and Locke must have also lived.
When Desmond and Locke deliberately locked down the hatch to keep Eko out, why didn’t the fluorescent light that illuminated the map come on as it did when Locke was trapped beneath? It also failed to light up when Inman was making additions to the map.
After Locke destroyed the computer monitor, Desmond could have entered the numbers using only the keyboard.
WALT
So you’ve been torn from your father’s arms, kidnapped and put through seemingly traumatic testing. You’re told to hide in an open compartment on a small boat, which is docked right next to where a group of people are talking. You don’t hear/recognize your own father’s voice and take a peek? No. Even when your dad starts yelling out your name and jumps on board, it takes you a second to realize who it is. Why? Because you’re not you. You’re a projection of your true self or a clone/twin.
Skeptical? Consider that the Others dedicated a good deal of time and resources toward the capture and testing of Walt. They recognized his special abilities and Gale said they’d never let Walt go. And yet they did. Why? Because he’s been cloned or has a twin that Michael never knew about. Was Michael present at Walt’s birth? How do we know Walt’s mom didn’t have twins?
* FAR FETCHED THEORY OF THE SEASON
Jack and Kate work for Dharma and were never on the plane. Yes, we’ve seen them on the plane. But I don’t believe the plane ever crashed, so this fits (at least in my head). In the very first scene of the pilot episode, we see Jack in the middle of the jungle by himself. When he looks up, there do not appear to be any broken tree branches or anything else indicating that a body fell from the sky. He could have been placed in that spot (just as I feel everyone else was placed in crash mode after the ‘experiment’ started). We then meet Kate as she is walking by Jack in the jungle, and again they are all by themselves. Perhaps that last look they exchanged before the burlap sacks were placed over their heads was a wink-wink, nudge-nudge acknowledgment that they are in indeed going ‘home.’ Believe me, I know the clues indicating otherwise far outweigh this possibility, but it’s an interesting theory to absorb as we await the third season.