LA X Part I and II

**Okay, I am a little rusty. I forgot how much research and information goes into understanding the world of LOST. But I make this pledge that blogs will come out before sundown the day after the show. :)

Welcome one and all to the Final Season on Lost. I welcome all of you to the My Lost Chance - Lost blog. As in past seasons, we will discuss Lost each week and dig as far as we can into the mystery of what is going on. At the bottom of this page, there is a message board (that no one currently uses!). Feel free to post any thoughts, questions or ideas or simply email me for further discussion. This blog is a group effort and I will always give credit to those that uncover a piece of the puzzle. PLEASE, please, please no spoilers! We only have 16 weeks left, 15 after last night (May 23, a Sunday, is the last episode of Lost). So why rush it? I want to thank R&S G for opening up their home for the Lost season premiere party. It was a lot of fun. Our haphazard Lost Taboo was a hoot! We may have a mid-season party and definitely a season finale party, details to come as we get closer. So as I say every week…on with the show!

Summary

After watching the opening sequence of the show and making it to the first commercial break, I said out loud, “I have no idea.” I was leaning more towards WTF?!? More questions and absolutely no answers. On Lost we at first had flashbacks and present time telling us about the characters and their story. Then the series evolved into flash forwards and the present time. Next, they introduced the past. Now we have 2 timelines (hereafter known as Flash Sideways). One in 2005 and the other 2010. I think if we can all agree that LA X, which is the title of this episode, means LA as in LA in 2005 and the X is time on the island in 2010. I read somewhere that it was 2007, but that can't be correct. They were off the island for 3 years while some were in LA and the Losties on the island in 1977, but it was 3 years for them to assimilate into that environment. They crashed in 2005 and where there to just after Christmas (Desmond called Penny from the freighter). So when the flashing occurred it was 2005/2006. That puts us at 2009 and perhaps a little into 2010 like it is now. I would have to go back and re-watch Faraday episodes to see if he ever accounted for a split in the time line continuum creating two different outcomes. In 2005, we are still missing Walt, Michael, Shannon and the coffin. I am assuming that the Tailies are there but not shown. I guess we could guess the same about Walt and Michael since Claire was shown in the cab. The plane never crashes and the island is underwater. We will talk about that some more under Questions.

On the island in the present time, Juliet dies after having tons of metal land on her and the Smoke Monster Locke (hereafter known as SM Locke) shows his true self. Props to R.S. for guessing that the anti-Jacob was really the smoke monster. I thought he was definitely an apparition – like Ecko’s brother Simi, but after Ben released the monster to go after the men that killed his daughter I thought they were separate entities. I stand corrected. Typically we as the fans can see some things that the Losties can't. I think now more than in any other season, we are as Lost as they are.

Connections

Jimmy Kimmel is by far the most powerful Lost fan. He had executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (hereafter known as Darlton) on the night of the premiere. He asked for a response of either Coincidence or Intentional to a few questions. Shannon not being on the flight=not a coincidence. Michael and Walt not being on the flight=fate. Jack being the nervous one on the flight instead of Rose the first time around=intentional. Jack drinking one less bottle of vodka on the flight=intentional. They also said it was a vegetarian lasagna being served to Kate=intentional…but I think they were kidding on that one.

Juliet hits Jughead 8 times with a rock before it goes off. We see the shark swimming around the underwater island and the swing set near the underwater barracks. Desmond was reading “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” by Salmon Rushdie. It’s a children’s story told in the form of a fable about a man who loses his ability to tell a story. The theme is what is the importance of telling a story if it’s not true. Could be a comparison to Lost regarding showing an alternate reality if its not true. Fear and Trembling was the book on the French corpse at the entrance of the Temple. It’s a book about a European woman going to work for a Japanese company and the humiliation and obstacles she faced being there as she examined two very different ways of life. I think its important that it was found at the entrance of the Temple, because the inhabitants live a different way of life. The leader not wanting to talk English because of the way “it tastes on my mouth”. The plane crash survivors seem to have assimilated into the lives of the people at the Temple.

Ben (after being shot by Sayid) was healed in the Temple and now Sayid is being healed there (after being shot by Ben's father) as well. The flash sideways shows the Losties meeting and interacting like it was fated, but in a different way now. Neil Frogurt and Dr. Katz were on the plane and later played a small part on the island. I was wrong when I said at the party Neil was an Other. He was a Lostie that was killed by a flaming arrow. Charlie almost dies in the lavatory by asphyxiation like he almost died while swimming. He says he is supposed to die. Like Desmond said he was when he kept preventing it from happening.

Questions

Why is the island underwater? – What happened on the timeline to make the island now underwater? Obviously it had been there a while based on the plant life hanging off the statue. Was it moved and it resulted in the coordinates moving it underwater by mistake? Was there an electromagnetic accident that resulted in it being submerged? What happened to its inhabitants? Dharma existed based on the barracks so was it result of the original incident?

How is Desmond on the plane? – How did the shift in time change things that had occurred before the plane crash? Did the explosion change everything that happened after 1977 and not just up to the plane crash as Jack had intended? If the island is underwater, than Desmond could not have been shipwrecked on it so the bigger question is not the absence of the plane crash but what happened in 1977 after the explosion.

It worked. – That was Juliet’s last words to Sawyer. Or was it? Was that what she was going to say or is that what she wanted to say once she was dead and learned something else? What worked exactly? Does she have some sort of knowledge now that she is on the other side? She was in the hole and didn’t know if it was still the past or present, just that Sawyer was alive. She said she wanted him to have never been stuck on the island so did she see the alternate reality? I believe that they were supposed to be on the plane and go through everything they went through. The blast was supposed to get them back to 2010, not 2005. I believe Jack’s atom bomb was “the incident” and they are creating the timeline as it was meant to be. But I am not sure that's what she meant.

Who is Sayid? – So Sayid is alive. Or is he? Is he really back from the dead or is it Jacob? Why was it so important for him to be in the water? Was it Jacob’s death that caused the water to darken? Is it Jacob’s turn to manipulate the inhabitants? Why is Sayid’s life so important to them all? (Spoiler!!! So another point from Jimmy Kimmel. He asked if Sayid was Jacob. Further, if he was Jacob, in future promos, why was he being burned? They said, “Well…I think your theory will become more evolved in the coming weeks.” I take that to mean that Said is not Jacob. But he is not Sayid either).

Smoke Monster Locke - The bullet bounced off him when he was shot by one of the “good guys.” So he cannot be killed by typical means. He cannot cross over the grey ash his one weakness. What was Richard to him? Why and where did he take him? Why does he want to get off the island? Jacob and Richard were able to leave, why couldn’t he? What is his ultimate purpose? What is the loophole, how did he pull it off?

Who are They? – A major question that must be answered by the end of this whole thing. Who are the They Jacob was referring to? If Ilena’s crew are the good guys, who are the bad? What are they fighting for? Who are they trying to keep out of the Temple and why? I think we have weeks before we get to see a clearer picture.

Conclusion

So instead of us getting answers we got more questions. OR are these additional questions leading us to the answers. I can honestly say I am as LOST as I was when they took Walt off the boat. Everything else has been pretty cool twists and turns, but I can’t see clearly at all where this is all heading. But I am going to sit back and enjoy the ride. They have created what seems like an insurmountable task of wrapping this all up in a way that makes sense. More power to them if they can pull it off.

Thanks for being here and take care. Until next week….c-ya!