Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Lost's theory of everything, revisited

So following this week's episode of Lost, it would seem that I was not only wrong, but that the relationship between the regular Lost universe and the so-called flashsideways universe is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I had guessed after the season premiere. Oops.

That is, it looks like the alternate reality in which the Losties never went to the island takes place, in our story, before the ongoing saga on the island. And that Desmond, having gained a vision of the reality that was erased when Juliet set the bomb off, is going to convince them that the universe is wrong and they need to (somehow) reestablish the previous one. So, presumably, at the end of the series they'll choose to go back, ending up - diegetically, if not temporally - back where we began the season in the main universe, with our heroes in the crater, not realizing that they had succeeded, only to undo what they had already gone and done. We might even learn that the Man in Black was unleashed in this alternate reality, that he's given everyone what they (thought) they wanted - Hurley is lucky, Desmond has Widmore's respect, Jack is the father he wanted his father to be - and that they'll have to reject it in order to save the universe.

So here's my proposed order for how things unfold:
1) Juliet hits bomb and sets it off in 1977.
2) Island implodes/explodes, but does so with enough time for Chang and Widmore, at the very least, to escape.
3) MiB is freed.
3) The Losties get what they want from MiB in the ensuing years. This is an important difference from my earlier supposition, which was that they get a happy ending. Jack gets to be a good dad, and this is happy; Desmond is Widmore's right hand man and has his approval, which is a bit less obviously happy because he doesn't have Penny; but it also looks like people who are carrying a lot of guilt - Sayid, Kate, Sawyer - are being allowed to punish themselves, which is decidedly not good.
4) Desmond will convince the Losties that what they want isn't as important as what needs to be done. They'll restore the previous timeline, somehow.
5) Everyone wakes back up where they were in 2007, when the season premiere began with Jack and company in the crater.

So that ties things up. I'm not sure that I like it - that there needed to be an alternate reality where they never went to the island, especially when it feels like the wind-up might be unsatisfactory in the mainstream universe - but at least it hints at the ultimate meaning of alternate reality. And it made this other universe appear to have a purpose, which it had been lacking for a few episodes.

3 comments:

James said...

I like the idea that MiB is responsible for giving the Losties "what they want", especially as the gifts all seem tainted in some way (there are a few anomalies in this schema, but the flash-sidewayses ain't done yet), but if the order of events shakes out the way you suggest, I'd expect MiB to remember his freedom. (Not for any logical reason than it just "feels" like he would, and he doesn't behave as if he just recently had a frustrated glimpse of freedom.)

Which makes me think that these are two distinct timelines occurring simultaneously (despite the chronological gap) - because, as you say, if the sideways timeline is closed and then the start of Season 6 happens, it will all have been a rather pointless side-adventure, and it seems as though they're intended to be more important than that.

I'm glad this season is keeping us guessing!

neilshyminsky said...

I can't really see how it would make any sense for the timelines to be occurring simultaneously - the whole Desmond thing aside, since he doesn't follow the same set of rules. I think that they're just a twist on the old flashback concept - stories that speak to the one that's presently unfolding.

But I could, of course, be totally wrong. Again.

James said...

Yeah, "simultaneously" doesn't really do it - more like "parallel", I guess. More that you could have Jack cross over and meet his flash-sideways self*, rather than one timeline having to be resolved before the other can take place. We shall see, Neil!

*Dear God I hope nothing remotely like this happens.