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Friday, February 8, 2008

Lost 4.2 Five Flashbacks and Three Rational Explanations

Lost is firing on all cylinders this new season, with two great episodes in a row.

Tonight we learned a lot of what's up with the rescue team that Naomi called in:

Four people on the team - and, as Naomi puts it her flashback (5) -

Daniel Faraday ... a headcase ... that is, a nut, a somewhat psycho ... maybe with an ability to sense the future, because he senses something about Oceanic 815, when he hears the false report, which he doesn't know is false, about the plane being found with no survivors... (flashback 1)

Miles Straume ... a ghost-hunter ... (flashback 2)

Charlotte Lewis ... an anthropologist, who discovers the bones of a polar bear in the Tunisian desert ... with a Dharma tag ... ah ha! ... (flashback 3, and rational explanation #1: so now we know how the polar got to be on the island ... likely a Dharma experiment in breeding or genetic engineering, to make polar bears that can live in warm climates... )

Frank Lapidus ... a drunk, in Naomi's words, but also a pilot, as Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick, again!) says to Naomi, and we already know ... (flashback 4)

So, Lost is back to flashbacks in this episode - but they are shorter, and multiple - and my guess we'll see flashbacks this season only for the new characters ... with flashforwards for the old hands...

Speaking of which, we get rational explanation #2 when Locke reveals that he survived Ben's shot because it passed right through Locke, and missed the kidney that he did not have (presumably Ben deliberately aimed the shot there). But this raises the possibility that perhaps there is a rational explanation for all the recuperations ... Mikhail already gave one for his surviving the electrical jolt - maybe there is also a some rational, not supernatural, explanation for his survival on the Looking Glass last year...

Because, just to top things off, Ben shoots Charlotte point blank ... but she survives, unhurt, because she is wearing a bullet-proof vest (rational explanation #3).

And why would Ben shoot her?

Because he knows that her team came to the island to get him ...

And what is the team's connection to the false report about Oceanic 815 going down into the ocean with everyone on board lost ...

Grist for the mills of future episodes, which I can wait to see.

See also...

1. Lost's Back Full Paradoxical Blast 4.1 ... Lost 4.3: Thirty Minutes and Big Ben ... 4.4 Kate and ... ... 4.5 Desmond 1 and Desmond 2 ... 4.6 The True Nature of Ben ... 4.7 Flash Both Ways ... 4.8 Michael and Alex ... 4.9 Daughters, Rules, and Some Truth about Ben ... 4.10: Almost a Dream Come True ... 4.11 Unlocking Locke


and

2. More Thoughts On Lost 4.1: Those Who Went with Hurley and Those Who Stayed with Jack and Two More Points about Lost 4.1







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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh. For some reason I assumed that we were looking at fossilized polar bear bones. (That would have entailed some sort of scenario with the island existing millions of years in the past yet somehow connected to the present.) Now I get it. Just old bones buried in the desert sand.

Paul Levinson said...

Well, who knows - you could be right :)

Anonymous said...

I don't think I've ever been more glad I stuck with Lost, as I almost gave up after the first half of last season. It really is in top form now and I love that it's not so based from the beach this year so far. Great review, Paul.

Paul Levinson said...

Thanks, Mike - I feel exactly the same way! I don't think there's every been a series that has had as high and low and now cresting again ride on the rollercoaster!

Anonymous said...

I think what we actually saw this week were flash FORWARDS and it ties in with alternate realities

Frank Lupidas KNOWS that the pilot was who they said it was because his friend was not wearing his wedding ring...and that HE was supposed to be flying that day....I think the Frank was actually seeing HIMSELF dead on the screen.
Daniel Faraday was crying when he saw the wreckage and he could not understand why....I think it's because he ties in heavily with future events on the island has he's come to care a lot about the Lost bunch...but his alternate reality self doesn't know this..
Charlotte STRONGLY doesn't believe the newspapers showing the coverage...I think she has been to the island before and may be able to recall events stronger than the rest.
I don't have a theory for Miles yet.

Paul Levinson said...

Interesting theory, jon.

But how, then, do you explain the Naomi off-island sequence, which has to have happened before she got to the island...

Unless you think Naomi's was a flashback and all the rest flashforward - which, at the very least, would violate parallel structure...

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