"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Lost ... Words from the Woman Who Fell

We still can't tell if Juliet is bad or good on the evidence of tonight's episode. She seems genuinely wanting to be helpful about Sun's baby, but leaves a message for Ben which ends with her saying she hates him - which strongly implies that she hates what he's making her do, which implies that can't be very good...

But the most fascinating, provocative action tonight came along the woman who fell from the sky. Last week, she said Desmond's name. Tonight, she said she was going to die, in a variety of non-English tongues--

Then, out of the jungle comes the Russian guy with the eye patch-- But didn't we see him pretty convincingly fried by that fence a few weeks ago? Perhaps people not only heal quickly on the island, but come back from the dead. No, some of our people have apparently really died in the past 90 days. Maybe the Russian guy was almost completely fried, and made a quick recovery.

But the biggest jolt of all comes at the end when the woman who fell from the sky, recovering nicely thanks to the Russian's help, speaks in perfect English and says that she knows about Oceanic Flight 815 - and everyone died on it.

So, here's what we have: Desmond sailed or claims he was sailing around the world and landed on the island. He can see the future, sometimes, and in the last show thought he saw Penny fall from the sky, but it turned out to be this multi-lingual woman who says Desmond and thinks everyone on the flight perished.

One explanation is Penny sent her looking for Desmond, after the plane crashed, but who gave the woman who fell from the sky the idea that everyone of the flight died?

In the first year of Lost, lots of people were saying it was a purgatory show. Whatever the creators might have originally intended, that would have been too easy an explanation, and I'm glad that's not, apparently, what's going on - at least, I think and hope it's not.

But what the woman from the sky tonight said is certainly consistent with a purgatory explanation.

But, ruling that out, what else could be going on?

Desmond and this woman are in one timeline, which has been crossed with the timeline of our people on island, and somehow Jack and Desmond meeting on the steps of the stadium was part of that intertwining?

I don't know ... but Lost has my attention...

Useful links:

Lost: Keys to What's Really Going On

The Enjoyable Trouble with Time Travel

listen to free 4-min podcast of this review at Levinson news clips

8 comments:

Jeremy Roh said...

she said to patchy that "im not alone" and he told the guys that she just said thank you....

Paul Levinson said...

Good point, Jeremy! I had realized that she said something different to Eye Patch than what he translated, but "I'm not alone" makes it much more important...

Mellowcreme Pu said...

My immediate thought when I heard that they were all found to be dead was very mundane. I thought it was some sort of large coverup and conspiracy put forth by the Dharma iniative to silence rumors and/or a search. That lead me to the thought that these people were meant to crash there or that it was, in fact, not an accident at all. I'll be very interested to find out where they found it. Still the idea of crossing timelines is also amazing as well. Conspiracy or theory, I'll take whatever I can get.

Anonymous said...

I'm uncertain about the concept of death on the island.

(Bear in mind, please, that I haven't seen the episode you're talking about yet, so may be talking out of my hat!)

I was pretty ambivalent about early theories that the survivors were actually all dead, and were somehow in purgatory... and I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere an official debunking of that idea.

However, it can't be ignored that the line between dead and alive is a blurred one, here.

Jack's father is still somewhere on the island, and although he was clearly dead when they got there, it's odd that his corpse hasn't turned up in subsequent encounters with the others etc.

I think, as well, that it's more than wish fulfillment on my part, that I feel a certain uncertainty around the deaths of Eko (and to a lesser extent, and further ago) Libby... from a narrative point of view, both of those characters were being set up as having more to offer the ongoing story, and in Eko's case, the island seemed to want more from him right up until the moment of his demise.

I'm not making a very coherent point, sorry! One thought I just this second had was, what if we're wrong to assume that the idea that everybody died in the crash is an either/or proposition? What if one of the island's unusual properties is that death isn't always the end (a supporting idea to this is the idea that time might be fluid there)?

That everyone died, but then some of them got to live again. It'd work as a catch all for why Locke's legs work on the island, and some sicknesses clear up while others don't. If the island (or something on it) fixed Locke's death, maybe fixing his spine was a side effect...?

(I don't for a second believe that the writers really have a clue what is going on beyond the end of each season, to be honest... but the best thing about the wealth of data that the series gives you is that hardly any theory can be ruled out at this point...)

Anonymous said...

The crash where ' everyone died' was probably staged by the Others to discourage any searching around the island.
Patchy may be working with this parachute chick.....he was running out of the woods to try to get to her first...

Tracy Goodwin said...

The purgatory theory was shot down by the powers that be (it's the only plot confirmation that I've heard from them).

Does the outside world believe the passengers are dead because of a Dharma cover up? That would probably depend upon how the real world thinks the plane went down. Was there any proof of the passengers' deaths? Were any remains uncovered? Wreckage of the plane? How could there be if the survivors are alive on the island? Unless ... the island can't be some kind of a Bermuda Triangle can it?

The impression I'm getting is that this is some kind of social experiment but that, too, is iffy. How far can it go? The island cures people, a black smoke hunts and kills, and polar bears live there? Then there's all the mysticism. How is everything connected?

I love this show but it drives me crazy because week after week, I wind up with more questions than answers.

BTW - I really like Juliet and keep hoping she's not as evil as they make her seem.

Paul Levinson said...

Great comments, folks!

greg - that was my first thought, too...

nicholas - yeah, the nature of life and death on the island is indeed unclear, as is the nature of healing ...

Boone, Shannon, Eko, Libby, Ana Lucia, and the couple from a couple of weeks ago are (presumably) dead ... as well Ethan, the doctor Juliet seemed to like, and a few other Others ...

So far, none of them have come back.

But maybe Jack's father did?

Perhaps Patchy did - unless he was just very seriously wounded.

If he miraculously recovered from that, he would join Locke in doing that ... anybody else? ... maybe the woman who fell from the sky?

Another factor: if death isn't final, why did Desmond need to save Charlie?

A highly enjoyabe bunch of question marks...:)

tw1: the woman from the sky didn't seem show much recognition of Patchy, but you could be right...

tracy - I'm with you about Juliet - as I saw someone write on another board, most of the other major players on the island were bad before they got there, and are learning to be good ... Juliet was good in her earlier life, and island is making her bad ...

which makes her very appealing ... a good person being sucked into badness...

for some reason, my wife doesn't like her....

I agree with you completely about the wealth of questions ... but we're also finally beginning to get a few answers...

Anonymous said...

a good person being sucked into badness...

I agree that Juliet is inherently good; however, she is desperate to return home.

We observed what Michael did - killed Ana Lucia and Libby and sold out Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to The Others - to retrieve his son and flee the island. Just a man in survival mode - committed to whatever it takes to get home with his son.

I believe Juliet may resort to similar measures if it ultimately means she can leave the island, be reunited with her sister, and meet her nephew.

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