"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

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Lost 6.3: Kate and Claire, Tenacious Details, and Dr. Arzt's Arse at the Airport

We now have more evidence about the nature of the two realities in Lost.  Not only the basics - most of the people on the plane, for example - stay the same.   So do the details.  In the LA reality of episode 6.3, Claire thinks her baby's name should be Aaron.   In metaphysical terms - the what-if ground rules of science fiction - the rules of these two realities are that details have a stubborn tenacity.  They poke through whatever the differences in the two realities, whenever they can.

Inexplicable coincidences, which in many ways have been the hallmark of Lost (Desmond and Jack running into each other on the steps of the stadium, Sawyer is served by Kate's mother in a dinner, etc) continue in the LA reality, as well.  Ethan is Claire's doctor in the hospital to which Kate brings Claire when she goes into labor.   But how did Ethan end up in Los Angeles in this reality?   In the original Lost reality, which the characters are still pursuing on the island, Ethan was born to Amy and Horace.   But if the H-bomb went off, how did Ethan get off the island, with the tenacious, constant detail that he's still a doctor kicking in?

Events on the island are little more explicable. There's something inside Sayid, if we believe Dogen, and I'm inclined to. I said last week that I thought Sayid came back to life inhabited by Jacob.   That still seems to be on track, though Jacob's taking a little longer to manifest himself.   (I suppose there's an outside chance that the manifesting spirit "claiming," as Dogen puts it, Sayid's body is not Jacob but Smokey - but what would be the Nemesis's point in claiming two bodies, Locke's and now Sayid's?)

Kate had some very good scenes with Sawyer on the island (and some really powerful acting from Josh Holloway) , where we also find that Claire is still alive - though inhabited, at least according to Dogen.

And back in alternate-reality L.A., Claire is not giving baby Aaron away.   The adopting parents have split, and the adoptive mother no longer wants the baby.  Lost missed an opportunity, here, to make the adoptive mother someone we know.  But we did get Dr. Arzt's arse at the airport. 

And with Claire keeping her baby, the two realities move maybe a little closer to convergence, which I predict will be how this will all end.


5-min podcast review of Lost

See also  Lost Season Six Double Premiere ... Three Questions Arising from the Lost Season Six Premiere: Linkage Between Two Realities,  Dead Bodies Inhabited, Who/What Survived H-Blast?

More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel ... 5.12: Ben v. Charles, and Locke' Slave ... 5.13: Lost Meets Star Wars and the Sixth Sense ... The Problem with Baby Aaron and the Return of the Oceanic Six ... 5.14: Eloise, Daniel, and Obsession Trumping Paradox ... 5.15: Moral Compasses in Motion ... Lost Season 5 Finale: Jacob and Locke





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5 comments:

Jennifer said...

I don't think that the bomb was what sunk the island. I think it sunk at a later time. So therefore Ethan still had time to get off the island.

It is great to read other blogger's recaps of Lost and see things I missed or how we all see different things in this mysterious show. If you want to see my Lost post it is at http://connectwithyourteens.blogspot.com/2010/02/lost-kate-does-episode-63-highlights.html

I Look forward to reading you again after next week's episode.

Paul Levinson said...

Good possible explanation that the H-Bomb didn't sink the island, Jennifer - we didn't actually see that, after all, just the island under water, much later.

Thanks, too, for the link to your blog - it looks like a great blog (even without Lost), and I'll definitely be reading it.

Unknown said...

Not only did we get his arse, but I loved the homage to Midnight Cowboy. "Hey, I'm walkin' here!"

Ratso Rizzo lives!

TheLooper said...

Ah, the darkness Rousseau spoke about! Had forgotten about that because it's been awhile. And Claire has been claimed by it...for now.

I'm still curious to see where Sayid goes and I too think Jacob making an appearance in him is possible.

I did like the parallels of naming the baby Aaron, still, in the Alt-04 and that Ethan was still the one involved in helping Claire with her baby (which he did so by kidnapping her on the island). If I recall, I thought Ethan was a doctor on the island as well? So the doctor part is not that surprising, but it was surprising to see him there.

As stated, did the H-bomb sink the island or did it sink later? I think we may be on the verge of getting a few more answers next week when they switch back over toe Imposter Locke and what he's planning to do.

These temple people though are just bordering on annoyance! Everything they do is shrouded in some sort of conspiratorial act of some kind. They want to kill Sayid...again, they don't want to talk about ANYTHING, none of the Losties can leave, but the first chance they have to kill one of them, they take it (with only Claire barely saving Jin).

But I like the comment of convergence. That's my hypothesis too, of either the realities coming together or one destroying the other (which has also been presented in Fringe as I recall). Abrams loves alternate realities, so it will be very interesting to see what actually happens.

Can't wait for next week!

Nick! said...

I love the idea of tenacious details... also loving some of the comments here.

I had just concluded - despite not really knowing how it could have happened - that the H-Bomb, alongside the weird energies of the island, was what sank the island. But then, maybe I've just fallen prone to the famous Lost misdirection.

(Also, my feeling is that there isn't enough time left on the show for them to raise too many new mysteries - by my calculations, there's enough to be tied up in the time remaining without too many new big ones turning up.)

I'm intrigued by everybody's theories re Sayid. It's also interesting that The Looper mentions Rousseau and Claire - the Others seem to think that Claire has been infected by something, and I always thought that Rousseau's ravings were a broken-minded way of parsing her fellow survivors being taken by the black smoke, but despite what the Others think, the show was definitely trying to tell us that Claire is more like Rousseau than anything else at the end of this episode.

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