And the pianist competing in the auditorium may be even more important to understanding what is going on - or the nature of this alternate LA reality, in which flight 815 does not crash. It's Jack's son, David, who doesn't exist in our original Lost reality. Jack had a wife, of course, in the original, but no children as far as we know. Both ended in divorce, but in alternate LA, Jack has a piano virtuoso son.
This is another piece of evidence for something I mentioned last week, in my Better LA review: our characters are doing a little better in this alternate reality than in the original. But tonight there's also a hint of something else in this alternate reality. It seems that Jack, at least, is slightly out of it. His memory's not quite there. First, he's not quite sure about an appendix scar. He asks his mother about it, and she says, sure, you had your appendix taken out when you were younger, and Jack replies, not 100% convincingly, that he remembers. Then, Jack doesn't know that his son was in the music competition. The explanation - that his son is keeping this from Jack - is not unreasonable, but it still seemed to me that Jack's memory was less than fully charged.
What could this be an indication of? That the LA better reality is not the prime reality, so that its denizens don't quite have a complete hold on their realities? Perhaps....
Meanwhile, our original Jack back on the island gets taken to a lighthouse by Hurley (under Jacob's direction), where they discover a device that shows Jack's house as a child, in a live mirror. This is how Jacob has been keeping an eye on Jack, and other people with names on the wheel (were these the same names we saw on the wall last week? ... probably). All of this reminded me of Prester John's Speculum - a semi-mythical medieval device that Prester John (a semi-mythical character) used to see across hundreds of miles (and perhaps, I always thought, across time, but who can say). Jack destroys the "speculum" in the Lighthouse - fitting, since nothing remains of Prester John's speculum in our world today.
And to top off this episode about Jack and his family, we finally meet Claire on the island. She's crazed, looking for her baby, and has a friend - faux-Locke, inhabited now by the Nemesis.
Coming attractions for next week apologized that they could show us only seconds, but promised us answers.
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? ... Lost 6.3: Kate and Claire, Tenacious Details, and Dr. Arzt's Arse at the Airport ... Lost 6.4: Better LA, Wilder Island, Some Partial Answers at Last
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
The Plot to Save Socrates
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
5 comments:
Paul, in this week's LOST episode review/commentary, you repeatedly used the word "alternate" to describe the LA-based timeline.
In their Official LOST podcast (where answers - when provided - are in fact canonical) Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse asked viewers not to regard this as an alternate timeline, but rather a parallel one.
They said that to call it "alternate" suggests that one or the other timeline is the more correct one, and they don't wish us to infer that.
Is that an appendix scar on Jack or is that where Kate stitched him up on the island when they first crashed? I realize that would merge the two realities but that is what I thought it was before he asked his mom about the appendix.
David - thanks for the report - but I'm a great believer in I. A. Richards' advice that creative works should be interpreted on their own, what readers and viewers can get from them, and not from discovery of what the creators intended.
For example, John Lennon said Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was not about LSD - but that indeed was the truest meaning it had for millions of people.
Sometimes, often, there can be meanings in works which the creators were not aware of (see Freud's notion of the unconscious).
Bottom line: readers and viewers are free to infer what they wish, not what the creators say should inferred, and if the inferences are reasonable, they might well add to the greater appreciation of the work.
Tiffany - interesting point about Jack's scar in LA possibly being from Kate's incision on the island. (It could also be from Juliet's removal of Jack's appendix on the island.) These show leakage or linkage between the two realities, which I discusses a little in my review of the first two episodes.
PS to David: And since we are dealing with one reality we have known for six seasons (815 crashes) and one we know for less than one season (815 does not crash), and we saw our characters bring that new reality into being (by setting off the H-bomb on the island), I'd say the two realities are not equal, and the first one may well be more "correct".
Hey, hey!
Very good episode about Jack and it is curious as to why he is having memory lapses in Alt-04. Hadn't thought about the possibility of the scar being the one Kate sewed up for him, but for some reason I thought that was higher and on the left side of his back (of course a mirror scar would be appropriate). However, I had forgotten about Juliet removing his appendix so that's a very good possibility it's the same incision (especially since Juliet briefly saw the Alt-04 reality before she died, and Miles realized it too).
Could Jack be having these lapses because he was the one that thought of and carried out the intervention in the first place, and wasn't supposed to? Thus his essense in that reality can't seem to understand why another reality exists?
But it's so fitting that Jacob is trying to protect Jack and that the two prominent figures of good and evil are represented in Jack and Locke. In the past their duel between one another existed as a battle between science (logic) and philosophy (mysticism), so appropriately enough Locke (now the evil one) is going against Jacob's golden boy Jack (the good guy; as he was from the pilot episode). That also brings the characters completely 180 degrees with Jack now wanting to go and remain on the island, and UnLocke wanting to go home. A complete role reversal, except Jack is being prepared as the salvation of those on the island (or even the island itself).
However, just as I feel the Earth will intervene on it's own if it feels the inhabitants don't have the best interests of themselves or the planet in mind, so too will this island. I believe the island is just as much a living, breathing entity that will make sure the right side wins. The only question is, which side is the island on?
As far as "alternate" or "parallel"--they're the same freakin thing, so get over it! Have you learned by now that Lindelof and company love playing with people's heads as it pertains to Lost? No need scoffing over wordage. The truth is, the realities are probably mirror realities, like in Star Trek. Same reality, just different choices leading to different outcomes, but ultimately the same eventual fate. They mutually coexist, just barely occupying the same space and time. Maybe what's coming is the convergence of the realities? That would just be awesome!
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