Theory Thursday: Volume 3

On this week's edition of "Theory Thursday," I want to go back to a pair of people we've not seen for a long time on the show. A couple that may have been forgotten by a lot of you. Heck, a couple that even the show seems to have forgotten about. But a couple that might provide a clue as to the overall arc of the final forty-eight episodes of Lost.

No, I'm not talking about Bernard and Rose. I'm talking about Adam and Eve.

You remember them, right? That righteously rotting pair found by Jack Shepard in the show's fifth overall episode, "White Rabbit." Adam and Eve have been dead roughly forty or fifty years, a number derived from the deterioration of their clothing. On them were a sack containing one black rock and one white rock. Jack pockets the rocks, but keeps mum about their existence. And that, friends, is all we know about Adam and Eve.

That is, of course, until Damon Lindelof, Lost producer, gave the following response to a fan question in Entertainment Weekly. The question was, "What is the meaning or significance of the two skeletons that Jack and Kate found in the cave of season 1?" And Lindelof's answer?

LINDELOF: There were certain things we knew from the very beginning. Independent of ever knowing when the end was going to be, we knew what it was going to be, and we wanted to start setting it up as early as season 1, or else people would think that we were making it up as we were going along. So the skeletons are the living - or, I guess, slowly decomposing - proof of that. When all is said and done, people are going to point to the skeletons and say, ''That is proof that from the very beginning, they always knew that they were going to do this.''

Well, then. Looks like we've got some detective work to do, young Lost squires! I've come up with three possible pairings for Adam and Eve, under the assumption that these are people we've already met in some fashion. Adam and Eve may well turn out to be other couples than the ones listed below, with the absolute exception of Nikki and Paolo. If I find out at the end of Season 6 that Nikki and Paolo were part of a six-year plot point, I may have to find some associated with the production of Lost and slap them across the face.

Now, you might say, "How can people we know on the show be corpses dating 40-50 years?" Excellent question, glad you brought it up. I'm basing the seeming paradox on a phrase uttered in the infamous Room 23 orientation tape: "Only fools are enslaved by time and space." We've all seen with Desmond's flashes that time doesn't necessarily work in a linear structure on the Island, and there's nothing to suggestion that time itself works the same on the Island as off. Therefore, there's a possibility that these bodies are people we've already met, who have somehow become "unstuck," to steal a word from Vonnuget's Slaughterhouse-Five, and ended up in the cave, destined to be found in what we know as the Fall of 2004 by Jack Shepard.

Now that you're completely confused, on with the potential three couples!

Couple #1: Ben and Annie

How This Could Be True

I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll soon learn that nearly everything Ben is trying to accomplish on the Island revolves in some way around Annie, the young girl who befriended him as a boy on the Island. I'll even go so far as to say that the entire reason Juliet's recruited on the Island is due to the fact that Annie died in childbirth: the failed first attempt by Ben to forge a new society on the Island. Annie was the sole member of the Dharma Initiative that Ben saved during The Purge, the one person with whom he felt an actual connection, and suffered horribly in the aftermath of her death.

Furthering my theory is this bit of etymological insight, courtesy of Lostpedia:

Annie is a variant of Ann and Hannah, which are of Hebrew origin, meaning "favored grace." Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel. After her marriage Hannah initially seemed to be barren. Later, she asked God to bless her with a child, and her prayer was answered.

Ben's been looking for his own prayer to be answered for years, and with the advent of a spinal tumor, it looked as if his time was running out. Substitute "Jacob" for "God" and one can understand just why Ben does such horrible things, and why he is so threatened by John Locke's communion with the Island. If indeed only fools are enslaved by time and space, Ben could be considered a free man, as he is no fool. He may eventually have to come to terms with the fact that the only way he can be with Annie is in death, and made sure that he shared the same last space as her.

How This Could Be Dead Wrong

It would be strange indeed to feature such a character as the center of this mythology. While his love story with Annie may be as tragic as I've painted above, there's nothing about the cave that speaks to Island mythology (something Ben would be keen to honor). The cave has basically been abandoned since last in Season 1, and holds no particular relationship with Ben.

In addition, there is as of yet no proof Ben can "flash" like Desmond, making his escape through time and space with Annie highly implausible at this point. Still, I like this theory, as Annie may be the only touchstone to true humanity that Ben has left.

Couple #2: Desmond and Penelope

How This Could Be True

Well, if anyone could end up decades in the past, it's Desmond.

I wonder if, when all is said and done, the main story of Lost will be that of an incredibly odd series of events happening as two people simply try to get back to each other, with the very name Penelope suggesting that Desmond is a modern-day Odysseus, laboring to get back to the woman he loves and seemingly every possible obstacle is thrown in his way.

Throw in the fact that Desmond changed the "rules" on the island when he turned the key to the fail-safe and unleashed a purple sky over the Island, and you have a possibility where the only way things can return to "normal" is if he's never there to push the button in the first place. For that to happen, however, there would need to never be an "incident." And for that to happen, well, the Dharma Initiative would have to be preemptively stopped. And for that to happen, Desmond would have to predate their arrival.

The rules would be this: he could help avoid the catastrophe to come, but he could never leave the Island. As such, Penelope would come and live on the Island with him, and live out their days in what is to us the past, but for them ever the present.

How This Could Be Dead Wrong

Desmond and Penelope might be THE love story when all is said and done on this show, but they primarily serve as narrative pieces on the way towards what will happen in Season 4: the Takeover of the Island. I firmly believe Penelope's father Charles placed Desmond on the Island as a way to infiltrate The Others, who had taken over the Island in the wake of The Purge from the Hanso Foundation, with whom Charles works.

As such, they are important to the show, but probably not the two people Jack ran into in the caves. Which leads me to my final couple.

Couple #3: Jack and Kate

How This Could Be True

Jack and Kate, according the show, are the two main protagonists. Sawyer's the Han Solo type: very cool, very important, but still ultimately not the center of the story. Ben and/or Locke will serve as the ultimate Darth Vader of the story, Jacob will be Yoda/Darth Sidious, Hurley will be Chewbacca, but Jack and Kate will be the Luke and Leia, only not actually related, thank God for that.

These two are also the ones who have to "go back" and fix whatever went wrong after Jack radioed for help after beating the living snot out of Ben Linus. Now, we all assume he meant "go back to the Island," but what if he also meant going back in time? Remember, what we see of Jack Shepard is a man who learned the majority of the Island's secrets, knows about Smokey, knows about The Others' obsession with children, and knows what happened to Walt and Michael. We the audience do not. So let's assume for a minute that Jack learned that time is like a big ol' bendy straw, and is using his Golden Pass to try and someone slip back not only onto the Island, but a particular point in the past on the Island? And what if he's figured out that the only way back is with Kate, herself integral to what went wrong?

Also, remember those rocks: Jack took them off of Adam and Eve, which means it's likely he still has them, which means, in essence, that Jack took the rocks from his own stinking, rotting corpse. Welcome to the Island, Jack!

For everything else to be set right, a sacrifice must be made. A sacrifice to the Island. And for their sins, and for what they did to help get them "rescued" from the Island, Jack and Kate have to be that sacrifice.

How This Could Be Dead Wrong

The whole "he is the only one who could have taken the rocks from himself" is a little too convenient of a logical argument, I understand. Achieving time travel may be too much for Jack, who time and time again takes the simplest of tasks and messes them up. Many of you Jack and Kate haters hate this explanation. Many of you have a hard time believing that the planned end for this show's major characters is death.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm not a huge fan of this idea, but the idea of redemption is so strong on this show that it overpowers the doomed romanticism of the first two options. But just because I don't like the idea as much as the other two doesn't mean I don't find this the most plausible theory at this time.

But what do my opinions matter, right? It's time for yours. Tell me what you think about these ideas, and posit some of your own below!

Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude.