'Six in Six': How the time reboot might work in the final season of 'Lost'
It's "Six in Six" Week here at the "Lost" blog. We haven't revisited this series in a while, having been distracted by DVD releases and the nearly two-week look at fate versus free will in the show. Now, did I MEAN to spend two weeks writing about it, or was it my DESTINY? I ask, you decide.
In any case, as a refresher: the "Six in Six" series is all about looking ahead at the final season of "Lost." Each time out, I pick a specific topic and list six ways in which said topic might play out in Season 6. Ergo, "Six in Six." I know. Clever. If you want to see past topics in the series, visit the "Six in Six" page to see all past entries. Today, we're going to look at possibly the biggest question going into the final set of episodes: did Juliet manage to change the past by detonating Jughead?
If you'll remember my recap of last summer's Comic-Con panel, the producers showed a few videos that heavily hinted that Faraday's plan actually worked. Go back and read the whole recap, or just rewatch the following videos.
Pretty provocative stuff. Now, I'm not here to argue for or against a time reboot/alternative history/historical do-over in "Lost." At the very least, we have to come to grips with the fact that the producers are going to deal with these topics in some way, shape or form come February 2010. What's left is not to debate IF they will do it, but HOW they will do it. Luckily, for you, I have six ways in which they might do it. Come Season 6, we'll probably see one or more of the following happen onscreen.
We follow the lives of the Lostaways after Oceanic 815 lands safely.
If you know the title of the first episode of Season 6 (click here if you want to know), then you know this is a possibility. But even if you don't know the title, you know that Faraday convinced Jack to carry out his plan to detonate Jughead by painting a picture of the future in which Oceanic 815 reaches Los Angeles safely. We might see Sayid meet Nadia, Edward Mars escorting Kate to prison, Sun fleeing her husband, Claire meeting the "good people" awaiting the arrival of Aaron. So on and so forth.
Those that land are haunted by the past that no longer happened.
Suppose they all land. Maybe they are happy for a while. Or maybe, from the moment they land, they realize something's...off. Sort of like a splinter in their brain. Maybe ghosts from History That Is No More beckon them to rectify the mistake that was made. Maybe they find themselves mysteriously drawn to the strangers on Oceanic 815. Or maybe a miraculously unique individual works to get the band back, brutha.
We learn the new history of the Island post-1977.
In this formulation, The Incident in "The Incident" was actually different than the one alluded to on the orientation tape for The Swan seen by everyone in Season 2. The butterfly effect that started from the day Jack and Co. stormed the Swan build site led to the Island as Ajira 316 experienced it. The new timeline not only causes slight changes to Dharmaville as we know it, helps explain the mysterious fact that Richard Alpert claims to have seen Jack and Co. die in the past, but also in fact might be the very loophole that The Man in Black has been looking for all along.
Using the alternative timeline instead of flashbacks/flashforwards.
From Day One, "Lost" has asked us to imagine why these people were called to this Island. Throughout the show's history, various characters have asked others why they are so anxious to get back to life off the Island, a life that held either little promise or great heartbreak. A glimpse into various "what if" scenarios could function in lieu of the traditional flashback/flashforward structure, in which characters either experience what life would have been like or we as audience members have sole insight into that alternative.
We return to the crash on September 22, 2004, but with a twist.
There are many dirty words in the "Lost" universe. "Paolo." "Nikki." "Bai Ling." To that list we can add "Via Domus," the video game that almost made me hate being a "Lost" fan. And while it's not in the show's canon, it nevertheless had a very provocative ending that might finally make sense in the wake of Season 5. In short: the game follows a photographer named Elliot that interacts with known "Lost" characters and iconography. All the while, in flashbacks, we learned that he caused the death of his friend Lisa in Australia before he boarded Oceanic 815. Elliot manages to secure a boat to leave the Island, but as he does so, the following happens.
Again, this isn't canon. (For one thing, the real John Locke doesn't sound like the villain from a Scooby-Doo cartoon.) But think about all the shots of people's eyes over the years, waking up suddenly to some form of seemingly new awareness. Has the show been giving us more than a simple narrative motif? After all, the tease for Season 6 right after "The Incident" ended with another close-up of an eye suddenly opening. Imagine a Jack Shephard with a chance not to land safely at LAX, but to right every wrong decision he made on the Island. How would things have played out, knowing what he knows now?
"Flashes Before Your Eyes, Part II: Electric Boogaloo."
A "dying" Jacob told his nemesis, "They're coming," just before being kicked into an eternal flame (of the non-Bangles variety). In this configuration, those at the Swan experience a lifetime of experiences in the moment of Jughead's detonation. We as an audience member won't realize this is what's going on for an episode or two or (God forbid) more, but in essence, the alternative history is what these people experience as the combination of hydrogen bomb, the Island's unique energy, and Jacob's touch allows them to flash to the present right after Jacob's "death." While flashing between times, they experience life as it could have been, and are forced to choose to come back to the Island.
Those are my six takes: which one seems likeliest to you?
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Photo credit: ABC
I must confess, i think you are right about everything from the alternate timeline to what may happen after the incident.
It will be pretty cool to see what would happen if flight 815 landed in LAX and also it would nice to see what happen with Ben and his cancer and Juliet and her affair.
The commercials obviously give us clues to an alternate timeline happening.
Now the videogame: I remeber watching a behind the scenes look at the video game on the season 3 dvd. since i have heard no one mention it since then i just assume then never went through with it.
Other than the fact that it was bad, were their any cool secrets revealed that have not been revealed on the show?
What we know of Cuse and Lindelof - I think they would weave in all six options and make it work.
All these scenarios sound mind-bendingly awesome. However, I don't think the Losties will experience the alternate timeline as memories or visions because, simply put, it feels like a cheat. It's that whole "Newhart" thing, where they ended one show pretending it was all the dream of his character on the previous show. Even if they shot the alternate timeline in a really interesting way, a la "Through the Looking Glass", the audience would still be basically tricked and lied to. Yes, we've been "tricked" before for a positive result, but I don't think it would be that case this time.
I'm putting my money on the Losties ACTUALLY going into an alternate timeline, but deep down due to physics or Jacob's touch, they know that this timeline is just wrong. And having Desmond being the catalyst for this realization would be a fantastic way to re-introduce him and his "specialness" back into the narrative. Heck, that could have been Faraday's plan all along; he knew Jughead could reset everything to solve a problem in the short-term but was relying on Desmond to follow through, solving the long-term problem.
I must confess, however, that this wouldn't explain how Alpert saw eveyone die in '79. It's interesting, though, that when Sun showed him the Dharma photo, he reacted like that was the last time he had seen those people; no single indication of remembering them from the period between Sept - Dec 2004.
I think based upon things we have seen the last five years that there is a time re-boot and only very small changes were taking place (for the most part). My favorite is when our favorite ghost buster Miles goes up the stairs and the picture frames are all wood and when he comes down they are all metal. Same with pictures of Alex behind Ben's desk from scene to scene where they keep changing.
I would really like to see you address those issues in a potential future column.
One other point is I think certain characters "remember" each iteration. Why Ben knew to have something up in the vent at hotel. Also (although in a deleted scene) he hid something in the old well in Tunisia.
G all of the above.
Fascinating stuff! I'm particularly intrigued by the "Electric Boogaloo" theory, not only because I don't recall having heard it before, but also because it's a way to briefly (I hope!) enjoy the "what might have happened" scenarios (as we have already so much enjoyed the Hurley Chicken commerical), without (hopefully) spending more than a episode of two of the precious few left in that timeline.
I'm assuming that it would take a lot of episodes to get to the point where everyone DECIDEs to come back to the island (because something "just doesn't seem right") -- even with "special" insight and assistance from Desmond -- whereas if they just automatically are deposited near the old man in the shoe at (ideally) the end of the first episode as the explosion ends, we can essentially have our cake (no alternative timeline for most of the season) while eating it (enjoying one wild-and-crazy initial episode) too.
That's my initial thought anyway. I need to ponder all this --including Other Sean and JNL's provactive thoughts above -- some more though...
Whatever the exact nature of the reboot, it's clear that this eventuality was always in play. The very first official Lost-related website (Season 1's oceanic-air.com)actually showed Flight 815 arriving at LAX on its tracking chart. (The current OAL iteration has 815 listed on 'Alert' status.) Be prepared for much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the 'Don't Forget That Darlton Gave Us Nikki, Paolo and Bai Ling" bloggers, however, if Matthew Fox's comments about the early Season 6 episodes confusing viewers are accurate. You may not like how the final season ultimately plays out, but I'm solidly in the camp of believing Darlton will deliver on the unspoken promises contained in this most complex of all dramas in television history.
Among the possibilities Ryan set forth, I don't believe we'll be exposed to a series of "What If?" timelines unless they serve the greater story arc in a concrete manner. To quote J.H. ****: "Ad Hoc, Ad Loc and Quid Pro Quo; So little time, so much to know."
The answer could be something close to #4. You've gone on record as saying you don't want the "alt-Lost" to go on past an ep or two. I doubt we'll be that lucky, given all these hints. But there's one way that could work and not screw up the regular time line - probably the only way.
I think the cliffhanger to "LA X" will have all the 1977 Losties reappear on the island in 2007 - but we won't see how or why. So to answer that throughout the year, we'd get a S6 of "alt-backs" to explain their alternate history, and why they chose - and it would be a choice - to reject it and go back. It'd be like the first part of the 1977 plot, only with alt-universe flashbacks instead of pre-flight 316 ones.
Since that would serve as their "centric" eps, the rest of S6 would have regular flashbacks for characters who still need them, like Richard, Jacob/MIB, Ben, Illana, Widmore, etc. And that should fill in most of the eps until the big finale.