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Twitter'Lost': Island Living, Part 1
Well, I've been here all weekend at Lost HQ (better known as "my apartment"), crunching numbers and analyzing the results of my impromptu poll last week asking for your feedback. I needed to know how best to fill the weeks between "Meet Kevin Johnson" and "The Shape of Things to Come," the 9th and next episode, airing April 24th. So I offered up a few topics that we could look at over a week-long series, and you responded with your ideas. Turns out you're all burned out on time travel (not surprising), didn't much care about the Oceanic 6 or the Chopperrettes (more surprising), and I learned definitively that you did NOT want me to blog using only haikus in the interim weeks between episodes.
That latter point didn't stop my wife from dropping the following haiku this weekend:
It's all non-canon
Darlton P.O.'s me big time
Lock 'em in a hatch
Good stuff, but three week's worth of that? Might be a bit too much.
So, for the next three weeks, I'll be taking a topic per week, as picked by you, and using it as a springboard for that week's entries. Each Sunday, I'll announce that week's topic, give a short overview of things to be discussed, and then opening up the floor once again to you to post specific questions about the topic at hand, bring up important facts you feel need to be addressed, or just shout WAAAAAALT 'cuz it feels good.
I don't intend these long-form analyses to be cumbersome, academic endeavors: they are a chance, while we have one, to take stock of the large amount of information downloaded into our brains over the past eight episodes. While the topics over the next few weeks won't deal exclusively with Season 4, they nevertheless play an important part in what is shaping up to be the best season of Lost yet. And so, what better place to start with our weekly topics than the Island itself?
Coming in third on your wish list, The Island has shown many unique properties over the years. Unusual in both physical and psychological ways, the Island is a character unto itself, exerting its influence not only to those upon its topography, but far from it as well. Both "The Beginning of the End" and "Meet Kevin Johnson" strongly suggest that the Island's influence over those who leave is quite real, not merely some figment of guilty conscience.
Intertwined with the Island itself is the mysterious figure of Jacob, barely seen but constantly felt. His absence looms larger than most people's presences on this show, and the vacuum created by his absence since his appearance to Hurley has informed the majority of action (or inaction, truth be told) by Team Locke. His moving cabin, replete with relics of another time, holds the key to a great deal of the Island's mysteries. Uncovering that cabin (and the true identity of Jacob) may hold the key to every important mystery on Lost.
Over the next few days, I want to look at some, if not all, of the following topics:
- What is the relationship between the Island, Jacob, and the smoke monster? Is it symbiotic, or antagonistic?
- Was the Walt that appeared to Locke at the end of Season 3 sent by the Island or Jacob? If Jacob, why would he then hide from Locke over the course of the next few days?
- Did the Island/Jacob set in motion the chain of events leading to the crash of Oceanic 815, or merely take advantage of the people onboard to achieve a specific purpose?
- What is it about this place that has drawn so many disparate civilizations over the course of humanity? Is it merely a function of electromagnetic anomalies, or is there a psychological/spiritual element that draws those to its hard-to-reach shores?
- Assuming Jacob isn't a human manifestation of the Island's id, how did that man end up in a cabin asking John Locke to help him?
- What do/did Alvar Hanso, Charles/Karen Degroot, Benjamin Linus, and Charles Widmore see when they look at the Island?
These are just a few of the questions I hope to address over the next few days. I'll fuse those with what piques your particular interest and start something akin to The Others' Book Club, if you will. Only we need a snappier name than that. The Zap2It Zealots, maybe? Yea, you're right, too creeptastic.
Suggest a few names below, along with your comments, and we'll get this club named sooner than you can say "grenade sandwich." Bonus points to anyone who drops a haiku.
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude.
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Zap2it Twitter Talk 
Locke likes a sandwich.
Grenades are the yummiest!
Miles needs clean shorts.
book club name:
the Scoobies
i know it's already been used, but it's just so freakin' appropriate.
I say we call it "Disaster Relief" -> as in the time without new Lost eps are a disaster and this column is a relief - sort of like our version of a bomb shelter.
My question is just really an opinion by readers to find out what is/was more surprising to them:
1) Ben's reaction to finding out that Jacob spoke to Locke; or
2) The fact that Hurley was the character that was chosen to be able to see the moving cabin and at the same time hiding itself from Locke.
I choose #2 - by a hair - b/c it was so soon after Jacob spoke to Locke and Locke was looking for said cabin. It really made me wonder why the cabin was hiding from Locke.
argh - I wrote too much (i.e. mri got the 1st post in) ;)
Some of the key elements of the Island mystery (for me, anyway), are questions that probably won't be answered until the final season.
I want to know:
- How old is the Island? Was there a civilization that predated Dharma and even the Black Rock? This is hinted at by the 4-toed statue, which is a mystery unto itself.
- Is Jacob a manifestation of the Island or his own entity? If the latter, which civilization was he a part of before becoming the Others' god?
- Who are the Alpert faction of the Others, and how long have they been on the Island?
Anyway, how about the Knights of New Otherton? The South Pacific Social Club? Commitee for Obama/Abbadon '08?
There is so much going on in the show to fully digest everything that's happened this season. I just started re-watching the episodes of this year and wonder what I may have missed that could help shed some light on earlier revelations.
I don't think more information on Jacob will lead to a better understanding of the island. I had thought that before about "the hatch" from earlier seasons and look how much we learned from that. It can't be that simple.
My original theory is that Jacob will tie in a mental illness approach to all of his visitors. But that is just too simple a connection for this show. Any other thoughts about Jacob?
sorry rishi, guess i'm just quick with the haiku!! :-)
The medical-related aspects of the island are pretty odd:
Locke and Rose are healed (but not Ben)
Pregnant women die
And there's that whole "sickness" thing
Is there a correlation among those things? Or is the sickness some sort of defense mechanism like the smoke monster?
I don't know, Ryan. I'm in television advertising and the best I could come up with was the Lost2It Bookies.
Or we could call ourselves The Long LOST Zappers.
With all the mysteries that come with this show, I'm still hung up on why Jack refers to his father in a living (but drunk) presence in Jack's flash forward at the end of season 3. I just can't get my head wrapped around this. Given the fact that I can't believe it was drunken rambling by Jack (way too easy of an out for such a complicated show), the simplest explanation would be that Jack's father is still alive. The how and why should make for a very interesting episode. All other explainations would be either supernatural or science fiction. I'm just so damn curious on how this particular mystery is going to get answered.
Sorry, I know this is sort of off topic but while we have this month break I thought I would throw that out there in the hopes it could get included in some of the upcoming mystery topics discussion.