In Case You Missed It: Single Email Explanation

My friend Robyn asked me to explain the show in a single email, so here is my attempt:

Our interest in the Island begins in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The Island is always moving and at one point in about 2,000 B.C. it was off the coast of Egypt and lots of people, seeing it, boated to the island. It soon moved again so they were stuck there. The people created a civilization. Already on the island was a magical woman guarding a well of light. She had been assigned the post by a supernatural being after the creation of the Earth. The well of light is contained with a cork. Dislodging the cork or interrupting the light in any way may cause some people to shift in time and may also transport one to Tunisia. In the same way, detonating a hydrogen bomb in proximity to the light may cause unexpected effects in time and space and is not recommended. When the people arrive from Egypt, the woman intercepts a pregnant woman and kills her and steals her twins and raises them as her own. She tasks one of them with guarding the light and never letting the cork be pulled -- Jacob -- and the other is thrown into the light and the supernatural being transforms him into the smoke monster. The woman, and then Jacob, routinely kill all island invaders and inhabitants in order to keep the light safe. The only exception is the "candidates," who are nurtured by Jacob to take over for him, as he feels threatened by the smoke monster. The island's dead go to a purgatory, which is a world where the island is not active (it is sunk) and they can work out their issues without supernatural interference before going to heaven. Sometimes the dead are not allowed to leave the island and stay on as whispers. Before 1970, all of the island's inhabitants were Egyptian descendants or shipwreck survivors. With improvements in science and technology, word of the island and its magical nature became known off-island and scientists from Minnesota set up shop there and began doing experiments. They called this project the Dharma Initiative. Jacob gave orders to his followers to have them exterminated, as his mother had done to island people before them. As of 2007, the new protector of the light was Hurley. Jack had gone on to heaven, while others like Michael remained on the island as whispers. It is likely more people will find the island and attempt to exploit it and Hurley will ask his #2, Ben, to kill them. Until he's ready to retire, he will sit on a rock, paint pictures, talk to dead people, and eat Dharma ranch dressing that is dropped from the sky by the supernatural being.

The Losties 'R Good Enuff For Me

Tuesday's episode (5/18/10) sealed the deal for me. Lost is now The Goonies.

The creators have obviously set up a situation where Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley (Mikey, Andy, Mouth, Chunk) must battle the ferocious Fratellis and their smoke monster (Sloth).

With Miles as Data, they will use Pinchers of Peril, Slick Shoes and other homemade tricks to defeat Smokey. But in the end, Hurley will offer Smokey an Apollo Bar and they will become best friends, and Smokey will end up saving them from a deteriorating Black Rock they are sailing off the island in (because the sub and plane both exploded).

I'm sure any questions about Lost can now be answered by reviewing the Goonies plot. What is the Black Rock? A treasure ship captained by Alvar Hanso (One-Eyed Willy). How do you escape the island? The wishing well (have a football player bring you up in a bucket or turn the frozen donkey wheel).

In the Sunday finale, I'm confident the Losties will sail the Black Rock off the island and save the Goondocks.

And the Baby Momma Is ...

I couldn't be more embarrassed that it took me all of a week to think of this as it is so completely obvious. Penny is Jack's baby momma! Who do we know that runs a tour de stade? Jack!

Picture this: 1989. Penny and Jack are married and she's just given birth to a son. He's like, "I have an idea for how you can drop this baby weight. I like to run up and down all the stadium stairs behind the hospital. So why don't you bring me dinner (have a lettuce leaf yourself) and then go run the stairs." And she's all, "Bullocks to that. Why don't you go take some more pills!" And they split up. But then she's back in the dating world and ends up taking his advice about the stadium stairs. And she's been rockin' those stairs for the last 15 years.

Which would make David Shephard Widmore's grandson and heir-apparent to the Widmore empire. It would also make Widmore Jack's ex-father-in-law. I love that!

Another clue: David Shepard plays Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor by Frédéric Chopin -- the same song Daniel played in his flashback. In the flash-sideways Daniel is a musician. He lives in the same city as his half-sister. He could have easily taught his nephew this piece.

Desmond Is Destiny's Bitch

So here I was thinking Ilana was the one to watch when sneaking up out of the corner of my eye was old lady Hawking. Eloise the Rat.

This is almost a guest post in that my trusty barista at Cafe Bella generously gave me the scoop (as my eyes popped out of my head in amazement).

Eloise Hawking -- since shooting her son on the island while she was pregnant with him (only on Lost, right?) -- has been plotting, planning and scheming to stop that event from happening. Here's what she's got to work with in this equation:

The Island. She was leader of the Others and in Richard's confidence, so I'm thinking she knows everything he knows. But then again, Ben was leader and didn't seem to know jack about the smoke monster even though Richard did. But Richard never did really like him. Maybe Rich got more tight-lipped with leaders after getting burned by Eloise. On the Island (which still doesn't have a name ARGH!), she's got magnetism, a healing-water pool, two powerful gods fighting it out, and all the mangoes you can eat.

Charles Widmore. The variable. Maybe she loves him, but he's just a pawn in her game. Now she's sent him back to the island by packing his ears full of lies about the end of the world. She really just wants to solidify the existence of the flash-sideways world and stop it from course-correcting -- which it is doing rapidly with Desmond's unwelcome help.

Desmond. The constant. We don't know when she found out but at some point, Eloise got wise to Desmond's unique ability to change the future. She's been on him like white on rice ever since. She appears in photos he looks at, drags him into parallel dimensions, the works. Now she's got her husband kidnapping him; it's no longer just subtle manipulation.

The Dharma Initiative. Eloise ran the Lamppost station for several years, so I'm starting to think she may be behind the Dharma Initiative, as a silent partner to Widmore. She created the D.I. to investigate the Island's properties and see what she can use to get her son back. She personally flies over the Island (sans chopper) each month and drops the D.I. food crates.

So where does Ilana come in? Well I'm getting to that. So Ilana is no demi-god like Eloise (or an alien). She can't shift through time and space and alternate realities. She is just a humble servant to Jacob. But humble servants have taken down demi-gods before. My prediction: Eloise gets frustrated watching her husband botch the job she sent him to do on the Island. She trashes the Lamppost and then flies to the Island atop a tub of Dharma ranch dressing yelling, "If you want something done you've gotta do it yourself!"

Ilana is there to greet her. And what we thought was a mono-a-mono e.g. Ben-Widmore/Jacob-ManInBlack turns out to be womano-a-womano. Judging by the state of Ilana's face the first time we saw her, she's a scrapper. But Eloise does drop scaffolding on people without remorse. It will be a close one!

Lost: Uncorked

We now have all the answers we need to figure out the secrets of Lost, thanks to the last phenomenal episode, "Ab Aeterno." It's all about wine. And who is our island wine expert? Desmond, of course (Oh He of the exposed chest hair)!

Desmond was a monk at the Moriah Vineyards; Moriah being the name of a biblical mountain in Jerusalem. That's important because lately the show has been all about bored gods on a mountaintop. I'm talking specifically about Jacob. He explains to us that the island is a cork that holds an evil wine (maybe an alcohol-heavy blend from Argentina). We don't yet know how an evil wine might pop its cork, but an even-money bet would be: by killing Jacob. So why then, if this would allow the evil to escape, would Jacob ever bring people to the island who might kill him? That would make him a pretty crappy guardian.

Jacob says it's to prove a point to the man-in-black. To prove to him that man is good and can change. But what happens if he makes his point? Man-in-black turns into a happy wine? Doubtful. This isn't the reason. It's because immortality is just boring. Jacob needs people to play with. He brings them to the island to watch them struggle. It's him who needs the entertainment. Bringing people has the added bonus of tormenting his nemesis until he gets so mad he smashes bottles in the wilderness.

But now for the big answers. Sure we have a metaphor for the island, but still what is it? In an earlier post I said it was a machine. I stand by this prediction. It's a machine built by Egyptians and run by magnets. When the Dharma Initiative drilled into the magnet and caused an explosion, they risked releasing the man-in-black. They then had to build the Swan station to continually build up the magnetism and retain the island's original properties. I'm thinking after the explosion in Season 5, Marvin Candle picked up the remnants of his arm and then had a visit from Jacob who told him he had popped the cork and needed to plug it back up again, which Candle did.

But now the cork is again comprised. We have no Jacob. Ilana is feckless in installing a replacement. The man-in-black has already begun his march off the island. Desmond better show up tonight and put a cork in this thing already.

O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect.

Last week I attended Two Gentlemen of Verona at Seattle Shakespeare Company. In the beginning of the play, Proteus is madly in love with Julia. His friend Valentine (the other gentleman) leaves Verona and asks Proteus to join, but Proteus won't leave Julia. He's too in love. But then Proteus' father demands he leave and join Valentine. He cries and carries on. He gives Julia a ring (in this version he had to first extract it from his own nipple) and vows to love her eternally; she gives him a ring. He arrives in Milan and reunites with Valentine, who introduces Proteus to his own new love, Silvia. Proteus instantly falls in love with Silvia and schemes to separate she and Valentine. Both Julia and Silvia are stunned at Proteus' inconstancy.

Here is where Lost comes in. Watching this week's episode, Recon, I was struck by how much Sawyer is like Proteus. He is madly in love with Juliet (Shakespeare!) and has a ring he meant to give her. She dies and he wails and cries on the beach and wipes his salty tears on Kate's sleeve. The next day this is forgotton and he's all "How YOU doin'" to Kate on the beach. And in the flash sideways he's knockin' boots with not one, but two other women.

Sure, it's not 100% fair to condemn him for violating Juliet's memory in a flash-sideways. But his undercover name was "LeFleur" so he still has loyalties to some memories/impressions from other timelines.

Now I was never a big Juliet fan myself, and I realize that in this very column I begged for her death, but for Sawyer to completely forget her in a couple episodes is just harsh. Just like Proteus would not leave Verona because of Julia, Sawyer would not leave the island because of Juliet. And now she's long forgotten and he's ready to go down ... in the sub ... with Kate.

I never believed Sawyer really loved Juliet -- and neither did Juliet for that matter. This episode was the proof. Juliet, had you read "He's Just Not That Into You" you might still be alive today.

Choose Your Own Adventure

It's clear to me that Lost has turned into a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The real question is who is doing the choosing?

That question is not as important as the choices being set up.

When the Man In Black managed to kill Jacob, he didn't just kill him. He created a parallel reality where Jacob never existed. My crackpot theory of the day: The flash-sideways views are a world without Jacob.

In the world with Jacob, Sayid marries Nadia and it's clear Jacob assists in Nadia being hit by a car and dying. Without him there, Sayid probably would have been killed. I'm certain Jacob had a hand in something similar with the mother of Jack's newly introduced son. In a world with Jacob, she probably died before meeting Jack. In a world without Jacob, she meets Jack and they have a son. Though Jack still probably becomes a drunk who's addicted to pills and she leaves him. Jacob can't change one's true nature.

Now we have Man In Black leading the surviving others somewhere. I am certain he is going to give them a glimpse into their lives sans-Jacob. Then they will have an opportunity to choose. Which looks better to you? Your life with Jacob's interference or without? Choose your own adventure ...

That Is One Scary European History Teacher

It was clear to me in the last episode that the off-island flash sideways glimpses were all different timelines. The John Locke sitting in bathtub did not just come from meeting Hurley. The John Locke in the teacher's lounge did not just come from meeting Rose. Each time we see Locke, we have followed an increasingly different parallel reality.

I predict, in the next episode, for no apparent reason, Locke will be walking and Helen will be gone. The shifts may even be happening in the same scenes. Like when Locke falls out of his fan onto the lawn. If Helen was inside, wouldn't he have shouted for her? Until he fell, she wasn't inside. He may be constantly shifting from reality to reality, with things changing every minute. But he is obviously not aware of this.

If that's what is happening off-island, that must be what's happening on-island. Sayid is magically alive again not because he was saved by the healing pool, but because everyone has shifted to a timeline where he wasn't drowned. This is why Juliet would say "it worked." At the moment of her death she became aware she was in another reality. They all are. Sawyer is at the same time burying Juliet and in an elevator with Kate. Only Juliet was aware of this for a split-second.

And Ben! A history teacher. Because his father was not recruited by the Dharma Initiative; because the island is at the bottom of the ocean. And Ethan - almost delivering Claire's baby (again). Of course, Kate will actually deliver it (again).

Could it be that in his death, Jacob was able to run scenario after scenario until he changed the variables enough to get what he wants? What is that he wants?

Ilana: Finally, A Rescue Leader Worse Than Naomi

A persistent question for me this season has been: Why did Jacob get Ilana to protect him? She really could not have done a worse job.

Instead of rushing to Jacob's side once she reaches the island, she instead hikes out to his summer cabin and torches it. Fat lot of good that did. Then she makes a slow march carrying a heavy body - finally - to Jacob's house under the foot. Even Ben has to ask her, "why did you bring this?" Her answer is feeble. She could have been there a lot faster not carrying heavy old Locke.

Not to mention she KNOWS the rule about burying people so the man-in-black cannot body-snatch them. But when Ajira crashes on the island, does she bury Locke? Nope. She leaves him out the open and then figures "he must have been snatched by now. Let's bring him to show people."

I'm also wondering why she had Sayid in handcuffs? Was it because she somehow knew he would be infected by the man-in-black and be a danger to Jacob? But she screwed that up too and loses Sayid before Ajira even landed.

Thankfully for her Jacob has turned the other cheek to her ineptitude and decided to visit Hurley in the afterlife. But I think he should also pay her a visit to give her a quick slap in the face and demerit badge.

Cave paintings & Frenchies

I read a post today that asked, "Why can't the person with all the answers on Lost be the loquacious, blathering type?" So true. Instead, they are always the "you won't understand this so I'll use a lot of metaphor and only hint at the truth."

So far we've gotten no answers from Ben, Richard, Christian Shepherd, Eloise Hawking, Elana, Jacob and now Flocke is cagey and difficult. He's also a liar.

New theory: Flocke (or Esau or man-in-black) is the inhabitant of the damp cave that Sawyer barely made it into on Tuesday. I bet Jacob never set foot in this cave. Why would Jacob write numbers on the roof of this cave, and then leave the cave and go to his own cave under the four-toed statue, and then give lists of names to Richard from there? I don't see Jacob doing a lot of hiking and caveing on the island. Especially since he's not the one that can travel fast as a puff of smoke.

So Flocke lives in this cave. The scales are his. The numbers and names are his. He and Jacob battled for control over these people. Flocke wanted control to get his loophole. Now he wants control for some additional reason. He gets control two ways: 1) recruitment, 2) infection.

Also, anytime I hear anything about things written on cave walls, I think of the Lascaux cave paintings in France. 22,000 years old. So maybe an Egyptian connection is not going back far enough. Rousseau will not be the only Frenchy involved in this 22,000-year conspiracy. I should have known it always comes back to the French.

Faraday's Homemade Particle Accelerator

What a premiere for Lost: The Final Season! Sure, the character stuff was good and Jack and Kate looked good, but I've spent the last few days -- make that the last year -- pondering one question: Why did Faraday direct the Losties to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the source of an electromagnetic incident?

My freshest super-fringe theory: Because Faraday intended to create a black hole.

The newly built Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator -- is fueled by none other than superconducting magnets (1,600 of them). To drop an H-Bomb into a naturally occurring superconducting magnet could mimic the conditions within the LHC. One of the worries when the LHC was built was that mankind might accidentally create tiny black holes that would suck up the planet (and you thought GMO corn was dangerous). This is exactly what Faraday did.

In this case, each black hole was filled with a copy of the universe circa 1977. Specifically, the moment when the screen went white at the end of season five. Each copy exists in its own dimension and progressed in its own way. So far we've been shown inside only two of these possible universes, but I belive we will see more.

Now we need a hero who can span dimensions and sew the threads of the fragmented universe back together: Enter Desmond.

How to Become an Other

The last few episodes of season five have thrown a log or two on the Jack loves Kate fire. Only it's been Kate doing most of the lovin'. First she told him, "I've always been with you, Jack," which gave me serious goosebumps, then she broke into his house and threw herself at him -- with a much better response than I've ever gotten from that move. For the most part, Jaters should be smiling like they've got a hanger stuck in their mouth.

So what's got me down? Well, I'm stuck on what separates an Other from anyone else, i.e. Dharma Initiative Workman, plane crash victim, etc. Approaching this problem from the stance of "what separates an American from everyone else?" I arrived at a few possibilities:

1) You are born unto one or more real Others. They train you in Other ways of non-caring about the wellbeing of those who are not Others (Ben's "who cares" on the return trip killed me!). They teach you to speak Latin and you get an elective of Korean, Portugese or French.

2) You are brought into the fold by Others because you have something they need. The transformation process from human to Other is lengthy. First, Smokey pays you a visit and decides if you are good or bad. If bad, he rips off your arm or kills all of you. If good, proceed to step two. Second, you are housed in a confined area (bear cage or barracks) and set up with an impossible number of appointments with a psychiatrist. The shrink answers all your questions with a question until you stop questioning and become an Other. If that doesn't work, then step three: You alternately take tests/solve puzzles (in a bear cage or fishing hut) and are forced to watch disturbing videos.

Some folks who fell into category two:
* Oceanic flight attendant (they did a number on her! She couldn't even remember she wasn't always an Other)
* Carl (who may be category one, but required reprogramming)
* Walt
* Jack, Kate, Sawyer
* Juliet

Here's what I'm wondering -- are Ben's Others different from Richard Alpert's "proto"- Others? Alpert didn't have access to the audio-video equipment necessary for brainwashing new recruits. It's possible all Others were born until Ben created the baby-birthing problems I'm guessing in the 90s. Then Ben had to scramble to figure out how to expand their ranks. He asked Jacob and Jacob started to give him lists. Then Ben developed the naturalization program and Latin curriculum. The rest is history.

The Frozen Donkey Wheel: A History

Yesterday's episode, "This Place Is Death" brought back some very important props I'd like to discuss today: the smoke monster (yeah!) and the frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station.

I'll just say, it was more than a bit lame to explain the Losties' moving through time as "the wheel is off its axis." A few weeks ago, I said the time shifts were like pendulum movements back and forth, which was such an elegant thought. Now we find out they are just like eating at a rickety wagon-wheel table in a third-class Western-themed bbq place -- only with slightly less naseau.

But let's talk about the wheel for a moment. A horizontal wheel, to which is attached one or more beasts of burden, has been used around the globe for more than 2,000 years specifically to pull water up from underground wells. This device is called a "noria". Animals push the spokes and generate horizontal rotations that are transferred into vertical rotations through the gears, which brings up a chain of buckets from the well. Animals used in a noria are blindfolded because they can't stand the boring revolution walk.

In Dharma's case, they used polar bears to turn the noria. This worked until the wheel lit up and the polar bear disappeared, to be found later in Tunisia by Charlotte.

So I find it very interesting that this noria is at the bottom of a well. The wheel should be at the top of the well, carrying water out of it... Why would it be at the bottom? It must be because it is turning something that is in a well beneath it.

To explain this, I would like to mention again George Minkowski, who is named for German mathematician Herman Minkowski. In 1908, Herman Minkowski presented a paper which presented time as a "fourth dimension." If it is so, then it behaves like any other dimension: abiding by the rules of physics (in particular: bodies in motion stay in motion until acted on by force).

Just like the Earth rotating on its axis, time is a body in motion that moves along at a constant rate, according to Minkowski. But there's the kicker: the Earth does not rotate constantly. In fact, it wobbles, and it's slowing down every year. It's like an ice skater in a sit-spin, only with no wind resistance, it doesn't slow down except from the repositioning of objects on or in its surface. Two recent (in human history) events are said to have slowed the Earth's rotation: the damning of major water sources, and the movement of glaciers.

So if it's possible the Earth's rotation can be affected, then it is also possible time can be affected. What slows the Earth is force, but then what slows or speeds up time? What constitutes force in respect to time? You may have guessed it: magnetism.

Back to the frozen donkey wheel. It's attached to a long pole that goes deep in the earth and at the end has magnets, or something that generates electromagnetism (plutonium?). When it turns, it exerts force on time, making it slow or speed up. But then the question is how could it only affect some people on the island and not all of them? And how could the rest of the world not feel any time shifts? Because time is personal. H.G. Wells preempted Minkowski and Einstein in saying, "There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it."

Faraday's Not Going Back to the Future

Last night -- a night not unlike any other night -- I'm lying on my couch asking myself, "Why is Faraday working under the Orchid station in the 1970s?" This is THE question to answer this season, being one of the first mysteries thrown at us in season five. It will probably also be the LAST question the producers will answer.

Thankfully, you have me. And I have answers -- that I received while on said couch last night. To answer this quintessential question about Faraday, I'll start by showing you a very awesome blog post from one year ago today. Read it here. A year ago, this information was quirky. Now it paints a very revealing picture. Here it comes:

Faraday IS Radzinsky!

Sadly, all we've seen of Radzinsky -- the original inhabitant of the Swan station -- is the stain he left on the hatch ceiling. Convenient, because if we had seen him, he would have looked like a 45-year-old Daniel Faraday.

It seems to me like the season opening reveal -- Faraday working with the Dharma Initiative -- was to be Faraday's last jump through time. He could not return to the future because of the "incident" or because he fixed what was wrong with the space-time continuum and was stuck there.

We know "Radzinsky" filmed and cut the Swan station orientation film in 1980. And we've seen Faraday working with Pierre Chang to make a different film (the ComicCon film). The "incident" blows off Chang's arm and Faraday's who-knows-what. Then Faraday locks himself in the Swan and paints "Quarantine" on the inside of the hatch door to protect himself from radiation poisoning. He pushes the button (that he probably wrote the program for) every 108 minutes to save the world. That is up until Kelvin shows up. He shows Kelvin how to fake a lockdown, shows him the invisible map he has painted (from the notes in his journal), and then loses his will to live and offs himself -- if Kelvin was telling Desmond the truth.

Why wouldn't he have told Kelvin his name was Daniel Faraday? Same reason Pierre Chang started using fake names in the orientation films -- maybe to confuse other time travelers, or to hide his identity from those off-island who would search for him. So Faraday became Radzinsky. That's not a real leap for me.

The real puzzle is: Why does his mother, Ellie, have the SAME computer that is in the hatch? Did she help him write the numbers program after the incident? Like the program was installed on two computers and she took one off-island to continue the calculations? Ponder these questions, I will. But one thing is for sure: We will see Faraday descend into the Swan hatch and close the door that says "Quarantine." Then put on a record, open his journal, and start painting with invisible ink.

Ben: You Brought This On Yourself

Yes, I know everyone in the blog-o-sphere is abuzz after so many revelations in "Jughead," and I have discussed a few, but today I would like to turn your attention back to another mystery -- why pregnant women on the island die.

A big clue to this mystery was released in the Pierre Chang video shown at ComicCon 2008. If you haven't seen it, run don't walk, here. In the video, Pierre Chang, whom we have previously seen as Dr. Marvin Candle, is seen with his arm (in some of the orientation films it is missing) and with a baby crying in the background. So the Dharma hippies had no problems making love not war and carrying their babies to term as late as 1979.

Some have speculated that the h-bomb had something to do with women dying during pregnancy. I think not -- because, as I speculated in my last post, the h-bomb is buried in concrete deep under the Swan station, and has been since the 50s.

Why would the Dharma Initiative build a station directly over an h-bomb? I'm guessing they didn't know what it was, and just found a huge block of concrete with "unique electromagnetic fluctuations" and assumed it was one of the island's "mysterious properties" that needed studying. And it's probably this Mr. Magoo "what does this button do?" attitude of Dharma's that ticked off Richard Alpert's original Others and forced them to kill everyone (like they killed the army men who violated the island in '54). Even 24 years later, poor Jacob is so wounded by Dharma's experiments that he begs anyone who'll listen to "help me."

But I digress. Others (not those Others, I mean other bloggers) have speculated that "the incident" is what caused the pregnancy problems to manifest. I don't think so there either. The incident I'm placing at 1979-1980, and I believe it's the cause of Dr. Chang's lost arm (unless the arm just wandered off into the jungle and is living with Jacob, like Claire), and we know it's the reason the numbers had to be entered in the computer. Isn't that enough to follow from one incident. They wouldn't add pregnancy problems on top of all that.

So now for why we're here. The actual cause of the pregnancy problems. We know that things from people's past can manifest on the island -- like Kate's horse. I think not just important things, but also important events can manifest. Ben's mother dying in childbirth affected his life more than any other event. Kate is small time to the island, so her horse only manifests twice and shows itself to her and Sawyer. Ben, however, has spent most of his life on the island and is its leader and protector, so this important event for him manifests in every woman on the island. His big event keeps playing out over and over again.

Ben brought Juliet to the island to solve this problem -- but he was always the cause. To solve the problem, he would have to abdicate as leader. Which he finally did by turning the frozen donkey wheel and leaving forever. My guess is, women can have children again now that he's gone. But with Locke as leader, they will probably all have kidney failure.

H-Bombs Make My Fillings Hurt

This week's episode, "Jughead" really blew my mind hole. Talk about something for everyone! Especially for the Pesmond-shippers (aren't we all?). We may have found out one or more of the following:

• The poured concrete under the Swan station is an h-bomb


• Charles Widmore was an Other


• Faraday's mom is Hawkings, also an Other


• Faraday's father is Widmore


• The Others are the enlightened


• Richard Alpert answers to Jacob and is, in fact, impossibly old


• Richard visited Locke as an infant because Locke told him to


• Locke feels the Others/Hostiles are his "people" (he needs to learn Latin)


• Radiation has no effect on Desmond or his reproductive abilities

So, I'm thinking "the incident," which blew off Marvin Candle's arm, must have to do with the h-bomb buried in the Swan. I hope not, though, because we saw the bomb go off, and it didn't destroy the world -- it just blew off Desmond's clothes. (The shot Desmond took every 9 days must be to avoid radiation sickness.) I still want to believe Desmond was saving the world by entering those numbers!

Now for Widmore. I'm thinking he gets banished by the Others. His banishment means he no longer has eternal life; he will age and die. So he assists scientists in finding the island and creating the Dharma initiative, to exploit the island's restorative powers. Much like the Sona in Star Trek: Insurrection. (Not the first time Star Trek themes have been borrowed. In the commentary for "The Constant" the producers said they used the final episode of TNG as a template for Desmond's time-shifting).

But why do the rules not apply to Desmond, as Faraday says? Maybe he is Jacob's son?

Travel by Death

According to my last post, if the Oceanic Six do not return to the island inside of 70 hours, the Earth will stop turning. We have several parties who are in the know about this catastrophe and taking action to stop it. They are: Richard Alpert (via John Locke), Mrs. Hawkings (via Ben Linus), and possibly Daniel Faraday.

Faraday, unlike Alpert and Hawkings, has jumped into the fray because of the nosebleed effect and most likely does not know the world may end. The nosebleed effect being: If you have the bad fortune to get unstuck in time and do not have a constant, you brain will start bleeding out your nose until it scrambles and you die. Sad but true.

Now Alpert and Hawkings, who could be the same person, and who could (either of them) have four toes, know this goes way beyond brain-scrambling. Of course, we don't know how they know. I'd like to discuss Team A, Alpert-Locke, and their interaction at the crashed Nigerian plane, because I believe it has given us one major insight:

To escape the island, you have to die.

I think the converse is also true. To return to the island, you have to die. Here's the evidence. Jack's father decides to drink himself to death in Australia. He dies. He is able to return to the island and walk around with his body back.

Alpert tells Locke, to leave the island, he has to die.

Hurley's imaginary friend from the loony bin, Dave, tells Hurley that to be free he must jump off the cliff. That this is all an illusion and he needs to kill himself. Libby "saves" him at the last minute. Maybe Dave was right.

Coincidentally (or not) Locke, Hurley and Christian are among the few who have seen Jacob's cabin. It may be Jacob who facilitates this travel by death, but only for those who know him.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say the "purge" may have been an act of mercy by Ben and the hostiles, to free the Dharma Initiative workers from the island's grasp (and from inevitable death by nosebleed). This would explain why Ben persists in calling himself and his people "the good guys," and why I'm justified in believing that.

But what are the rules governing travel by death? Do you have to know and have seen Jacob? Is this why he knows his daughter is dead and not just transported. Are these the same "rules" Ben mentions to Widmore? We'll see.

The Pendulum Effect: Part II

The pendulum effect was first seen on Lost very early on, with Kate swinging between Jack and Sawyer. Now, in season five, the pendulum effect is no longer metaphorical. My latest theory: Those who remain on the island are literally swinging back and forth through time as if riding on a pendulum.

By turning the frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station, Ben has "unstuck" the island's inhabitants in time, a theme certainly borrowed from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Their first jump was to the past -- before their camp had been built and before the Nigerian plane had crashed. They hike to the hatch and experience another time shift -- now the hatch is long since blown up. Another shift -- the hatch is back. Another shift --the Nigerian plane is overgrown and resting on the Question Mark.

This is where we receive to the key to what is happening. Richard Alpert (he who doesn't age) says to John, "the next time we meet, I won't recognize you." Alpert knows they are on a pendulum, and that John's next jump will be to the past, before they've met. This also explains why they never go back to the time of the dinosaurs, or forward to an unrecognizable future. If they're traveling on a pendulum, it can only reach the same distance to the past as to the future. Each jump is equidistant from a centerpoint. The centerpoint, I believe, is when Desmond turned the fail-safe key and blew up the hatch. An action that unstuck only Desmond -- until that donkey wheel was turned and everyone became unstuck.

So, is the pendulum gaining momentum -- meaning each jump is further back in time and further forward in the future, or losing momentum? It's obviously losing momentum -- because Locke sees the Nigerian plane crash, then goes to the equidistant future and sees the plane resting on the cliff above him (an event not as far back in time as the plane crashing).

In the present, Mrs. Hawkings is furiously charting this effect in her secret laboratory beneath a Los Angeles church (with Tom Cruise keeping Ben company upstairs?). I'm certain she is charting when exactly that pendulum will come to rest. Turns out it's 70 hours from now. What happens then? The Earth stops turning on its axis and we all float off into space (well, technically, we would be thrown into the nearest wall at 1.5 times the speed of sound as our building tips off its foundation). More on that later.

Pendulums & Butchers

Wednesday night's two-hour premiere really knocked me into next week so I've got a lot to cover in this post.

First things first. We were hit over the head with some really obvious references throughout the second part of the season premiere two-parter. The first being Foucault's pendulum, visible in the last scene.

Designed by French physicist, Léon Foucault, the Foucault pendulum swings back and forth, drawing lines on the floor in a manner that allows you to see the rotation of the Earth. The experiment has different results if conducted at the poles or at the equator. In the episode we see Ms. Hawkings furiously doing equations on the chalkboard -- most likely because if you are in Los Angeles, and not at the South Pole, you need to do a lot of equations to find what you're looking for in the pendulum data. This may explain why Penny's team may have been looking for the island in a polar station.

The presence of the Foucault pendulum surely references Umberto Eco's (Mr. Eko?) book, "Il pendolo di Foucault." The book is a fictional account of three friends who invent a conspiracy (called "The Plan") for fun, but then begin to forget it's a game. One character, who has an unrequited love and constant sense of failure (John Locke anyone?), becomes obsessed with The Plan.

Is the island just "The Plan?" Certainly Ben's conversation with Widmore suggests they are playing a game. There are infinite references to chess and games. Unfortunately, some desperate people, like Locke, believe its real.

Or, the opposite could be true. Ben's conversation with Jill the butcher swings my pendulum the other way. If he has people -- probably in every city in the world -- with whom he can just drop off a body, no questions asked, he is definitely a higher-up in a real secret society. Jill is just one of potentially thousands of members of the "islanderati." This also would explain why Ms. Hawkings is doing her calculations in a robe in a hidden lair under a church -- if that doesn't say secret society, what does? But then who says you can't lead a secret society AND be playing an elaborate game? Enough for now.

Lost Wishes & Dreams

It's difficult to write with my hands all shaking in anticipation of season five, but I'm working through it to put together a list of my wishes and dreams for the new season. They are as follows:

1. Juliet dies. Please. Just please. I know she's from Bainbridge and is local and all, but if I have to look at her blank stare oozing out of my TV again this year ... so help me.

2. Ben's a good guy. If Widmore is the "big bad," then Ben MUST be the good guy (by default). I'm ready to whole-heartedly root for him in season five.

3. Jaters get thrown a bone. Because Juliet is now on the island drooling over Sawyer, Jaters will get a Jack-Kate exclusive romance with no other interested parties. Nice.

4. No more legal stuff. Kate's trial was about as realistic and believable as when Santa Claus went on trial in "Miracle on 34th Street." And I HATE seeing Kate in makeup. She just looks like another person.

5. More Dharma. Much more. I'll be specific: I would love to see a worker walk into the Dharma Division of General Mills, stick a Dharma label on a jar of peanut butter (or ranch dressing), then pile the jar on a pallet. He asks his supervisor, "Where does this stuff go?" The supervisor says, "Back to work, Bob. Hanso paid for 100 years of pallets in advance and then disappeared. Everyone knows that."

6. More Desmond. Much much more. But first, Penny's brain must be picked clean. Who is Charles Widmore? How much does she know? Of course, this won't happen. Everyone will sit silent on Penny's boat staring at the ocean, just like they did with Juliet on the beach. Asking nothing. Argh!

7. More Faraday. I love this guy. And he's the only one that tells us the truth! And Desmond is his constant - so he will keep Desmond on the show. And maybe he can get some answers out of Penny. In the Lost Experience, Alvar Hanso said the purpose of the Dharma Initiative was "to change the core values of the Valenzetti Equation." Faraday is really the only one who's up to the task.

8. Fewer questions, more answers. Would it really be so bad to give us some answers, J.J.? You never did on Alias. Well, I take that back. The big, red Rambaldi ball turned people into flesh-eating zombies. That's a head-scratcher. Even the answers are puzzles! Who would want an uncontrollable army of flesh-eating zombies? Search me. Maybe I don't want answers.

9. Sun turns evil. Ben finds out she has done a deal with Widmore, and he sends someone to kill her -- Sayid, perhaps. But it turns out Sun's piece on the side, Jae Lee, taught her more than just English. She is also a fighting master. She and Sayid battle to the death. Oh, and her baby is Michael's.

10. More underwater missions. My favorite Lost episode is the second episode of season four -- when a submersible finds Oceanic 815 (4-8-15 anyone?). I would even keep Juliet around if she found a second submarine and started scooting around the island in it, finding neat things at the bottom of the ocean, new Dharma stations, Charlie. Turns out before Ethan strung him up, he gave him an injection that allowed him to breathe underwater. Now he just needs to be rescued from the control room!