j.lowe : making and finding stuff

—WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS—

During the first half of tonight’s episode I found myself bored, going ‘this is silly’ or ‘come on – give me something good.’ The last couple episodes have been so good, I wanted more of the fast paced action. Of course everything has to slow down eventually. But no. I was tricked. Lulled into thinking things were slowing down, or that I was ahead of the show when BAM! they hit me over the head once again with the reveal of pilot Frank Lapidus (I felt a similar shock when a young Charles Widmore was revealed earlier this season).

Things that stuck out to me

*We open with Jack, Hurley and Kate arriving on the island, and at the end of the episode – return to this same scene. This isn’t an uncommon narrative device. But it stood out to me. Maybe the writers wanted to open with a bang and the best way to do that was, to show the ending first…then come back to it. But because things are never simple in LOST. I instantly thought about looping. Things running in a circular fashion. Are the writers/producers doing something subtle and saying ‘hey pay attention’ here? see how this is running in a circle?’ 

I also thought about how Jack wakes up at the start and end of this episode – identical to how he wakes up in the first season. Is there anything to this? How many times has Jack been to the island?

For fun I googled “time loop” and found this on Wikipedia:

This situation resembles the mythological punishment of Sisyphus, condemned to repeatedly push a stone uphill only to have it roll back down once he reached the top, and Prometheus, condemned to have his liver torn out and eaten by an eagle each morning. The plot is advanced, however, by having one or more central characters retain their memory or become aware of the loop through déjà vu.

I’m not saying I’m onto anything here.

I also googled “religions that deal with time looping” (I know that reincarnation plays into a lot of eastern religions and that elements of these religions have found their way into LOST episodes) and came across an Amazon.com customer book review of “Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors” which had a couple of things that popped out to me. (not saying this directly relates to the show – but I’ll put a couple of the things I found interesting in bold)

Boyer argues that the human mind has evolved in communities which have reinforced acceptance of supernatural entities. He incorporates Richard Dawkins’ “meme” concept to demonstrate how this process works. Ideas about the supernatural are communicated to others as experiences, warnings or even behaviour norms. Since so many facets of this acceptance relate to behavior of individuals within the community, the feedback loop reinforces his view of the evolutionary context. It isn’t the community itself which fosters the evolutionary persistence of belief, but individuals whose genetic tendency for belief were those who mated and bred, passing and strengthening that tendency. The memes aren’t absolutes, but like genes, may be modified over time and place. Again, like genes, accepted changes become adaptations, varying what the observer infers from the supernatural. Boyer’s analysis will remain a seminal work for some time. Provocative and challenging, it raises as many questions as it provides answers. 

The word ‘feedback loop’ stood out to me. I know, I’m just sort of on a random hunt here, but explore feeback a bit more  Click here.

Questions:

Ben had to tie up a loose end. Where did he go? And why did he later have blood on his face?

What happened to Aaron?

Ben needing to tie up a loose end makes me suspicious. 

But Kate would have freaked out when she saw him on the plane – unless he had someone else do his business.

I was also just thinking about how in an earlier episode Ben said to Charles Widmore that he was going to kill his daughter. Desmond said he wasn’t going to go back to the island. Did Ben go kill Penny in an attempt to change his mind? Probably not. Just thinking out loud.

My friend Mike made an interesting point that if Desmond does go back to the island, he will probably have to go back by boat, since that’s how he got there the first time.

Who was the guy at the airplane who offered his condolences to Jack and was later on their plane? 

All for now.

Looking forward to seeing what other people write about last night’s show.