PREVIOUSLY ON LOST

In the season 3 finale Jack says that he’s using the golden passes flying every Friday, and when we see the tickets briefly on the floor of this apartment I’m fairly sure that they were Oceanic tickets. But.

From the newspaper article that Jack is reading at the beginning of the episode it has been determined that the flash-forward takes place around April 2007, however according to the “press release” that was released just after Christmas as an introduction to the ARG “Find 815” which is running in the weeks leading up to the Season 4 premiere, Oceanic don’t start flying again until the end of 2007, a whole 7-8 months after when the flash-forward takes place. Something isn’t right.

Maybe the ‘golden tickets’ that they’ve got allow them to fly on any airline, this would probably be the most logical explanation, but wouldn’t explain why he still has Oceanic tickets in his apartment. Another possibility is that there is a some strange time shifting happening, one theory is that time on the island is moving slower than time off the island. But thats something that I think I’ll cover is a separate post.

After watching episode 17 “In Translation” form season 1, where it is revealed to Jin that Sun can speak English and has been hiding it from him, I’m wondering what chance there is that Jin will learn English too. As we have now seen , up to the end of season 3, he has started to learn a few basic words, and seems to be able to communicate on a relatively basic level with the rest of the losties. But what about in the future. I would say there is a pretty good chance that we will see a Jin/Sun flash-forward early in season 4, so its not too far fetched to believe that Jin will have learnt English since getting off the island, especially if they move to America to “start over”.

When Brian Porter (Susan’s husband) visits Michael after Susan has died he gives him return tickets between Sydney and New York. This must mean that Michael and Walt would have needed a connecting flight between Los Angeles and New York, but thats not the important bit. The important bit is that this indicates that Michael lives in New York…or at least he did.

Remember the newspaper death notice that Jack reads in the season 3 finale, I’m pretty sure it mentions that the deceased was found in a New York loft in Los Angeles but was from New York. And according to some sources the article also says that the deceased left behind a teenage son. Walt is 10 on the island (in 2004), the flash forward takes place in 2007 making Walt 13 and therefore a teenager.

A couple of thing explain why no one was at the funeral, since it appears from the article that the deceased (if it is Michael) has changed there name, and as far as we know Michael doesn’t seem to have a lot of family around. Some have also mentioned that the funeral parlor appeared to be a in an African-American neighbourhood, also points to Michael.

It also then makes sense that Jack is upset, its not because he was close to Michael (remember when asked ‘friend or family’ he responded ‘neither’) but because Michael was quite possibly one of his last remaining links back to the island. Since we know that Michael will be reappearing in season 4, it would make sense that Jack would believe that he knows how to get to the island…just as Jack is desperate to do. This also explains why it is someone that Kate wouldn’t visit, theres a fairly good chance she hasn’t forgiven him for murdering Ana-Lucia and Libby or something else that happens after he returns…

I’ll start by saying that this is not totally my own theory, and isn’t even something I had thought of until I read the post title “Jack and Kate future or past” on http://underwaterhatch.com/. But after rewatching episode 12 from season 1 I think, as far fetched as it sounds, there is even more to support this theory. In fact I don’t know that I even believe that this could be possible, but it is food for thought.

The theory is that the scene that we see at the very end of season 3 is not the future but perhaps the past. Its ok, bear with me. In addition to the points mentioned in the post on underwaterhatch.com, which I won’t cover completely here but I do recommend you have a read through them, I picked up on several things in episode 12 “Whatever the case may be”. Here we go.

During the bank robbery Kate asks for the keys to security deposit box 815, we find out later that the item of interest is a small toy plane. Either this is just one of those weird coincidences that the writers throw in to mess with our mind or it means something.

Going forward to the finale of season 3. Jack wants to go back to the Island, and it is mentioned that he has been using the free flights they got (presumably when they were rescued), hoping that the plane would again crash and end up at the island. Jack attends someones funeral, we don’t know who’s for sure I have a couple of theories but I’ll save those for another post. All we do know is that Kate didn’t want to go.

When Jack meets up with Kate she mentions that “he’ll be wondering where I am”, as mentioned on underwaterhatch.com the last time we saw Kate ‘clean and tidy’ was when she was married in one of the flashbacks, lets say this is the same ‘he’ could that then mean that we have maybe seen a flash forward before and not even noticed. Go on think about it.

Now lets go back to the discovery of Adam and Eve in the caves, one theory is that it could be Jack and Kate, further toying with the idea of time and space being ‘different’ on the island. Could it really be possible that there is some weird multi-dimensional time thing going on, have Jack and Kate maybe other been on the island before? More than once? Did they get off the island and then return? Is the flash forawrd from the season 3 finale really the only flashback that we have seen, I would hazzard a guess that if you looked at some other ‘flashbacks’ very carefully you might start to wonder.

After all Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have said that what we saw was definitely not the ‘end’ of the show. So if its not the end, is it ‘near the end’, or the ‘middle’ or is it something else?

With Sayid’s triangulation of the signal, if it weren’t for Locke’s intervention would they have actually managed to locate the radio tower any sooner? I’m thinking that something else would have needed to interfere because so much of the important information around the message, who left it and why wasn’t yet revealed. The way that season 3 ended with the eventual discovery of the tower (in what seemed to be a fairly open and accessible area mind you) actually turned out well since it has ended up being the mid-point in the overall story, and serves as a good stepping stone for season 4 and beyond.

Who are Adam and Eve, the skeletons that were discovered in the caves. Are they Dharma, probably not, more likely that they predate Dharma as Jack says that it would have taken 40-50 years for the clothing to decay like it had. From what we have found out in subsequent episodes Dharma have been on the Island for about 30 years, so that would most likely mean they are something else.

Is Jack’s Dad more important to the mythology of LOST than we think? Consider these things. He is the first “vision of a dead person” that we come across on the island, right back at the beginning of the first season. Jack found his coffin, but there was no body in it, he didn’t find the body, assuming of course that Christian is actually still dead.

Christian has crossed paths with a lot of the survivors at different points, appearing in many flashbacks. He shared a drink with Sawyer, he hired Ana Lucia as a bodyguard and he is Claire’s Father (therefore Aaron’s Grandfather). They are just the one that come to mind instantly, there could very well be other that I’m forgetting, but I guess I’ll come across them in my re-watching.

“There’s really one significant missing piece to Libby’s story. How did she get from A to B — from Desmond to the mental institution? We know the answer to that question, but the only way to tell that story is through another character’s flashback, and that character would have to be another character on the show who is not among the beach dwellers.” – Damon Lindelof.

My thought is that this character could be Penny. And that Libby ends up in the mental institute after having a break down when Desmond goes missing in the boat that she gave him. If that alone doesn’t tip her over the edge then maybe Penny seeks out Libby and blames her for Desmond’s disappearance. Hopefully this is something that we will find out in season 4, which Carlton Cuse has hinted at.

What exactly are the flashbacks and how do they actually fit in. Are they there simply to fill in the background information for each character or are they playing a much bigger part in the story. For example, we see a flashback of Locke which mentions Helen, when we return from the flashback Kate is trying to get Locke’s attention and he calls her Helen. Is it possible that they are also memories that are being played out in the mind of the character featured, or something else entirely.

My craving for LOST has gotten the better of me, I know that Season 4 is only about 7 weeks away, but I need my fix of weirdness. For this reason I’ve started right back at the start, season 1 episode 1, and I’m going to try and get through all of the first three season before the 4th of February rolls around.

In the process of re-watching I’m going to make note of somethings I have noticed, things that go unanswered and generally just some theories. Since the end of season 1 I have wanted to try and put together a resource on LOST which would all the bits that I find interesting but due to time (or lack of) I’d never managed to get it any further than just being an idea. While this log isn’t really the ‘resource’ that I had originally wanted to build it should be enough to satisfy my needs…for the moment.

It is possible that once season 4 starts I might start to go into greater detail than just posting tidbits here and there. Its probably fair to say as well that there won’t be much from the first season which is still completely unanswered and as I progress through the episodes the number of “points of interest” will become greater as will the theories.

Very little is know about season 4 with the producers going into radio silence about what we might expect. However as always the internet is rife with rumours and theories. Things like there will be flashbacks and flashforwards, characters will return, characters will die. In other words nothing ground breaking, but enough to keep me interested. As a result of the writers strike it is also looking like the whole 16 episodes won’t run in one continuous run as promised and more likely the initial run may just be 8 episodes. What this means for the remaining 8 I don’t know, maybe they will just show them later in the year or possibly they could extend seasons 5 and 6 to be 20 episodes each. I don’t really mind so long as we don’t get short changed 8 episodes.