Season 6 Premiere: “LA X Parts 1+2”

The title of the episode held the promise of heaven. ”LA X” — a reference to the airport in the City of Angels, although the intentional space between the A and the X creates new possibilities of meaning. The most reasonable interpretation: that something is just…a little…off…about this new reality…

FLIGHT 815 / LAX / FLASH-SIDEWAYS TIMELINE (2004)

Damon and Carlton promised that a new device would be introduced at Comic-Con. This appears to be the “flash sideways” (as Carlton Cuse calls them) to a timeline where 815 never crashed introduced in this episode. The premiere presented us with ”a separate reality,” to borrow the title of the Carlos Castaneda book Lost name-dropped last season, a world where the island rests at the bottom of the Pacific — a figurative descent into the underworld, to a veritable city of the dead, the Lost City of Atlantis. Last season also wanted us to think that the castaways were facing a choice between reboot or death. And now we got both! The sideways storyline = reincarnation.

So, aboard a different/alternate Flight 815, we meet Sideways Jack Shephard. There were a few fleeting moments when it seemed like even he didn’t know the answer. We met him looking… lost. Jack gazes out the window at passing clouds (the wing is not visible, unlike the first time). He has a similar encounter with Cindy the flight attendant asking about his drink, only this time she slips him one bottle instead of two.

They encounter turbulence, and you wonder if Jack’s 1977 Jughead-displaced mind had suddenly settled into his 2004 Oceanic-flying body, producing profound disorientation — just like Desmond’s experience of consciousness transfer time travel in season 3’s ”Flashes Before Your Eyes.” When the first blast of turbulence hit, Jack was again gripped by foreboding. The thought balloon above his head: This has happened before. I think… He has the exact same conversation with Rose as the first time, but instead it’s reversed: Jack tells Rose “It’s normal”, the plane pulls through, and Bernard returns from the bathroom. The turbulence, however, occurs, it is revealed, just above the submerged island… Perhaps it still has its strong magnetic pull, but not strong enough to bring the plane down in Sideways World.

Jack then goes to the bathroom and notices a cryptic sore on his neck, literally a flaw in continuity, perhaps it’s a cue to us (and Jack) to be actively questioning the integrity of this world… At this point I was half-expecting his nose to start bleeding, but I guess it could’ve been a remnant from the Jughead blast that somehow got mixed up in this new timeline? Jack’s nicked neck-fix was analog to his ”heal thyself” moment in “The Pilot” when Jack excused himself to the jungle of to patch up the ugly gash on his side. One wonders if the entire season 6 Sideways storyline will model the general thematic thrust of the castaway story, but with different incidents and events — a gritty, more down-to-earth version of the mythic, larger-than-life island epic, like how Dorothy’s adventure in Oz was a fantastical extrapolation of her life in Kansas. Lost also loves its Alice in Wonderland references, and so we recall that Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass, begins with Alice gazing into a mirror and wondering if it could be portal into a topsy-turvy other-world. The book itself is a cracked mirror reflection of the previous book — the same story in essence, sharing similar if not identical themes, just rendered with different incident and detail.

When Jack gets back, Desmond (who wasn’t on the original flight) sits down next to him, and Jack struggles with his recognition. They have indeed met before despite the island… Years ago they ran into each other at a stadium and had the “See ya in another life brothah!” exchange. There’s question as to whether Desmond was actually on the plane or if Jack was just imagining him. Or, Desmond could be flickering in and out of this Sideways World. Personally, I think he was there, since the island was submerged he couldn’t possibly be down in the Swan hatch, but fate put him on that plane anyway, to interact with Jack and possibly his presence had saved Charlie, who was unconscious in the bathroom. Saving Charlie was Desmond’s unofficial job title on the island. Upon Jack reviving him, Charlie insisted, as he had on the island to Desmond many-a-time, that he was “supposed to die.”

But what was Desmond doing in Australia anyway, sans Penny? In the Island World, Desmond traveled to Australia a couple years earlier to enter a sailing race (sponsored by Charles Widmore) with the hopes of earning honor in Widmore’s eyes. Perhaps in the Sideways World, he found a reason to stay there, perhaps that reason was a woman, maybe the same one he got that sailboat from: Libby (!!), who is confirmed back as a guest star this season. Crazy thought!

Hurley, Sawyer and Dr. Arzt have a conversation about Hurley’s ownership of the Mr. Cluck’s franchise and winning the lottery. Hurley then says (unlike the first Flight 815) that he is “the luckiest man alive.” Perhaps fate, in this version of the timeline, doesn’t “curse” him, via the numbers. Sawyer’s ears pricked when Hurley mentioned he won the lotto, and you could almost see his next “long con” blooming in his mind. Hurley’s good luck is about to change!

Jin and Sun, however, appeared to be on the same exact path as they were originally. Which is sad, because in the alternate 2007 timeline, the former 1977 Dharma gang who detonated Jughead were blown into 2007 and eventually ended up at the Temple to help Sayid. So Sun’s group and Jin’s group are finally in the same timeframe and close to one another, their chances of reuniting in the future are finally viable… Yet they’re ruining it in this version of the past…again.

Locke and Boone interact on the plane, and Locke lies about going on the walkabout, leading us to believe for a time that he wasn’t cursed in life and deceived by his father that led him to be paralyzed. But alas, Locke is paralyzed in this timeline as well. Boone tells Locke “If this thing goes down, I’m with you.” In the Island World, this ironically leads to his death. Curiously, Shannon isn’t on the plane. She rejects Boone’s attempts to get her away from her bad relationship… Originally, Shannon was set to make an appearance, but Maggie Grace was unable to film any scenes due to her busy schedule. Thus, the back-story was rewritten to accommodate this.

Sayid’s passport, shown at LAX, is an Iranian passport instead of being Iraqi. Odd. We had been trained last season to think that only everything after that point of the crash would be different. But in this world, the pre-Oceanic 815 timeline is subtly, yet radically different, too…

Kate attacks Edward Mars, the Marshal, and flees, adding to her long list of crimes. In this timeline, she’s always running. I wonder how this will play out with her taxi heist riding with Claire! Is Sideways Claire pregnant with Aaron? Will we see the couple in LA that her psychic told her would adopt and raise Aaron? TBD!

Jack’s father’s coffin has gone missing, and they have no idea where it is… In other words, it disappeared. Could this indicate that Jacob and the Man in Black still exist despite the island being submerged under water? Did Smokie/MIB inhabit Christian’s body even in the alternate timeline? Is this why Christian’s body had disappeared from the coffin when the original flight crashed on the island?

Jack offers his card to Locke for a consultation about his spine “on the house”. ”My condition is irreversible,” said Locke. Jack replied: ”Nothing’s irreversible.” Which may have been the sum-it-all-up line for an episode marked by time reboots and resurrections. Bitter adversaries in the Island World — Jack and Locke strike up a friendship, and more, speak into each other’s lives from the perspective of their respective worldviews and offer one another something they needed most in that moment: hope. A very interesting theory: Locke wasn’t healed by the island when they first crashed. The flash of light was a time shift and Locke had his spine fixed byJack in the future, which changed the past. Whoa!

And a Google Maps satellite search of the address on Jack’s business card (8444 Wilshire Blvd) shows a fountain or statue in the shape of the Dharma logo! I swear, they think of everything on this show 🙂

SWAN SITE / TEMPLE (2007)

First of all, how the heck did the 1977 Dharma van get to the new timeline 2007 after the Jughead blast, completely unscathed? Since when do cars time travel? 😉

Kate’s ears were ringing, presumably from the bomb blast. The sound effect sounded like she was hearing the jungle from underwater — and since these scenes took place immediately after the reveal of the sunken Island in the Sideways World, I wondered if the watery association was intentional.

Sawyer and Jack argue about whether or not the bomb went off, because they wouldn’t be there if it had. We saw Juliet hitting it and then it turned to white. The white definitely indicated time travel because they ended up in 2007. Did the time shift occur at JUST the moment of detonation, that they were blown away physically (see Kate in the tree) but before feeling the physical effects, burning, etc. they were whisked away to 2007?

Juliet dying in Sawyer’s arms was a very Romeo + Juliet moment… The last kiss with her “Romeo”, awww. And she started saying something that didn’t make sense before dying (just like Charlotte had, an old memory), which was: “We should get coffee sometime” and “We can go dutch.” Willing to bet in this alternate timeline where 815 lands safely, Sawyer and Juliet meet somehow for coffee. At least I’m rooting for them! And then through Miles, Juliet lets them know that “it worked”. Since her mind was in a different time and place when she was saying goodbye to Sawyer, I’m betting she thought it worked because it set this alternate 815 timeline in motion. Perhaps the Sideways World is the afterlife for these characters. One take: Sawyer really blames himself for losing Juliet — that his little piece of heaven was rescinded because someone upstairs realized he hadn’t earned it, that what in fact he deserves is (eternal) punishment. (Remember, the man was a con man and a murderer.)

When the group gets to the Temple, they are captured by a group of Others and taken to Dogan (master of the Island’s spiritual heart, the Temple) and Lennon. Dogan speaks Japanese and English, but Lennon translates since Dogan doesn’t “like the way English tastes of his tongue.” Dogan (as a noun) means “Falcon” and (as an adjective) means “who/what is about to born, who/what is about to rise” in Turkish. He is also a nod to DC Comics supervillain, Ra’s al Ghul, one of Batman’s greatest enemies. His name is Arabic for “The Demon’s Head,” and references the name of the star Algol.

Hurley quickly tells Dogan that Jacob sent him and told him to bring the guitar case. The guitar case is opened, revealing a large wooden Ankh (the symbol of LIFE, hint hint) which Dogan promptly smashes. Inside the Ankh is hidden a piece of paper, which has the survivors names written on it. “Jacob’s List”. I wonder if it was Jacob’s original list, consisting of Kate, Jack, Sawyer, and Hurley… Or the slightly different group that appeared to them last night: Kate, Jack, Hurley, Jin, and Sayid. Maybe Jacob has multiple lists for whatever the situation calls for!

Inside the Temple, the spring’s water is murky and looks a little red. They are surprised by this, and I think it is definitely tied into Jacob’s death just an hour prior. Dogan tests the water to see if it still heals, and it doesn’t. They still submerge Sayid in the water, and not surprisingly, he isn’t healed. They actually hold him underwater until he drowns, and he dies from that instead of his gunshot wound. The whole process was VERY religious in nature… Sayid was dragged out of the water like Jesus on the cross, being “baptized” submerged in the water pool, being reborn after his life filled with torture and murder, Jacob being reincarnated through him, etc. I actually think the pool was murky with the blood of Jacob so that when bathed in his blood, literally inhaling the water so that Jacob’s blood would course through his veins, Sayid was taking in the body of Christ… er, Jacob 😉

This of course is puzzling, because when Hurley tells Dogan and Lennon that Jacob is dead AFTER they submerged Sayid, they seem shocked about Jacob’s passing and immediately secure the Temple. Why drown Sayid? Maybe because he wasn’t on the list, and Jacob KNEW they’d try to kill him instead of save him? And why secure the Temple with ashes, if Smokie lived beneath it the entire time? Are there multiple smoke monsters? Or is Smokie a vessel that both Jacob and the Man in Black can utilize. Hmmm…

Also, Ben was healed at the Temple after Sayid shot him. Now Sayid is healed in the pool after he has been shot by Ben’s father. Oh the irony…

At any rate, Sayid sits up and is very much alive (despite Richard’s prior insistence that “Dead is Dead”). He pauses, confused, and says “What happened?” (Notice he spoke in an accent distinctly different from his own. It was closer to Jacobs voice.) He is wearing BLACK in this scene… In the alternate timeline he was wearing WHITE.

THE STATUE (2007)

“Locke” (wearing a BLACK shirt throughout the episode) picks up the bloodied knife Ben had used to stab Jacob. He tears off a piece of RED fabric from the floor and uses it to clean the knife.

He then asks for Richard, presumably to kill him too. Instead, Bram and 2 other men enter and try to kill “Locke”, he is shot, but disappears and leaves only the bullet on the ground. The smoke monster enters and kills 2 of the men, being momentarily thwarted by the ring of ash around Bram before delivering a well-placed blow to the stone above him, knocking Bram out of the circle and then impaled by Jacob’s loom. (The guy with the Dracula writer’s name got a vampire death!)

Ben cowers when it is revealed he was manipulated by “Locke”, the smoke monster.

(BTW Smokie was looking an awful lot like Cerebrus again last night, the multi-headed hound that guards the gates of Hades.)

And now we must wonder about Jacob’s Cabin… Was that ash keeping Smokie outside or inside the cabin? Because now we’re not sure if Jacob ever really lived in the cabin at all!

The flares from the Temple are seen from the beach, and beyond the obvious trouble at the Temple, you see just how close Sun and Jin are to being reunited, both physically and in time. Richard confronts them and “Locke” says that it is good to see you “without your chains” Richard is stunned and replies “YOU?!” Richard presumably arrived to the island on the Black Rock, a trading ship which left port in 1845. The fact that he was in chains upon his arrival means he was a slave or a prisoner, perhaps a traitor on-board and being held captive. Interested to hear more about that!

“Locke” shared Locke’s final thought as Ben strangled the man to death: “I don’t understand.” (How did the Monster know this thought? Has he always been tapped into John’s head after their first encounter in season 1??) “Locke”/Smokie/MIB stated his intentions: “I want the one thing John Locke didn’t, I want to go home.” Where is home?? This confirms he is being held imprisoned by the island, just like so many others…

CULTURAL REFERENCES

Earth X: The “X” in ‘LA X’ stands for an alternate reality. It’s common use in comic books, Marvel Comics have an alternate history/timeline called “Earth X”.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories: Desmond is reading this book by British Indian writer Salman Rushdie. “It is a phantasmagorical story set in a city so old and ruinous that it has forgotten its name”. The plot concerns a boy who all but curses his father in a moment of despair by saying, cynically, “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” As a consequence, the father becomes heartbroken, and loses his storytelling mojo. Haroun then embarks on a fantastic adventure to save the enchanted “Ocean of the Steam of Story” from villains who would corrupt it. By taking that journey and saving that enchanted place, Haroun restores his father’s life and power by giving him the tale of his own adventure, which, when told, rouses a hopeless town to rebel against exploitive, oppressive forces. What might Haroun have to say to us about season 6? Perhaps Jack and his relationship to his father. Notable is Desmond’s progression from the surreal cynicism of The Third Policeman (which he was carrying into the jungle, season 2) to the redemptive fable of Haroun.

Fear and Trembling: This book, encountered in the Temple with the skeleton of Montand (sans arm), is an influential philosophical work by Danish philosopher, theologian, and psychologist Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio (John the Silent). The title is a reference to a line from Philippians 2:12, “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” It challenges true believers to embrace the absurdity of faith. It’s about becoming “a knight of faith,” whose strength lies in the willingness to embrace the absurd. And I would say that Hurley following the will of Jacob (carry the guitar case, bring the castaways, and go to the Temple to heal Sayid) is pretty absurd. AND, we were left to wonder if Jacob really wasn’t Jacob, but rather Smokie/MIB?

Combined, both books send this message to us: This absurd sideways thing has a purpose. It is “useful.” Have faith!

MISCELLANEOUS

I’ve been hearing that each season of Lost supposedly mirrors the seasons before it, like 4-3, 5-2, 6-1. So season 6 is supposed to go back to where it all began. Support from this episode, referencing season 1:

• From the episode, “Pilot Part 1”, Jack also asks for a pen to save someone who isn’t breathing. AND the Marshal Edward Mars gets hit in the head (again). AND Rose tells Jack her husband is in the bathroom and tells Jack not to worry about the turbulence.
• From the episode, “All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”, Jack saves Charlie from suffocation. Jack’s attempt to save Sayid mirrors his attempt to save Charlie.
• From the episode “Hearts and Minds”, Boone mentions Shannon’s troubled relationship, and now his inability to save her from it.
• From the episode “…In Translation”, Jin is stopped at customs for carrying the watch and money that Mr. Paik gave him.
• The opening both parallels the opening in “The Pilot” and “A Tale of Two Cities”. It takes place at the exact same time as both events, and the barracks are also seen in both.

FUN FACT! Stephen King and Peter Straub’s 1984 novel The Talisman is about a boy who can traverse between parallel worlds. His name? Jack Sawyer.

Lots of RED in this episode, it has been noted in the past that red is always present whenever Smokie is around. You can go all the way back to when Smokie embodied Yemi just before killing Mr. Eko surrounded by red wildflowers…

Last night, it was everywhere, from Hurley’s T-shirt, to the Others’ turbans and garb, Cindy’s ribbons in her hair, the flowers they were collecting, the flare, the cloth “Locke” used to clean his knife, the pool filled with Jacob’s blood, etc. Usually a “redshirt” means they’ll be killed, but now does RED = RESURRECTION?

Where is Jacob’s body?? Not a remnant of anything in the fire… A sign he has resurrected?

And lastly, the Dharma logo is seen on the shark’s tail in the cheesy CGI underwater portion:

Great episode! Lots to think about! Read up on the episode, constantly being updated at Lostpedia, and over at Doc Jensen’s column, both paraphrased in my recap.

One thing I love about this new blog format vs. last year’s emails is the COMMENTS feature… So, if you have anything to add, anything I missed, or questions raised, feel free to post them below 🙂

Jen / desmondismyconstant.

UPDATED 2/5/10:

A few new tidbits:

• Season 1, when Locke was visited by the smoke monster the first time, it was WHITE when it was zipping through the jungle, when it got to him, they didn’t show it but he later said he saw a bright white light, and it was beautiful… So, are there two smoke monsters (one black, one white)? Or was that Smokie/MIB’s way of enticing Locke to serve the island/him?

• Next week’s episode is titled “What Kate Does”… Which is an obvious nod to Season 2, episode #9 – “What Kate Did”… The one in which she blew up her father. I’m guessing in Sideways World there’s something very different, but that STILL landed Kate in cuffs in the custody of the Marshal. Fate.

• I just watched the show again and didn’t realize this the first time, but when Kate ran into Jack coming out of the bathroom on the plane, she had her hands on his chest. Sly as she is, she must’ve taken the pen out of his pocket to pick her cuffs in the stall later, because just a few minutes after their encounter, Jack tries to revive Charlie and roots through his pocket for his pen, which is mysteriously missing. Didn’t put two-and-two together the first time around!

• Also something small I didn’t notice before… When Jin is detained for carrying stacks of cash he didn’t declare, the female agent calls Sun by her maiden name, Ms. Paik. Weird…

• I also didn’t see this before, but when Jack and Sawyer are both unconscious on the ground after the bomb puts them in 2007, Kate chooses to help Jack first.

• I think the second time around, that more likely than Sayid being Jacob, I think he’s the MIB… I think “Jacob” visiting Hurley was actually the shape-shifting MIB, who can inhabit the body of anyone who has died (Christian, Locke, Jacob, maybe Claire, and now Sayid). Sayid was also wearing all-black.

• When Miles is communing with dead Juliet, engine and turbulence sounds of Flight 815 are faintly heard. Interesting.

• When Jack is successful in reviving Charlie on Flight 815, his first words are, “Am I alive?”. This is the same message Dominic Monaghan had scrawled on his palm in black marker that he held up to the audience at Comic Con 2009.

• The flash sideways “whoosh” is different from the previous flashback sound. It bears a striking resemblance to the noise heard during the time flashes in Season 5, with hints of the noise heard when Juliet detonated Jughead.

• I previously noted that the Ankh is a symbol of eternal life… But didn’t note the significance of it being promptly smashed by Dogan: Mortality.