LOST: LA X

Welcome Friends,

The wait is finally over. The final season of LOST has started and there is a lot to speculate on. I'm probably not going to talk too much about the episode itself but I'm going to focus on some things that have been discussed outside the episode (podcasts, interviews etc...) and what that may mean for the outcome of this amazing series.
Let's dive in..

Damon and Carlton (Collectively known as “Darlton”) mentioned in an interview before the premiere that they were doing away with the flashbacks and flash forwards and were introducing a whole new narrative style. I don't remember if I talked about this in my other posts but I, and many others, speculated the idea of a flash sideways. This has proven to be the case. So the narrative switches between being on the island, (1)where the bomb did not work and (2) where the Losties are back on flight 815 where the bomb worked so plane did not crash. It is important to note that in the LOST podcast Darlton explicitly says that they are NOT “alternate” timelines. Meaning, this is not Sliding Doors, where we are looking at two possible outcomes based on a single event. Rather. BOTH of these “timelines” are equally real and will reconcile at some point. I'm now even daring to say that they may in fact be the same timeline. How that is, I'm not sure yet, but I will speculate in a moment.
Darlton goes on to say that it's the relationship between these two timelines that is perhaps the larger secret of the island.

In the FlashSideways (FS) we learn that the island has sunk. This is most likely because of the bomb going off and, well.... causing it to sink. Damon mentions that this is something we may see addressed in an episode soon, although its true reason for sinking may have more to it.
While on the plane in the FS we see that there are things that are different than what we know of the original flight. For instance, Jack is a little nervous about the turbulence while Rose is calming him (instead of he other way around), Hurley considers himself lucky, Jack gets one extra bottle of booze rather than two as well as spilling some as he pours it (which Darlton claims was intentional on their part and has significance)..but the most obvious difference is that Desmond is on the plane.
Darlton says that in this timeline just about anything goes. Just as Faraday predicted, since the bomb didn't go off, their plane wouldn't crash...but he failed to think about smaller changes that would occur. Remember, that the bomb went off in 1977 so that undoubtedly had a ripple effect that altered many other things other than just the fate of flight 815. IE..What happened to Charles Widmore? Would Desmond have met Jack at the stadium while he was training for a race if there never was a race? If not then why does Jack think he knows Desmond. By the island not existing after 1977 the path that the LOSTies took to get there never happened.....they never even started to happen. So this has set everyone on, at least, a slightly different course of action leading them to this FS timeline. However, you have to believe that fate is bringing them back together again anyway. As I mentioned above I'm pondering the thought that what if theses are the same timeline. We are meant to assume that the FS is happening in 2004 the same time the original Flight 815 took off. But what if it's not? What if for whatever reasons that it is now 2007, when the events of the Island are now taking place. So these timelines are one in the same. Are there then two “versions” of the survivors in the same plane of existence? That is to assume that the island is even considered to be a part of actual existence.

Darlton mentions several times that this is ultimately about good and evil. Hence the Black and White color motif that they use a lot. This can be traced back to my favorite unanswered question: Adam and Eve. These were the two skeletons that they discovered when trying to move into the caves. They were found with a black and white rock. I'm still thinking that this may be some kind of identification marker for our survivors. It could identify either which side of the war they're on (good or evil) or it could signify which timeline they are coming from. The one from the island or the one from the FS. This leads to the idea that perhaps the Kate form the island is Eve and the nervous Jack form the FS is Adam (or some combination of the like). This means that the two “versions” of our characters may be intermingling at some point. Which is why I think all these events are happening at the same time. Again, they say that the answer to this is significant to the answer about the whole island.

Although we knew that “The Enemy” (or “Jacob's Nemesis”, as Darlton calls him) has taken on the image of John Locke, they confirmed that he is indeed the Smoke Monster. I think that is huge because now we can go back to earlier seasons and see what the monster was doing and know who that really is. An interesting point about Jacobs' Nemesis is that Darlton never really says that he's on the evil side. There is no doubt a lot of ambiguity as to what the motives of people like Ben and Widmore are and whose side they are on. There has been some flipping back and forth. Darlton even mentions that we really don't know that, between Jacob and his Nemesis, which one is the good one. They are so obviously painting the Nemesis in the light of evil that it would almost seem certain that they will try to pull a 180 on us. After all, we don't even know what they're fighting over. So perhaps all this heinous stuff the Monster is doing is really for the greater good. Although if he does come out as the bad guy, even then the persona of John lock went form the man that was going to save the island to the one that is seizing control of and perhaps destroying it. Either way we are definitely seeing some role reversals.

Although Sayid spends most of the episode speechless and dying, in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy points out that Sayid seemed weird. I don't if he meant in the FS or in the brief moment he woke up at the end. Either way Darlton did confirm that something unusual is going on with Sayid. That SOMETHING has taken control of him (implying it was not the smoke monster). I wonder, does Jacob have similar powers as the monster. Can HE take the form of dead people for his own benefit? They mention they we will see some more of this Sayid mystery play out in the next episode.
They never mention much about Hurley's new role. Is he the new leader? I mean...Jacob is appearing and talking to him. That's got to mean something.

Anyway there are lots more questions I'm sure. So please post comments of questions if there is something you want me to address or research for you. Frankly the show is so large now I'll never get to it all on just my own so I'll gladly accept topics to focus on if you like.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

Link to Podcast:
LA X Podcast