LT220: Death Becomes Them

LOCKE’S FATHER

It is a thought that the reason everyone was so intent on burying the Hostiles is that it may be one way to avoid “zombies”. Christian never got below ground and he walks among the living for example. For some reason this takes me to Danielle and Alex’s burials for they seemed rushed for some reason even back then. If this reason is on the spot then Locke’s father is still a candidate for zombie. That could be intriguing.


TERRIBLE THINGS

Locke warned the Oceanic 6 that bad things happened on the island after they left. We must assume he is referring to the time shifts. In reality after a few days of mind-numbing, nose-bleeding, headache-producing days of confusion, then next three years drifted along quite nicely for everyone. Oh, there had that occasional Richard Alpert visit, but for the most part, life was a bed of roses.

Then hear comes back Locke with his not-so-merry band of Oceanic 6 thinking they are going to save the day. Instead the come upon a pretty content Jin who is cruising around in a new VW van and cranking the tunes. Sawyer’s found the love of his life and even Miles seems to be settling in nicely. Talk about culture shock of Jack. Not only will our resident doctor find happiness, but Sawyer is in the sheriff in this town.

This is likely to create another rift between our man of science and our man if faith. Jack had better be careful this time, for Locke has some powerful friends this time.


JULIET

A few weeks back I am hammering on Juliet and her uppity sort of haughty attitude. Now it seems everyone is happy with her relationship with Sawyer. Now let us examine this from another perspective: Ben’s vantage point. Young Ben arrives shortly and it does not take long to figure out who is with whom at any age. When Ben grows older, he has this knowledge.

Recall how Ben has a crush on her. He kills her boyfriends he is so obsessed with her. A plan begins to hatch on Ben’s twisted mind. He gets an idea on how to keep Sawyer from his Juliet. All he has to do is push someone else towards Sawyer – like Kate. We know from the end of last episode that Sawyer’s memory of what Kate looks like is no longer a problem. I sense a catfight.

Which makes one wonder what other tidbits of past knowledge Ben has been using to his advantage?


RULES OF TIME TRAVEL

We need to have “the talk”. Yep, time you and I sit down and talk about that issue that every person dreads: time travel rules. Let us use Sawyer as our example to discuss this delicate topic.

Sawyer is born in 1969 in Jasper, Alabama.

Sawyer celebrates his 35th birth year by crashing on to this strange island.

He is time warped back to 1974. We now have two Sawyer’s in the world. A 5-year old version hiding under the bed in Alabama and a 35-year old version who is hitting on the local auto mechanic.

In 30 years, James Sawyer Ford LaFleur will celebrate his 65th birth year by going out to the beach and welcoming his younger self to the island.

(For a side note, I tried to come up with an Other who was 65-years old that could be the future Sawyer welcoming party. The only candidates I came up with were Jacob, Christian and Anthony Cooper. The last choice being a common thread in this post! Hmmm…)

To make matters even more interesting, for his 95th birth year, the elderly Sawyer will join his 65-year old version to stroll back to the beach to welcome the third replica.

Now some have pointed out that only one version might actually time flash. This leaves us with just the one version on the island with one exception: for 108 days, there would still be multiple versions.

Another counter argument is that the Dharma version does not make it past the purge…ever.

Another counter argument is that Oceanic 815 will not crash again. Off island is 2007 so we do not have a little Sawyer running around. When the island catches up to 2004, there is no second Sawyer to get on board the plane. This breaks Daniel’s rules of time travel.

All this takes me back to a theory long ago that stated that the minute Oceanic 815 flew into the Twilight Zone two planes existed. One went down on the island and other plane went down in the Sundra Trench.

“But hold on a minute, Mr. Theorist. Frank says the pilot was different so this was just a fake job, a hoax, a lie!” Maybe not. Recall that we just supposed that there would not be another Sawyer to get on board…or another Jack or Kate or US Marshall…or any other passenger who crashed in September 2004. This is why no one recognizes the bodies found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It never happened the way we see it from the island’s point of view.

The big problem we have is that six survivors plus a handful more did leave the island. Eventually, the writers have to chase one paradox or another.

Let’s sum this up: by the time 65 year old Sawyer is 95, 35 year old Sawyer has already become the Sawyer that ends up being 65 year old Sawyer.So, unless there was another time skip in which 65 year old Sawyer went backwards for his second time, there could be no 3rd Sawyer. There would only be 2 Sawyers up until the point when 35 year old Sawyer begins time traveling. Unless you're saying that 65 year old Sawyer time travels at the same time 35 year old Sawyer does. But then there would be an infinite number of Sawyers. Which is impossible. Got all that?


ONE MORE THOUGHT ON TIME TRAVEL

Consider a few other anomalies the show has sprinkled into the plot. Take the pregnancy thing. Do you recall the time when Juliet examined that ultrasound result during her job interview? Someone said that the uterus was that of a 70-year old woman. That is an anomaly. Until you consider how people can keep their present age but jump around in time. What if Kate gets pregnant next week (or already is in that “Don’t-ask-me-about-Aaron” moment) and then time flashes in a way that she is suddenly 70 years old?


ANOTHER MIND TEASER

John Locke is crawling down the well when a time flashes rises up from beneath him and zaps him into another time zone. The rope breaks and half is left in Sawyer’s hand in order to keep the rule intact that what you hold you get to bring with you. The other half is in John’s hands so he gets to keep it.

However, if both had let go of the rope a second prior to the flash, we would have no rope. No matter what we would have solid ground where the well once stood. Here is the teaser: why isn’t John buried alive?

Why did the upper six feet or so of ground fill in, but the lower six feet of the well shaft remain a well? You can argue that the Hot Wheel Room was always there (or at least in both timeframes). You could suggest the well comes later. Yet, John is clearly at the bottom of some partial shaft before he rounds the corner.
This might suggest that depending where you are in space, might dictate where you are in time. Consider that the next time flash (when John turns the wheel) actually moves John to the desert while the ones above ground stay where they are standing and thankful a full-grown tree did not sprout right where one of them is/was standing!

Do recall when the well returned, Sawyer jumped right into solid ground again – this suggests not the same timeframe when John climbed down but an even later time when the well was filled…leaving me wonder if the whole Wheel Room isn’t filled with dirt by that time.


THE PURGE

Here is one last theory: the problem with pregnancies began with the Purge. I like it. Some curse that Richard and Jacob places on the Dharma group for breaking the truce.

I can see it now: Jacob appears as a fiery bush and says, “You did not follow my simple rules for the truce. Therefore, you must leave this Garden of Eden. I curse you and guarantee the eventual end of your group my making childbirth impossible. To ensure you never return, I will place an angel with a flaming black and smoky sword in the Garden, lest you return to the fountain of youth in order to drink from it and live forever like Richard. I am Light. And Light is Time.”

Hey, that is not bad if you think about it!


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Enjoy,
KC