TOWER OF SILENCE

Our good pal Betsy Warren started me thinking this week by sending me this one: “Can you explain to me why, aside from causing a fracture in time… they all just didn’t die and sink the Island when the bomb went off? And why they only got blown into some trees? They sunk the Island in the alternate timeline, so why didn’t they just all blow up in the current timeline as well? I can’t get past this part.”

Honestly, I’m sort of on the fence about whether or not they actually did cause the Island to sink by setting off Jughead. Othertown is shown still mostly complete; the Dharma shark is still swimming around. Because Dead Juliet said “It worked,” I was thinking she briefly had a view of both worlds and saw the current timeline and Dimension X at the same time. Now, what about this: with all the BAD TWIN stuff and the Christianity/Zoroastrianism concept of dualism and the eye color changes and whatnot… let me drop this one on you. What if there aren’t two divergent timelines, like a seventh-season TNG groaner, but what if those crazy bastards at Team Darlton are showing us two simultaneously-occurring timelines? That the Jack who’s currently bumming out on the Island is also currently bumming out as a single dad? That Hurley is simultaneously not knowing what’s going on on the Island and a successful businessman in California? What is the Island is simultaneously sunk beneath the waves, and host for LOSTies intrigue? You see what this means, yeah?

What if there are two Jacobs and two Smoke Monsters?

The Kate-waking-up-in-the-tree-thing; I dunno. It means something that she woke up away from everyone else, like Jack periodically does during system resets, but the up-a-tree thing might just be a literal metaphor for the trouble that character is in. Then again; sometimes waking up in an alternate universe in a tree in a jungle on an Island that’s able to bamf around space and time is just waking up in an alternate universe in a tree in a jungle on an Island that’s able to bamf around space and time. Banana = banana; cigar = cigar. Just be glad we’re not Mark Espinosa, trying to figure all this out with the handicap of a Viking hangover, too.

At the other end of the serious LOST discussion scale, Spectau-buddy Rob Lavender, he of the improbable name and avuncular mien, called up yesterday and demanded: “OK, Kate or Juliet?” I started with the thesis that, sure, the actresses are both attractive, but I’m more of a sit-down-and-get-to-know-you kinda guy, and it really does matter how you act, and Juliet is all dewy and approachable and whatnot but she didn’t have any trouble sleeping with Goodwin even though she knew he was married, and at least Kate, while bouncing around from dude to dude like a time-travelling rabbit, is free to make the bad choices her own self, I dunno, you can make the argument…

“Yeah, yeah,” says Rob. “Kate or Juliet?”

“Hmmm,” says me. “Juliet’s smart and curvy and’ll play house with you for years… but Kate…”

“Yeah?” says Rob expectantly.

“…Kate didn’t mind getting banged around a polar bear cage out in front of God and everyone. And that cage hadn’t been cleaned for years.”

There was a satisfied silence on the other end of the phone. Oh, Season Three; you were good for something.

1. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT, ALFIE? Well, they started off Tuesday’s ep great, didn’t they? Jack looks down at the ragged appendectomy scar he got when Juliet removed his appendix in Season Four, but is told by his mother it was removed when he was seven or eight. Which he doesn’t remember. When Dogen X asks him how long his son David has been playing piano (the same piece Faraday was playing last year, if my ear’s right), Jack replies he doesn’t know. This seems to lend credence to my both-happening-at-once theory, in that Jack’s dual memories seem to be over-writing each other.

2. WHEREFORE ART THOU, ROMEO? Speaking of David, I’m going to come right out and say it: Juliet is his mother. I’m not really sure what’s making me think that, other than the actor they cast has as blue a set of eyes as Elizabeth Mitchell. Jack and Juliet could have met at a medical conference; they’re both doctors… I dunno; it’s what I’d do. Jack and Kate had a star-crossed relationship back in the world while Sawyer and Juliet shacked up in Dharmaville, so it makes sense for the Jack/Sawyer/Kate/Juliet quadrangle that Jack and Juliet should have a whirl.

3. BANG YOUR HEAD. I loved that the only two characters who’ve had a substantive conversation about the nature of time travel and the futility of changing the past or future are also the only two guys who can talk to dead people. I also loved that they were playing a game with two sides that neither could win. No matter how they played, they couldn’t change the outcome. “Shocking,” Miles said sardonically. But no reason to not keep trying to bang your head against that wall.

4. IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND. If it weren’t for the fact that Ilana said a few episodes back that the Locke-Dressed Monster was trapped in his present form (one assumes) after the death of Jacob, I would have thought everyone save Jin in that scene in Claire’s hut was a dead guy played by Smokey to use Jin to get access to the Temple. Claire, of course, was blown up by the rocket in Season Four, and Justin had been shot and pronounced dead. Then the dead girl shows up with the dead guy and says he was faking and then the other dead guy shows up and the only guy shocked is the still-living dude (also blown up in ship explosion, but that was a near miss) who almost lost his foot in a bear trap. LOST writer’s room conversations must be awesome.

5. SQUIRREL BABY!

6. DUDE, YOU’VE GOT SOME ARTZ ON YOU. I love that in Crazy Claire’s camp there’s a big ol’ box of dynamite. You never know when that 130 year old TNT is going to come in handy, right? I also loved the double meaning of her line to Jin: “If it’s one thing that’ll kill you around here, it’s infection.” With everyone saying how double-plus ungood “the infection” is, with Rousseau and Sayid and Dogen and all, I keep getting reminded of my man Lapidus who noted if people have to tell you they’re the Good Guys, they probably aren’t.

7. WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES. And speaking of Crazy Claire, if Smokey (dressed as Christian and Locke) told her twice that the Other-others at the Temple have Aaron, why lie about that? Just to keep her nutty? Or are they right, and my both-at-the-same-time theory is correct? That Aaron is back in the world with Grandma Littleton, but also at the Temple?

8. THE LORD NAMED ADAM AND EVE TO LIVE A HAPPY LIFE. Seems like they’ve gone ahead and told us that the skeletons in the cave are somehow Jacob and the Locke Dressed Monster. They’re not going to have characters talk about the theory that it’s 815ers if it actually is. This show’s never been on-the-nose and they’re not about to start now.

Last week I forgot to actually link to EJ Feddes’ awesome LOST commentary, so I’ll post you to his analysis of last week’s ep. I really admire all the thoughtsweat he puts into his columns, and I’m just amazed he gets ’em down and out the door the same night as they’re first aired. That’s kind of amazing, and makes me think he doesn’t have a two-and-a-half year old.

In this timeline, anyway.