Looser Ends

Because there’s not been much Lost on the. . .



. . . and instead I’ve been doing a lot of this. . .



. . . there’s not been much in the way of inspiration for posting. Or, more to the point, there’s not been much in the way of inclination. So those wonderful treatises I’ve been composing in my head about the parallels of Ben and Judas and what it means for the bug-eyed one, or plotting the precise backstory to Jacob and The Others’ misaligned belief in the figure in the shack will all have to stay on hold.

Instead I’ll gather up and muse over the previous posts’ commented suggestions over loose plot ends and mysteries Lost has yet to answer. Whilst they’re not the most obvious they still deserve resolution.

First up, an Anonymous commenter wondered about this:



Two fundamental questions abound about this thing. 1, What Is it? 2, Did it really speak Hurley’s name? The permutations about what it means if it did speak Hurley’s name do, of course, feed back into the question of what the hell it is. If this is some strange animal that was attempting to communicate with Hurley (the spirit of Libby!?) then it makes it all the more eye-opening than if it’s just a strange green bird happening to fly by (product of Dharma testing!?).

Worryingly, we’ve not seen it since the end of Season 2 (Live Together, Die Alone), which means not only has it long since been shunted to the backs of Lost fans’ memories, the creators themselves might have abandoned any attempt at an explanation.

A second Anonymous commenter wanted to know who the “him” was of the “Are you him?” question that Desmond first asked Locke, and that Kelvin first asked Desmond.



Presumably Desmond only asked the question because it was the first question that Kelvin asked him – and maybe Kelvin only asked it because it was the first question Radzinsky asked him. . . Like Russian dolls, this one, but the point remains: Who is the ‘him’?

Given that this question also came linked with the supplementary code question of ‘What did one snowman say to the other?’ I can’t help but envisage there was some kind of planned back-up information given to the people in The Swan, perhaps around the time of ‘the purge’, to give them assurance that assistance would be on its way.

Presumably this ‘him’ would be from Dharma. He would know what was going on and he would be able to answer the ‘what did one snowman say to the other’ code question to verify his authenticity. Only, of course, this ‘him’ never showed up because Dharma got wiped out. Or, at least, I think they did. . .!

Someone called Egg had issues surrounding Walt, such as his capacity to make birds die, his good luck, his knife-throwing skills (he was taught by Locke, to be fair – he was taught by the best!) and why The Others were so hellbent on capturing him.



Evidently The Others found something special about Walt that they wanted for themselves, but it turned out to be more than they could handle (the panic and the dead bird pile-up from the mobisode Room 23 is the brief illumination we’ve had on that matter). Thing is, that scene where Walt met up with Locke in Season 5 (The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham), where Locke elected to not bring Walt back to the Island, may have effectively been Walt’s goodbye to the Lost world.



It just felt like there was something symbolic, like a cutting loose, between Locke and Walt during this exchange – so all those nagging plot ends not tied up remain only to be guessed at and speculated about. Including this:



There is hope. Season 6 appears to be one where characters from way back when are all set to feature, so there is the chance that we’re not quite done with Walt yet and there’s some closure coming our way.

Corellian fired out a whole bunch of loose end mysteries – like why was Aaron deemed to be so special and why was it considered essential that he be raised by Claire?



So far, apart from being a key factor in the trial of the Oceanic 6 and making a fake mother out of Kate, Aaron hasn’t been responsible for anything particularly devastating. However, with talk of this upcoming “war”, maybe the side that Christian Shephard plays for is aware that the Claire and Aaron bond is a key factor and this was why he managed to lead Claire away. If it isn’t something along those lines then the whole thing has an air of anti-climax about it to me, but then if it is something along those lines it also sounds a bit, you know, stupid. . .

There was also the matter of this 'out of nowhere' conumdrum:



Where the hell did this food come from? And why was it continuing to be delivered to the Island after the apparent dissolution of the Dharma Initiative? I have had my own theory about it, how Dharma in the 1970s would have sent many food drop pallets into the future via The Orchid, which explains why they seem to drop out of the sky from nowhere (like Ben and Locke popping up in the desert), but my guesswork isn’t good enough! We want confirmation!

Also, who were these people shooting at Sawyer and the rest of the time-travelling Losties?



When this happened it looked like it was going to be one of those plots that we would see the ‘other side’ of before Season 5 finished. I mean, probably it was Ilana and her people, but until we actually get to see it (and have reason for why they were shooting at them) this, once again, looks like one of those neat ideas the writers had that got left by the wayside.

If a Season 6 episode shows this moment in the ‘previously on Lost’ recap, mind, we can be sure it’s going to get explained in that episode!

Corellian also raised the matter of what happened with this guy:



The real Henry Gale that ballooned onto the Island. Ben claimed The Others didn’t kill him but he’s a big liar so it means they probably did. Never-the-less, he did seem to be an innocent man marooned on a strange Island so why kill him and bury him? Give a guy a break!

Also, the old chestnut of why was Locke dripping wet after he planted explosives on the sub got raised.



This matter gave theorists plenty of mileage in the idea that Locke didn’t really blow up the sub and instead moved it somewhere else, secret, and then put something in its place and blew that up instead.

Yeah. People thought that. Despite it lacking no clear rationale (Locke wanted the sub destroyed because he didn’t want people leaving!) and pre-supposing that Locke could drive a submarine and stash it somewhere no one would find it. Evidently I’m a cynic; clearly the sub did get blown up! But the question of why Locke was wet remains.

Quick and easy answer is he didn’t plant all explosives inside the sub, rather he went for a dip and stuck some to the outer shell. And, besides, it just looked more dramatic that he was wet.

Another Anonymous commenter (sheesh, you’d think the internet was a place where people liked to keep their identities private or something!) raised the intriguing matter of why the Swan Orientation film was cut and a portion of it removed (and stored in a Bible with a glass eye no less!).



Again, this is another one of those questions formed from the lack of clarity about what exactly happened with the Dharma people during ‘the purge’. If there’s a common ‘black hole’ of information in Lost, this is it – and is perhaps all the more galling that we spent so much of Season 5 with the Dharma Initiative in the 1970s and gained very little useful information about the mysteries Season 2 had conjured up.

I fear that Season 5 was the best chance we had of finding out this stuff, too. . .

Meanwhile, in Season 3, there was this weird white robe funeral for Colleen happening.



Now maybe this was all some kind of ploy as part of Jack’s manipulation into wanting to want to do the surgery on Ben. It’s a pretty strange way of going about it if you ask me. Or are we supposed to assume this is how The Others go about handling their dead? And if so, why? Is there some special reason why they’d want to get a dead person off the Island?

Since dead people do tend to turn up on the Island then there may be something in that. But then dead people who aren’t on the Island also turn up. . .



. . . so that’s a line of logic that falls flat on its face at the first hurdle.

Meanwhile we’ve also got the matter of Annie. . .



Ben’s childhood sweetheart, that he still keeps doll presents he got from her with a melancholy air, suggesting there’s some untold history we’ve yet to learn of. Same goes for this. . .



Apparently there’s a volcano on the Island and, on a DVD commentary, Carlton Cuse made suggestion that it would come to figure as important. So far, so nothing.

Colour me cynical.

Let’s not get too jaded, though. There are potentially loose ends that the creators will surely have put out there with every intention of seeing them through. As another Anonymous commenter mentioned, there was that curious box Ben pulled out of the ventilation duct of his motel room.



I think it’s safe to say that there’s not a dead Locke in this box! But I’ve got no real clue about what is in there.

As commented by Fivestades, what about this curious moment during Miles’ first flashback in Confirmed Dead, when he went to exorcise the spirit of the drug dealer in his bedroom and the picture frames seemed to change?



Miles goes up to the room and there’s a blatant shot of the picture with a wooden frame. And then when he comes back down the stairs there’s another repeat shot of the picture and suddenly the frames have changed to metallic gold.

Personally, I come down on the side of it being a consistency issue. Or continuity error, as is the more technical term. If you ignore the matter of the frames, the close-up shot of the picture establishes who this person is that Miles is apparently contacting – and bookending the ‘exorcism’ with pictures of this guy establishes and confirms it. In short, it makes perfect sense that you would get close-up shots of this photograph from a directing point of view and it’s got nothing to do with the frames changing.

That the frames did change is, potentially, to do with it being a continuity error. Hypothetically the programme-makers dress the scene with props and scenery and the propmaster in question takes the picture of the drug dealer, sticks it in a photo frame and hangs it up on the wall. They shoot the scene. Then they break for lunch. Maybe they had to move the photo wall to get another shot. The pictures are taken down. Put away. But then the director says he wants to get another shot of the photos, and so the propmaster hurries back and gets the photo and sticks it in a frame (little realizing the fuss he is about to generate, he puts it in a different frame) and hey presto! Instant Lost theorist furore.



This, to me, is a perfectly likely explanation. Otherwise, what? Are we to believe there was some kind of parallel universe shift? Or that the values of the world can change and alter around our characters, subtly imperceptibly, and this is what Lost is actually about and this was the scene that hinted at it!?

Nah. I ain’t buying. It’s too obscure and too plain ridiculous. But it’s been fun discussing it. Yet mystery, and the sheer wealth of it, is what makes Lost fun. We know they’re not going to answer everything – it wouldn’t make for much drama if they did, and I’m not even sure they could convincingly cover every base anyway.

So we’ll probably never know how Juliet turned from a meek doctor into a ninja-skilled killer. Or how Dharma knew that sonic technology would repel the Black Smoke. Or even who figured out that a pendulum could track the positioning of a mysterious Island. There’s just too much crazy shit on Lost. To use an analogy from the show, the pursuit of any one mystery is like following a white rabbit down a hole – you just never know where you’ll end up, and even when you get there you’ll discover a whole new set of places to go wondering.

29 comments:

Corellian said...

I am in fact hoping that the Losties will stay in the 70's even after the Incident. It is quite impossible, as even Richard said that he had seen they dying, but there's so much more information about Dharma missing...

Or maybe in a good old flashback. Maybe a whole Dharma flashback. Or even just a Ben's one. They could cover all that stuff about food drop, Swan Station, orientation movie, where the hells is Annie, and so on....

Greg Tramel said...

it may have been intentional by you that you sorta implied it was Juliet 2 shooting at Juliet 1 in the pictures you posted, we think that might very well be a possiblity instead of Illana and Crew

The Mystery of the Outrigger Shootings

Anonymous said...

The Volcano question is interesting. I'm not a geologist but isn't it true that Islands are formed from volcanic activity.

Henry Gale's Balloon was sponsored by both Widmore Corporation and Mr. Clucks Chicken Shack. He supposedly crashed on the Island and left his wife a note on a twenty dollar bill saying "Jennifer you were right. Crossing the Atlantic isn't easy. I owe you a beer. I'm hiking to one of the beaches to start a signal fire, but if your reading this, I guess I didn't make it. I'm sorry, I love you Jenny, always have, always will. Yours Henry". This is the note that caught Ben his lie along with Sayid digging up the Body. Henry was the CEO of a mining company and landed on the Island sometime after October 9 2003.

I completely agree with your takes on Walt and the picture frame. Those stories seem done but still fun too talk about.

I'd say the loose end I would like to see explained out of all these is who was shooting at Juliet and the rest of our time skipping Losties. I think we will get this answer in some sorta Flashback, Flashforward or Flashsideways. Just a gut feeling, a hunch.

This show is driving me nuts and did you here that there gonna give us a few episodes in January and then there will be a break during the Winter Olympics. Ghastly Arg!

Greg Tramel said...

Thunderstorm, thanks for correcting me that Sawyer was touched before Kate, but i'm a little unclear what you mean by "AFTER they first showed up"

do you mean AFTER 815 crash when the Losties 1st showed up on the show or AFTER the Losties were shown as younger kids before Jacob touched them?

3D, i agree after and before means nothing to Jacob (& MIB IMHO) and in turn Jacob and MIB are active in multiple timelines/tangent universes

when i use after, before and at the same time i generally mean in relation to the Losties

Greg Tramel said...

WOOPS SORRY! my last post was for another blog so ignore

Greg Tramel said...

i think for sure we will see the outrigger shootout in Season 6 since it seems to have happened after Ben stabbed Jacob

for me the biggest question is the history of the Hostiles/Others but i suppose that is much more than a looser (or even loose) end

Anonymous said...

Anonymous says...

I just do not have a Google account, URL or Open ID. Really should get one, huh?

Here's a hint though...

You promised me you would write an update of your Dharma station series this summer and I am still waiting for you to go back and revise them. After this past season there are enough clues lying around to write at least two more. The Arrow, The Tempest, how Dharma built all the nifty stuff on the island McGuyver style using only the contents of the submarine's cargo hold? (if there is such a thing on a submarine)...

By the way thanks for finally showing us your face AC. You're younger than I pictured.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if your serious or not ANON but I dont think that is AC pictured. If my memory serves me correctly AC had a picture on Lost Theories and it's not the same dude.

AngeloComet said...

Ironically, in a post about 'Looser Ends', the comments are slowly unravelling. . .

First up, the last commenter was right - that gamer dude pic came courtesy of a Google Images search and isn't, in fact, me. That guy would have to be a lot paler and have a much worse haircut to even get close.

I do recall saying I would re-visit my Dharma Station posts. . . Given I'm suffering from a lack of inspiration maybe it would be worth having another run at the old ones and the new ones. Leave it with me.

Greg - I didn't intend to speculate Juliet shot Juliet. I was under the impression Juliet was gone and therefore getting the acress (Elisabeth Mitchell) back to the show (when I believe she may have signed on to another show - V, I seem to recall?) seems unlikely.

Good post you linked to, though. Worth a read if anyone has the time.

Anonymous said...

At least its a slow unraveling that reveals the frustration of Lost fans biting at the bit and struggling with the anticipation of revelations sure to fall short and disappoint. Or will they. Mmmm

Maybe we found the biggest 'loose end' out there.That is. Will the Show's Last episode leave us with the the closure we seek out?

Andre7 said...

The mystery is complete. You remain the man behind the curtain. looking foreward to anything you write AC. I start my day by clicking on to your blog.

Anonymous said...

Just curious if it was mentioned, That is why Richard looked the way he did when meeting a younger Ben in the Jungle . He looked different from his normal clean shavin, no aging self. He had long hair and it looked like he had on pirate clothing.

Anonymous said...

This is great fun for the LONGGGG hiatus.

Walt! - yes! - greatest storyline that went nowhere? yeh sure the child actor grew up and they had to deal with that but he's grown up now and they could use him now - he has those powers - he's still dreaming about the island - he has a connection with Locke - plenty of interesting things could still be used there. Maybe his Agent is greedy... Also why did the island let HIM go? And how on earth did he and his father merge back into society without questions being asked? The 815 manifest would have been everywhere. Did he assume a false identity? And if that was the case his Grandmother would have to know and she obviously had been told that they hadn't been on the plane......

Aaron not being raised by another.... mmm, Locke said that the O6 were not MEANT to leave... therefore Kate was not MEANT to mother Aaron. Desmond saw Claire leaving with Aaron on a helicopter. Is this alluding to a 'correction' in the story that needs to occur?

Volcano - yes... Have you seen the S6 poster? The images are not great but they are definitely standing on rocks, they look dark so are they volcanic? Still there was some weird promo photos for S5 with them sitting in a loft room with vines over them - meant nothing....

Ben's box in the ceiling - think it had his gun to use for Penny. I saw a S5 DVD deleted scene with Ben talking to his Butcher girl and she asks him if he has a gun. Think not having this scene in the show meant that the box remained a mystery.

Another question - so they brought people in by sub and they needed to be drugged to handle the weird rocking and such to get to the island. It's a tiny sub really - so how did DI get all that building infrastructure into the island - cranes, heavy vehicles, LOADS of fuel - you can't tell they all came in on a sub. There MUST have been ships.


Thanks again and cheerio

Corellian said...

I just read an interview with Lindelof... they ask him about Walt, and he says that he believes that "why Walt was special and the role he played on the show will have a new significance when all is said and done. And I'm not sure we really need the character of Walt to explain the significance."

So, probably no more Walt, and maybe some kind of answer for a thing or two about him...

Link: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2009/10/a-lost-qa-damon-lindelof-tackles-your-questions/1

AngeloComet said...

Anonymous - Hmm, the gun was in the box? That's not exactly as amazing as we might have thought, but it's an answer! (Although the canon-rating of deleted scenes is debatable. As such, I still hold the door open and hope that there's something a little more intriguing from that box waiting to come to light.)

Corellian - That was a really good link you highlighted. I'd encourage anyone that hasn't to have a read of the interview. I thought the remark about Libby/Cynthia Watros was interesting; a new spin on their previous story of how the Libby story was 'done'! I'm encouraged that they haven't forgotten about the numbers and are looking to provide closure. Very encouraged.

Anonymous said...

It was Widmore n bunch shooting at Juliet!

Anonymous said...

You will be pleased to know that I found Cynthia Watros on Twitter and let her know my feelings about her lack of enthusiasm for the lost final series in 140 characters or less.

I'm sure that this will do the trick and she will be back for season 6.

Your welcome.

Anonymous said...

Hey!

If you're right about the picture frames, I've seen better continuity and prop management on Noel's house party

: )

fivestades

synchrobrarian said...

i still think the changing picture frames mean something

i think they happen in 2 different timelines, like Donnie Darko the universe splits into tangent realities throughout time

synchrobrarian said...

i still kinda like the notion of Juliet shooting at Juliet but i doubt that's the case

Illana & Co would be the logical choice

Anonymous said...

The camera purposely focuses on that one photo before Miles goes up the stairs. They take the photos down between scenes. But, accidentally they put the photos in the wrong frames all while making sure that that one photo is put back up in the same exact spot that it was during the first scene. And, after purposely bringing our attention to this photo during the first scene, no one working on the set notices that what was once wood is now metal?! Sorry, but I just don't buy it being a prop error.

The frame "changed" from wood to metal. Metal is a "transition" element.

IMO, that scene was meant to show us that there has been a "change or transition" in the space-time continuum...

Greg Tramel said...

yep i think the scene of Miles going down the stairs is actually a season 6 event and i suspect we have seen more season 6 events already (in addition to the obvious outrigger shootout that takes place during season 6 "time")

AngeloComet said...

Obviously, I'll be tucking into some humble pie about this picture frame issue should it turn out significant, but it seems to me that I am seeing a molehill and you guys are looking at a mountain.

(As for the matter of it being too much of an error to be a continuity error, well, I've seen too many major continuity errors to consider it improbable. On a show where Sawyer's hair can change length (from Pilot to Tabula Rasa) there's no claim of perfect continuity ever been made.)

Anonymous said...

Who told who to make a Runway for flight 316 that Lapidus grounded. Somebody had to give good old Ben the order right?

Anonymous said...

What about Faradays absence after the Flashes and then three years later he returns.hmmm.

And did anyone notice that Desmond recognized the Flashes as they happened? When he was talking to Faraday outside the entrance of the Hatch. I dont remember another character who looked directly at the flashes without warning. Let me know if Im crazy!

Anonymous said...

The building of the runway was ordered by jacob, was actually pretty cool the way it tied into the later series. Also, Sawyer was right Kate did look goddam cute swinging that pickaxe.

Anonymous said...

AC: I’m favorable of mountains. Molehills are not much fun or nearly as nice to look at! ;)

As far as the hair goes; considering the flashbacks, flashforwards and present timelines I think it would be a production nightmare if they had to get hair cuts, wigs and weaves involved for such a large cast. So, the length of their hair is something that I TRY to ignore even though it's a bit obvious and annoying.

Five said...

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Hope you don't mind me posting this here.......

I've created a piece of Lost Art that I'd love you and your followers to cast your keen Lost fan eyes upon.

It's a framed, 8 Octagon, exploratory literary wonder.

This is probably one of the most enjoyable pieces I've made......love to hear your thoughts & custom orders available for delivery before Christmas ; )

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33816898

Also anyone know of a site that promotes Lost fan art?

Anonymous said...

Well, it looks like my tweet described above worked because Libby is coming back.....maybe Hugo will hook up for the finale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXww2wxAJts