Wading in the Velvet Sea

Five Times, Four Toes, Three Years, Two Months, One Child

Well, turns out Jin indeed possessed super-sperm, after all.

After months of speculation over whether the Island could untie a man’s tubes, so to speak, we learn tonight that the Island increases a man’s sperm count to five times the normal amount. No wonder every guy on the island trots around like an alpha male: they have sperm coming out of their freakin’ pores! And this also serves to explain why most men seem to act like morons on the island, since everyone knows it’s impossible to think when you’re that backed up.

All kidding aside, this revelation points out an interesting contradiction in terms: the island raises sperm counts (which, as Juliet points out, is a very good thing, odds-wise, when trying to get pregnant) while killing the impregnated woman roughly 23 weeks into the pregnancy. And yes, “23” is one of the Numbers, which may or may not mean anything, but the show did go out of its way to point out that Sun got knocked up eight weeks ago, so allow me the Number reference, kindly.

To me, this dichotomy is interesting. To anyone reading this review at Wellesley College, this is patriarchy. And I get it, I really do. The Island seems pretty darn sexist, if you don’t mind me saying so. The real question, at this point, at least as far as I’m concerned, is: does this dichotomy exist because of The Purge? How long has this problem existed? I’m inclined to think it’s related in some capacity, given the four-toed statue seen at the end of Season 2. That statue denotes antiquity, it denotes history, it says, “At some point, long ago, someone who had a similar imagination to ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, or a time-traveler who thought those statues in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ looked really cool built these.” A civilization would have a hard time building something like that over one generation. It would take a few generations to build that statue.

The other way to approach this could be from a colonialist perspective. Look at Cortes’ meeting with the Aztecs: it wasn’t war that ultimately did the Aztecs in, it was disease: the pathogens between the two races were so different that the Aztecs were annihilated. “War of the Worlds” follows up on this concept as well. I’m sure there are dozens and dozens more in literature and film, but I gotta work in the am, so let’s take the phrase “War of the Worlds” and see where that leads us.

Say, for instances, that you’re a Danish weapons manufacturer turned philanthropist. You’ve a problem: you know the world’s going to end. You read about it in the Valenzetti Equation. You need to change those numbers, damnit. But you’re working against time. You can’t possibly get the research done in time, even with all your money. But then you remember an island. And island that your grandfather crashed on in the 19th century. An island with “unique” properties. The only problem is: avoid the locals. See, everyone there has four toes, according to the records your grandfather left. And everyone started getting sick, on both sides. So when you send your team there, make sure no one interacts with the locals. In fact, best to put “quarantine” signs on the insides of the panels, lest anyone get tempted to go outside for a stroll. And those computers? Make a note to Marvin Candle to specify in the orientation video that they cannot use the computers for any communication, in case one site is compromised by the locals. Avoid these people at all costs: they come from not only another country, but another world.

(The previous paragraph has been copy and pasted from a 400-page fanfic explanation of pre-“Lost” history, funded by the NEA. Also? Kate? Like, you know you’re preggers, right? I mean, I don’t think Sawyer was terribly un-spermy 90 days ago, and I shudder to think how fertile he is now.)

Break On Through To the Other Side

But this “other world” theory…I mean, that last moment could really support this claim, no?

As I see it, there are two possible explanations for what our favorite Sanjaya lookalike said at the end of the episode. (Props to TWOP posters for calling out the resemblance last week.) One: shortly after Oceanic 815 disappeared, The Others, through Paik Heavy Industries (yes, Jin's dad's group, which has proven ties to the Widmore Corporation which we know through the online game), organized a fake crash site so no one would go snooping and find the island. This explanation is slightly implausible, but so is everything concerning The Others. But it’s not too bad a theory, completely grounded in reality, and therefore, it bugs me to no end and must be cast aside for the much cooler, albeit tripper theory:

In the “real world”, everyone’s indeed dead, but at the point where Oceanice “crossed over” the line into IslandWorld (right behind TommorowLand on the way to Main Street USA), a new reality kicked in where everyone’s fine.

So, when the producers have said the Lostaways are not in capital P Purgatory, they are telling the truth. But the island, for better or worse, is a lower case p purgatory, in that they are stuck in a netherworld from which they cannot escape. Remember all that stuff about “eternal return” I was blabbing about last week? Matter’s finite, but time is infinite, according to this theory. The short version: “All of this has happened before; and all of this will happen again.” Matter cannot be created not destroyed; simply turned into something else. Like, say, physical forms on the other side of what’s essentially an interdimensional wall.

An interesting parallel structure (people on a plane slip through a slice o’ time to enter into a similar but different reality) can be found in a story by the favorite author of the “Lost” producers: Stephen King. This story, entitled “The Langoliers”, tells of a group of people who all fall asleep on a red-eye from LA to Boston. One by one, they wake up to find that everyone else on the plane is missing. If you weren’t asleep, you were gone. When they land in Bangor, they find EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD is gone as well. But something has replaced them: the langoliers, demon beasts that exist because one passenger’s father told his son of them as a child to make sure his son didn’t grow up lazy.

Now, there’s a lot to unpack there as far as parallels to “Lost” without recapping the entire book. Los Angeles? Check. Father issues? Check. Plane flying through a tear in reality? Check. And here’s the killer part for me: everyone makes it through by sleeping. WHy is that killer? Well, what’s on Charlie’s tattoo? “Living is easy with eyes closed.” What does every season of “Lost” start with? A shot of someone’s eyes opening.

But here’s one final link: when the passengers of the flight in “The Langoliers” go back through the rip in time, finally, they are in the future: time has to catch up to them. On either side of the rip, time works at a slightly different speed. That’s potentially what’s happening now on “Lost”, between Real World and IslandWorld (just to the left of FantasyLand). Different speed, different reality, but only for those on the island.

But here’s the real kicker: if NotSanjaya “knows” that Oceanic 815 had no survivors, then where in the hell are Walt and Michael?

(Here’s another kicker: if it turned out to be the “staged crash” option, I’m gonna be really mad at the 45 minutes of my life I just wasted coming up with that sci-fi mumbo jumbo, gosh darn it all.)

A Flare Up

OK, I’ve just spent 6 paragraphs trying to explain into existence the notion of interdimensional walls. Clearly that’s enough heavy mental lifting for the week. But I will leave you with one final thought.

1) So, um, hi there, not dead Mikhail. That was, um, weird. Did you see the flare and think, “Sweet, my sexpot Ms. Klugh finally gave me the signal for hot jungle booty!”, only to run into The Island’s version of Take 5?

So, um, why were you running that way, anyways? Out for a stroll, were we? Or were you looking for someone...say, someone who was sent to meet you? Let's look at the facts, shall we?

A woman parchutes to the island. Alliance unknown. Allegiance unknown. She has a book ("Catch-22"), a souped up phone, and a picture of Desmond. We're led to believe, narratively, that we can assume this woman was sent by Penelope to to recon work in finding Desmond. But what if that's not true?

In fact, what if the opposite of true?

What if she were sent there by Charles Widmore?

Look at the facts. When she approaches, she approaches at the precise place on the island where the cable goes into the water. When she lands, she is bearing a red, blinking light, analogous to the one on the food drops. She carries a sophisticated piece of communications software, which would come in handy for someone who's lost communication to the outside world after a giant electromagnetic event.

And she says words in Italian to Mikhail, the words in a language no one understands. This is why she kept talking in different languages. She kept trying out ones until she found one NONE OF THE FOUR OTHERS UNDERSTOOD. She doesn't say, "Thank you very much" in Italian to Mikhail, she says, "I'm not alone." No one but Mikhail and crafty people on message boards know this.

As for the picture? Well, Desmond's Mission #2: "Keep this Git On the Island". Charles knows his daughter's looking for him, so he sends in Naomi to make sure he never gets off the island, especially now that he's no longer on Hatch duty.

All this leads to an intriguing third option as to the meaning of the final scene: it was all a blatant lie to mess with everyone's mind and keep there on the island so the work being done on the island by Jacob can continue.

***

And that wraps things up for this week. Now you’re turn. Easily one of best episodes this year, with a “WTF” conclusion that will probably take until the end of the show’s run to actually answer. And know what? I’m OK with that. If I knew all the answers, I wouldn’t stay up past midnight each week making up stuff that turns out to be completely off the mark within three weeks. And that would be a dull life indeed. (Also: if you liked this week's review, make sure to bookmark this site: my "Lost" repository. All my reviews, podcasts, and links can be found there!)