Why The Bomb Going Off Does Not Negate Five Years Of My Viewing Pleasure

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

This is the normal story. At every point in our lives we make choices and based on those choices we end up with one continuous timeline. We're born, to these parents, with these siblings, we go to this school, then this college, then marry this person, and have these children. We live here and then here and eventually we die.

But most of us have wondered what if? What if I'd gone to a different college? Chosen a different major? Gotten that other job? And those are the choices we control. What about the ones we don't like what if I'd been born on a different continent? Had different parents?

But what's the point in playing the what it game? We don't get do-overs. We make the best of what we have and press onward, perhaps with regrets and the capacity to make up for them or move past them, but not the ability to undo time.

But that's the beauty of fiction. I think we're going to get to see what happened had we chosen the road not taken. Well, not us, but Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, etc. But it's not going to take 5 years to tell that story because most of the choices they've made, and we've watched, aren't the ones they want to do over. Most of the choices will be the same. 

But there's one thing or a few things that might make all the difference in the world and I think those are the things we'll get to see a second time in Season 6. We may even get to see them the exact same way we did in Season 1 with a crash on the Island and flashbacks to show us who these people are. I don't think it'll go quite that way. I think the more likely way is to show us the new choices and then crash to end it all. But either way, it won't result in unrecognizable versions of Jack and the rest of the 815ers, but they will be altered or at least have the opportunity to be altered. The question will be do they always do the same thing or will they take the road less traveled and chose as Jacob encouraged them.

So What Happened In "The Incident?"



Update: Thanks to Gitsie Girl for this screencap! Boy what a great finale. I really enjoyed watching it. I really enjoyed re-watching it. And I even like the idea that I have no idea what could possibly happen next.

One thing though seemed to be clear. Jack failed to prevent "the Incident." Before the bomb could go off the Incident occurred. The pocket of magnetism was breached and was uncontrollable resulting in a catastrophic injury to Chang's arm and the need to create the button pushing protocol. Fitting that Radzinsky, the one that created the Incident was subjected to years of button pushing monotony to the point of insanity and ultimately suicide. Well, that's how it would have worked if the fall had killed Juliet.

Because the second thing that seems clear is that Juliet blew the dike. I think what Juliet did was the equivalent of what Desmond did at the end of Season 2 when he turned the failsafe key. But I don't think the result will be the same. I don't think we'll see a naked Juliet running around the jungle. Sorry guys, but you can rent Gia if you feel the need to see that.

Instead I think what will happen is what did happen in part in Flashes Before Your Eyes in that those close enough to the dike being blown will have memories of their futures as they live their lives from some point in the past. In Desmond's case his 1995/6 body post fall off a ladder contained memories of the Island. While it's not clear if the cricket bat to the head stopped that for Desmond, I'm not convinced that it did. I think the reason Desmond training for the Race Around the World knew that Jack fixed Sarah because he remembered that on Island Jack told him he'd fixed Sarah. This deja vu is imperfect, but I think it is nevertheless present as this scene demonstrates.

So what does this mean going forward into 2010 and Season 6 where Destiny will be Found? I think Flight 815 will crash on the Island. It won't be because of the Swan, it will be for some other reason, but the universe will course correct and bring 815 down on the Island. I also think that the people we find on the plane will not be the same sad lot we first found on September 22, 2004. I think at least part of the flashbacks we saw in The Incident demonstrate that the 815ers have made different choices. The most obvious is Jin and Sun.

In Season 1, Episode 17 In Translation we saw Sun and Jin on their wedding day.



Sun was changing out of her wedding dress into her reception dress. You'll notice both of these are dresses with straps. You can also see that Jin was in morning dress.



Now here's what we see in "The Incident."



Strapless wedding dress and different suit. And different reception dress.



It also looked like during the ceremony that Jin had relatives there. Is this Mr. Kwon?





Finally all I want to know is if it's 2010 yet? While I have lots of fun things to do between now and then, I can't wait for it to get here. Until then, I'll get out my Flannery O'Conner and try to stay lost.

Season 6 Prediction



So following The Variable and the preview after it I have come up with this idea for how Season 5 ends and what happens in Season 6. I think Season 5 ends with the Losties managing to blow up the Swan in time. The Island is destroyed and they all die in 1977.

Then Season 6 is 17 episodes consisting of character episodes where we see what happened to each original Lostie on Flight 815 plus Desmond plus Ben and possibly Juliet from the time Flight 815 lands on time in Los Angeles until they each die sometime before 2008 because by 2008 they will all be dead due to the explosion in 1977.

Given that most of predictions never ever happen, this probably won't either, but I want to be on record just in case.