Lower Decks

LOST premieres tonight on ABC, and it will launch a final season will be very bittersweet for me.  Sweet because I’m looking forward to seeing the finality of the writers’ masterpiece; bitter because it will finally be over and there won’t be any more LOST to look forward to.  But, like it or not, the show’s end begins tonight, and let’s take a spoiler-free (but speculation-full) look at what to expect.

A couple of seasons ago, LOST re-invented itself with the huge WTF moment of Jack appearing off-Island in the future.  We had no idea how the flash-forward would play into things, and we realized that “life after the Island” was going to be just as important as life was on it.

Season five had a lot of the same things.  The death of John Locke was another game-changer, and we had to figure out what happened to the Island and how the Oceanic Six would make their way back.  Again, we didn’t really know what was coming.

This season…all bets are off.  We don’t have any idea how the season will begin, and we don’t even know what format it will take place in.  As far as I know, only one promo with actual footage from the episode has aired, and I haven’t seen it.

Why aren’t they showing anything?  Because any footage would give away hints towards what really happened in the season five finale.

RECAP

Last year ended with a very Locke-like Jack leading a group of survivors to the site of the Swan (in the 1970s).  Jack’s plan, which he took from the dead Daniel, was to set off the hydrogen bomb at the site, hoping to counteract the electromagnetic energy and avoid the famous “incident.”

No incident means no button.  No button means no crash of Oceanic 815.

The season ended with Juliet, about to die at the bottom of the drilling spot, banging the undetonated bomb with a rock.  When it finally exploded, the screen turned to white – telling us that things were different than in previous seasons.

So did it work?  If it did, it would be one of the more ambitious and risky moves in television history.  It would potentially mean undoing five years worth of stories, and reseting everything back to season one.

If it doesn’t work, it means the death of almost every character we’ve come to know and love.

Since I like all the characters, let’s assume that it works,  and the plane is able to land in Los Angeles like it was originally supposed to.  What do we think will happen? 

(Note: Keep in mind that, since I don’t read spoilers, this will just be my own speculation.)

First of all, if it worked, I anticipate that some/all of the survivors will be able to remember what happened on the Island.  It would be like their brains were sent back into their past bodies – they’d have the memories of events that never technically happened.  Some people might understand it, and some people might not understand.

I’m also guessing that there would be other “butterfly effect” reactions, in addition to some surviving memories.  Maybe people who were originally on the plane wouldn’t be on it anymore.  Maybe certain people (Juliet? Ben? Desmond?) would appear on the plane who weren’t on it in the first place.  Heck, maybe Christian Shephard didn’t die in Australia.

Because the show can’t just erase all the characterization that it worked so hard to establish.  LOST is all about character development, and it’d be a shame to lose all of it.  Besides, it really isn’t the show’s style.

It does leave open one question: what about the events that took place in the present (Thirty Years Later) in last season’s finale?  In that story, we left off with “John Locke” ordering Ben to kill Jacob.  After a really cool conversation, Ben actually does it.

Of course, the whole thing is magnified by the fact that Ilana and her gang of “friends” were carrying around John Locke’s body with them.  So the question became “if John Locke is still dead, who was the person who told Ben to kill Jacob?”

Common sense would illustrate (and the conversation between the two would indicate) that it was the mysterious “man in black” (or “Jacob’s enemy”) from the beginning of the finale.  He said he wanted to kill Jacob, and both conversations mentioned a “loophole” that would be required for one of them to kill the other.

But if Daniel’s plan was successful, what happens to Jacob?  Does he come back to life?  Would Jacob’s enemy still control Locke’s body?

Then there’s Sun.  She was brought to the present for a reason, and we never really saw her do much.  Wouldn’t it be LOST-like for Sun to not be on the plane after the bomb goes off?

And if the Oceanic survivors aren’t going to the Island, how is the show going to bring Ben back into the fold?  Ben Linus is one of the show’s finest characters, and he has to play a huge part in the show’s final season.

Hopefully, this has given you a lot to think about going into tonight’s finale.  I’ve said, many times, that LOST is the greatest show that I’ve ever seen, and one of the reasons is that the show is so much fun to discuss, debate, and speculate about.  In a few months, the show will complete, and hopefully, all the questions we’ve had will be answered.

If not, though, I still imagine we’re in for a great ride, and I’m glad I’ll be a part of it here on lowerdecks.com.