Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death

First, I had forgotten that Mac from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” was on “Lost” a few seasons ago, so I became a little giddy when I saw him again tonight. I went to tell my boyfriend (who is currently abstaining from “Lost” for reasons I will not disclose) because he loves that show and he asked, “Is he a good guy or a bad guy?” I paused momentarily before saying, “I’m not really sure right now,” and walked out of the room where he was watching The Mavs play. Then it hit me that, aside from Smokey clearly being the bad guy (I guess), I don’t know who exactly I am supposed to cheer for. Don’t yell at me! I know that we are on The Losties’ side, but can we really cheer against The Others if they are connected to Jacob, who is clearly the good guy (I guess)? Or is anyone really the good guy/bad guy? If Jacob and Esau are these two demi-gods that are in charge of keeping balance and order by way of judgment (or something) then can there really be a good side and a bad side? Granted Smokey is sick of keeping the peace at this point, so perhaps a line has officially been drawn.

I’ve been reading up on mythology, which is actually a favorite pastime of mine, in hopes of finding some answers about Jacob and Esau. I’d heard of and read briefly in the past about a God of Chaos, though I couldn’t remember where it stemmed from. I found it! Loki was a Norse god whose name means “air” in Norse and is a shape-shifter. Sound like someone we all know? Beyond that, he does not really resemble Esau. However, there is a goddess named Khaos who often took the form of a “dark mist” and who ruled the space between heaven and earth. No solid answers there, but it does give room for more theorizing, and that’s what we Lost fans love to do when it comes to this show. This is just some info I wanted to share and clearly has no direct connection to tonight’s episode, but may be helpful later.

I am now going to somewhat briefly address the LAX timeline. I am basing most of this on a link, posted by my friend and blog reader Lindsay, from the EW interview with Cuse and Denisof. I will summarize and theorize simultaneously. Egads! Cuse and Denisof are reluctant to call either reality an "alternate reality", because they don't want one to seem as though it is more important than the other. Instead, they refer to it as a "flash sideways". They supposedly based this concept off of the Island Universe Theory. Essentially, it is like a parallel universe, where there are two different existences of the same person happening simultaneously. Now, obviously the island was taken more literally for them--since it actually refers to galaxies/nebulae--but I think this is sort of the direction it may be going. So one reality is not more important than the other. One isn't more real than the other. I think a certain event, however, may decide which one will win out in the end. I am basing most of this on assumption. The "Island Universe Theory" was only briefly mentioned in the interview and it was developed predominately by Immanuel Kant, a philosopher. Now for the segue . . .

I think it is important to not look at the LAX timeline as potentially “inconsequential”, as Hydra put it last week. Although it is merely proving at this point that fate is fate and there is no way around it, there will be a “winning” universe in the end. That’s really all I have to say about that right now. And yes, Arrow, I concur that the LAX timeline is a bit of a Borefest since we are essentially just rewatching Season One in LAX format. But I will not discount anything as important, especially so early in the game. HUGE HOWEVER, I am a little pissed about having this parallel world taking up valuable time that could be used to explain the island. Yes, I know I just said that LAX is just as important as Island, but Island is clearly more fascinating and enigmatic. Just sayin’.

I guess now I will briefly address the little morsels we were given in last night’s episode:

Claire is alive! She might be possessed! She might be crazy! She might not remember anything or anyone, even little Aaron! But she is alive! Guess we’ll see how that goes next week.

I like Dogan. That might be a bad move on my part, since he has only further proven that The Others were born to lie, but I like him. Twenty bucks he dies, though. I'm lying about the twenty bucks part. I'm broke.

I also like Lennon. This may be due to the fact that the guy who plays him was on an episode of “The X-Files” (my former love) or that his name is oh-so fitting to his appearance, but I like him. He kind of has a creep factor to him like that of our good friend Benjamin Linus, however.

I’m worried about Sayid, man. I’m going to whole-heartedly agree with Arrow—whose “I remember...” observation was very cool—that Smokey may possess Sayid. Kind of. I don’t think it’s the same entity, per se, that has taken on the form of Locke, but I think it is something like it. As I said before, the murky water is the culprit for whatever is about to go down with Sayid. I wonder what Dogan plans to do about it now that Jack isn’t a fan of poisoning him? Just going to say now that I am still off the “Sayid is Jacob” bandwagon.

Oh, Sawyer. Breaking my heart, I’m telling ya. I got a little teary-eyed, I won’t lie, during the dock scene. A tiny part of me felt a little bad for Kate, but then I remembered that I don’t like her and mumbled, “Take that! How does it feel?” I’m horrible, I know. I hope we get to see Sawyer and Juliet meet in LAX, but if fate is fate, she will somehow die anyway so it still sucks.


That’s pretty much all we got tonight, so . . . Show us what you got, Hydra!

--The Pearl