LOST

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LOST Recap: Season 6, Midseason- “Ab Aeterno”

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

After going on a LOST recapping hiatus since this season’s premiere episode, I came out of hiding to praise the job well done of the long awaited Richard-eccentric episode.  I feel so relieved, excited, and passionate about LOST again.  Because the show has finally stepped back into its former mystique while at the same time taking a giant step forward.

It’s not that I wasn’t a fan of the flashes-sideways.  They were cool.  I liked learning where the characters would have ended up had things gone differently.  But after a few episodes, the game started getting stale.

Yes, I get it.  James and Miles would have been buddy cops.  Ben and Dogen would have known each other through a high school.  Kate would have still ended up helping Claire.  Jack would have meet Locke and offered to help him gain his mobility back.  (And I’ve read an interview with one of the writers that said Hurley and Libby have a baby together in an upcoming flash-sideways.)

The first half of this season, to me, has felt more like a group of forsaken bonus episodes.  I feel like last night’s episode was the first real episode of the season.

Last May when I did my Season 5 finale recap, I predicted that Richard came to the island as a Spanish explorer in the 1600’s and was killed by the Smoke Monster.  So I was a little off.  He was a Spanish slave in 1867 from the Canary Islands (Spain) who became shipwrecked on the island.  I also predicted that the whole premise of LOST was a game between Jacob and the man I still refer to as Esau.  It now clearly appears that is indeed the case.

On a side note, the actor who plays Richard, Nestor Carbonell, is a Spanish-Cuban American who does not actually wear eyeliner, despite popular assumption.  He just has really thick eyelashes.

While some Losties are disappointed that the six seasons of the show have all led up to a moral chess game between two spiritual beings, I think it’s the only plot that the series could have that is grandiose enough to pull this all together.

Because just like real life, when all it’s all over with, it will be apparent that we were all participants in a sci-fi story alongside a spiritual war.  Yes, our life matters and is real, but ultimately we have a spiritual audience watching us and even influencing our personal decisions.  Brilliant.

Read “SCIence + FaIth = Sci-Fi” http://wp.me/pxqBU-1N

As for who and what exactly Jacob and Esau are, here is my guess.  Jacob is an angel and Esau is a demon.  Here is why they are not God and Satan.  When offering to grant a wish to Richard, Jacob says he can not raise the dead nor absolve Richard’s sins.  God would be able to.  But as an angel, Jacob is restricted by what God allows him to do.

Jacob’s gift of everlasting earthbound life is interesting.  It keeps Richard from going to hell, but makes his earthly life a form of hell by keeping him trapped on Earth while still not reuniting him with Isabella.

“Ab Aeterno” (the name of the episode), which is Latin for “since the beginning of time” or figuratively “since a very long time ago”, was by far the most blatantly Christian episode to date:

Richard learned to speak English by reading the Bible and carried around his wife’s cross necklace.  When Richard was shown to us in the prison, he was reading the 4th chapter of Luke which tells about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by Satan to turn the stone into bread (the lust of the flesh), to worship Satan in exchange for the domain of the world and all its glory (the lust of the eyes), and to attempt to commit suicide knowing that God would save him anyway (the pride of life).

This concept was later reiterated in 1 John 2:16- “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

I wonder if this was intentionally (and loosely) played out with Richard through the episode:  Esau granted Richard the lust of the flesh when he freed him from his chains and gave him food and water.  Hurley enabled the lust of the eyes to Richard through his vision of Isabella.  Jacob granted Richard the lust of the pride of life by giving him earthly eternal life.  That could all be a coincidence, but maybe not.

In other Christian elements, Jacob asked the priest, “What can I do to earn God’s forgiveness?”, which is a pointing towards the need for God’s grace.  Also, there was the use of the word “sin” by Jacob when he quoted Esau, “Everyone is corruptible because it is in their nature to sin”.  Explicitly New Testament Biblical.

So far, Jacob has not yet been able to prove his case to Esau, that a person can ultimately choose good over evil.  He continues to bring people to the island to find someone who will be his representative of righteousness (symbolizing followers of Christ), since Jacob himself refuses to force his will upon anyone.  And of course that’s another obvious reflection of God and his relationship with humans: The granting of free will.

As for my predictions for the last half of the season:

Ben Linus: I stand by my belief that he is ultimately good.

The Smoke Monster (Esau): It is a “soul train” that collects the spirits of those it kills, so that it can take the human form of them once they are dead.  Sometimes it “takes pictures” of their good deeds when it flashes the light at them to decide whether to collect them (by killing them) or keep them alive, like it did with Eko in the first season and with Richard back in 1867.

The List:  Jacob touched 7 potential “saviors of the island” back in their past including Kate (as well as Locke, Hurley, James, Sayid, Jack, and Sun/Jin), but for some reason Kate’s name wasn’t written on the cave ceiling when Faux Locke took James there: Kate somehow disqualified herself.  Also, no one knows whether it’s Jin or Sun that is on the list because only their last name shows up- but I predict it’s their kid instead, not either of them.

The Flashes-Sideways:  Not what actually happens, only glimpses.  The island is reality.

I will close with a few other quotes from the season so far that really stood out:

“I am not a zombie.” -Sayid

“John Locke was a much better man than I’ll ever be and I’m sorry I murdered him.” -Ben Linus

“I’m the smoke thing.” -Faux Locke (I like this name for him best because it rhymes with “Mohawk”.)

Read LOST Recap: Season 6, Episode 1- “LA X” http://wp.me/pxqBU-vo

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LOST Recap: Season 6, Episode 1- “LA X”


“When I die, what do you think will happen to me?” -Sayid

The anticipation… Such a big deal! Like being a kid… So exciting!

Yet now that the 23 millions of us have seen the first two hours of the final season of our favorite show ever, we’ve got our homework cut out for us. Watching LOST is a serious event. The whole time I’m taking notes, scene by scene.

Our predictions about the two different Last Supper promotional photos featuring the LOST cast were accurate: There are two main different timelines going on. No more flash forwards or flashbacks. It’s like those Choose Your Own Adventure books.  We are now dealing with the narrative device referred to as “flash-sideways”.

But by the finale, does only one of these destinies become the real one?  The writers of the show aren’t saying.  They don’t want to acknowlege either of the realities as the alternate one.  Until the finale episode, all we can do is just enjoy seeing what would have happened had the plane never crashed.  Because we’ve always been curious anyway about that.

There are two main parts from the episode that keep bouncing around in my mind.

The first: Who is in Sayid’s body now? Jacob. He told Hurley (in the new unknown year with the temple and the new Asian dude with long hair) to take Sayid to the temple (even though Jacob died an hour before in 1977). Sayid died at the temple (or was murdered by the men that were supposed to save him), then soon after comes back to life. That’s no coincidence.

In one of The Lord’s Supper parodies, Sayid assumes the role of Judas and John Locke represents Christ. Prediction: The new Sayid will betray the new Locke. In other words, Jacob will deceive Esau by making him think Sayid is still alive.

There is much irony in Sayid’s asking of what will happen to him when he dies. He was assuming and referring to his soul’s judgment to hell. But for us viewers, we now see this was a foreshadowing that the thing that would happen to him when he died is that Jacob would take over his body.

Going back to the fact that Jacob told Hurley to take Sayid to the temple in 1977, this solidifies a theory and anwers a mystery that we’ve been wondering since the 2nd season.  After a person has died on the island, and after Esau (or Jacob) takes the form of their body, they can appear as that person at any point in the past, but not in the future. Dying as that person prevents them from living on in present day.

When Jacob appears to Hurley and he had already been dead for an hour, remember that he was killed by Ben in the future.  Therefore he was able to go back in time and instruct Hurley to set up the takeover of Sayid’s body.

Pretty clever, yes?

The second thing bouncing around in my head is this: What year are Jack and Co. stuck in on the island? Based on the temple’s structure and the clothing, I assume sometime in the 1500’s, at the latest. I call this timeline “The Turban Times” because of the burgundy turbans worn by some of the temple mongers.

We’ve been introduced to two new bad guys. I think they’re bad guys. The Japanese dude with long hair. Until I learn his name and until I learn his actual ethnic background, I will call name him Emperor Miyagi. And his weird looking scientist friend, Dr. Hooknose. Both of them appear to be up to no good. But right now we’re still trying to sort out who’s good and who’s bad.

I hold true to my predictions that somehow in the end Ben Linus will end up being a good guy. Based on the fact that Benjamin in the Bible was righteous. Even the good guys are at least a little bad on LOST.

In closing, I have a feeling that the Egyptian cross, the ankh, will continue to have a major symbolic meaning for this final season. It is the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character for “eternal life” and represents the deities of the afterlife. The ankh was believed by the Egyptians to protect them against sickness, infertility, and a loss of psychic powers.

When it’s all said and done, the struggle on the island will all come down to Jacob and Esau’s struggle for eternal life, which they attempt to maintain through the appearance of the bodies of those who have died on the island. Sort of like on the movie The Skeleton Key.

And those who for whatever reason made their way to the island are forever exposed to the game of Jacob vs. Esau. That is, unless the alternative timeline proves to be solid. I have a feeling it won’t.

Read my recap from last night’s episode:

LOST Recap: Season 6, Episode 14- “Across the Sea”

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Capital Punishment, In Theory: Do You Support the Death Penalty Enough to Do It Yourself?

To ensure that capital punishment was followed through with, would you yourself be willing to take the life of a convicted, guilty criminal?

Back in November, I wrote a post asking the question, “If the only way you could eat any meat was by actually killing the animal yourself, would you still be a carnivore?” (click here to read it http://wp.me/pxqBU-ef). I ended up saying that I am a hypocrite- I couldn’t bring myself to killing animals as regularly as I eat them. (Though since then, I have begun trying only eating meat with dinner, and having vegetarian lunches.)

Recently, thanks to Netflix’s instant streaming, I have found a new series to satisfy me until LOST comes back in February. It’s a Showtime original called Dexter. He is a “blood splatter analyst” for the Miami Metro Police Department. He has unique insight and information regarding criminals who he knows are guilty but can not be convicted because of lack of evidence proven in court.

Interestingly, Dexter himself learned as a young teenage that he had a desire to kill people. His foster dad saw this and guided him into the possibilities working in the police force. So in addition to his day job as a blood splatter analyst, he also hunts down the criminals and kills them himself.

 

Dexter is a serial killer. He kills murderers on his own time, without the acknowledgement of the Miami police department. And has the know-how to get away with it. So other than breaking the law by killing the criminals, is what he is doing really so bad? He’s killing serial killers. Though he is one himself. He doesn’t kill innocent people, though.  Just the killers.

I am thoroughly entertained by this TV show, yet I can’t go unaffected: It forces me to sort out how I feel about capital punishment. I have always believed that without a doubt murderers and rapists should be killed. That’s what I am sure of.

But who pulls the trigger? Who turns on the electric chair? Who holds the responsibility of killing another human being? Of sending them into eternity? Like Dexter, does it take a certain kind of person to execute this kind of justice?

For those who don’t believe in capital punishment, there’s no need to continue reading. This is for those who are like me- those who do support capital punishment, but haven’t necessarily been able to sort it through. This is my way of sorting it out.

So the question is this: To ensure that capital punishment was followed through with, would you yourself be willing to take the life of a convicted, guilty criminal?

I’ve thought it through. I say yes, I would be willing to do it. Because if I say no, then like my earlier question about only eating the animals I killed myself, I make myself a hypocrite.

Aside from the fact I would be taking the life of murderer or rapist, what would hold me back? Knowing that I am in a way playing God. Why am I okay with that? Am I somewhat deranged for admitted I could do it if I had to?

Is there justification in executing a murderer or rapist? I looked it up. From everything I found in the Bible in old Jewish law, murderers are to be put to death. Along with people who commit adultery. But not rapists.

 

And that’s annoying because that doesn’t add up to where I stand. I want it to say that murderers AND rapists should be executed. But it doesn’t. And I definitely don’t believe that a person who cheated on their spouse should die for it. That seems quite harsh.

Why is it so common for murderers and rapists to repeat the crime once they are released from prison? Because they can’t “learn their lesson”. Something traumatic happened in their earliest years of childhood which corrupted the way they think. While they were at one time an innocent child who may have been a victim of violent abuse or rape, they are now an adult who has chosen to continue that pattern. I don’t see how giving a person like that a second chance is an option.

It’s not a question of revenge. I want no part in revenge. But I do support justice.

This scenario was played out in Season 5 of LOST. Sayid travels back in time and shoots Ben as a child. An adult tries to kill a future serial killer. The ethics of Kate prevented Ben from dying. She took him to get help and his life was saved.

I would say that few people would be willing to do what Sayid did- to try to kill a future serial killer. Because that’s altering the life of an innocent child.

But once that corrupted child has grown up and proven that are corrupted by murdering or raping another person, I don’t see how anything can change them. They can be forgiven by God and people, yes. But not excused from the law of man.

The thing is, there’s no way around the fact that executing wrongdoers is a necessary part of life. War is a great example. Our country fights the bad guys. The other nations who are out to get us and/or other countries. They are the ones who attack. We must defend ourselves.  Self-defense.

 

But even then, who are we fighting? A lot of the soldiers in the armies we fight against are fighting us because they don’t have another option. Their own corrupt government is often the one forcing them to fight us.

If they don’t fight for their country, they may be executed by their own army. If they do fight for their country, our country may execute them in war. They lose either way. But if we don’t kill them, they will kill us. We can’t avoid the situation.

But going back to capital punishment for our own criminals, why can’t we keep them in prison for life? Aside from the millions of dollars in cost us in taxes every year, we have a justice system that often lets them back on streets eventually. And as mentioned before, they often repeat the crime when they are freed.

The biggest issue I have in sorting all this out has less to do with whether or not I could execute a guilty person and more in deciding what crimes are worth of death. I say murderers and rapists. But where are the lines drawn? I’ll leave that to the courts to decide.

I don’t see capital punishment as a political or even a religious issue. Because in all I’ve researched, political and religious groups are split on the issue across the board. It’s one of those issues that isn’t cut and dry. It has to be pondered and discussed and seen from many perspectives.  But it can’t go ignored.  Someone has to answer the call.

But if we say really support capital punishment, in theory we should be willing to be the one who executes the criminal. If not, we are saying it’s wrong to murder a convicted criminal. Or that we’ll let a person who is more fit for the job take care of it.  And do we think that the person who is willing to execute the criminal is less moral than else? Do we fear God will judge us for carrying out what we perceive as justice?

By agreeing that certain criminals should be put to death, we are already making that decision in our mind that it’s justified. But there is something scary about the thought of carrying out that action ourselves. Ironic.

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LOST: Season 6 Pre-cap

We are just a few weeks away from the final season and we can hardly wait. There are 23 million of us Losties in the world. We are an underground society that no one else understands when we talk about the Dharma Initiative and Jacob and the statue. While others gave up after the first or second or even third season, we have continued to thrive on LOST thrills.

As we anticipate the final episodes, we do have one major concern: Will the final episode be a cliffhanger just like every other episode? Or some dumb cop-out like, it was all a dream or just the imagination of an 8 year old Autistic boy? (Those were actual final episodes for some shows back in the ‘80’s…)

The answer: no. I have been keeping up with all the interviews of the Lost writers. It is very important to them that the characters’ stories have a beginning, middle, and end. And that the LOST journey will be a satisfying one. So we can enjoy February through May with ease.

As far as hints for the final season of LOST, I have collected a few from the interviews I’ve read. The final season will most resemble the first. Charlie, Claire, and Boone will be back. As far as Juliet’s fate, by reading between the lines it sounds like she actually died at the end of the Season 5 finale. But at the same time, she will still be on Season 6.  But without Juliet, Sawyer will go back to being the old Sawyer.  And less emphasis on The Dharma Initiative, more on the Dharma-Michigan Connection, whatever that means.

A new change is that instead of relying on flashbacks and flash-forwards, there will be a new narrative device that is common in Bollywood movies. And since the only movie I’ve seen in that category is Slumdog Millionaire, I don’t have much insight on what it will be like.

Today ABC released two new promotional pictures for the new season, since they refuse to tease us with any video clips. The two separate, yet similar photographs make me think they will be two separate timelines for the same characters in which one will become the final by the last episode.   I entitle them, “The LOST Suppers”.

In this parody of The Last Supper, Sayid assumes the role of Judas the betrayer, Jack is the doubting Thomas, and Esau (in the form of John Locke) symbolizes Jesus. Is this to say that Esau is actually the good guy? Is he there to lead the inhabitants of out the wilderness island like Moses led the Israelites of their “lostness”? Was Jacob the true deceiver?

I want to confirm another major prediction about LOST. All I ask is that you give me credit for being the first to discover this once it becomes official in a few months. Promise you won’t forget it was me:
Season 1- September 2004 = real life 2004-2005
Season 2- October 2004 = real life 2005-2006
Season 3- November 2004 = real life 2006-2007
Season 4- December 2004 = real life 2007-2008
Season 5- January 2005/ “Three Years Later” (January 2008) = real life 2009
Season 6- February 2005 = real life 2009-2010

Notice that the furthest we have seen into the future on a flash forward on the show so far is 2008. In May when the series ends, in real life it will be 2010. That means that the years of 2009 and 2010 will not be accounted for (according to the “one season of the show equals one month for the people on the island” rule) unless they started flash forwarding to 2009 and 2010. My prediction is that in the finale of Season 6, the words “2010: present day” will flash on the screen. Something very important happens in 2009 and 2010. You heard it from me, people.

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What Ever Happened to the Amusement Park Called “Canyon Land Park”, Near Fort Payne, Alabama?

 

During the early 1970’s up until circa 1983, there was an amusement park called Canyon Land, just a few miles outside of my hometown of Fort Payne, Alabama on Lookout Mountain. In ‘70’s fashion, very comparable to the Dharma Initiative on LOST, Canyon Land could best be described as “1977 carnival meets small zoo”. One of the rides was a ski lift that took people over an actual canyon, Little River Canyon.

Being that I was born in 1981 and the park closed a few years later, my descriptions aren’t based on me being there during its prime. But my parents did go on dates there as teenagers.

 

Fortunately in 1993 (7th grade) my church youth minister Eddie McPherson was able to rent the shut down amusement park for $4 for the Halloween season. Our youth group put on an evangelical version of a “spook house” called Hell House. We used the old roller coaster carts and its track to manually push the guests through a “no flashlights allowed tour of hell” which ended with a bright room featuring Jesus (played by my dad) who invited them to Heaven.

It was a lot of fun for a 12 year old kid to explore that old place. The grass was taller than I was, where the parking lot used to be. Much of the place had basically been frozen in time as it evidently was abruptly shut down. In a room that stored all the old ski lift chairs, I found a completely intact Mellow Yellow can from 1979 (which I still have in my old bedroom at my parents’ house.

 

The urban legend is that the man who ran the place just let all the zoo animals go free into the woods. Therefore, to this day, jaguars and monkeys and all kinds of exotic animals can still be spotted on a lucky day. That would be fun to believe.

Because I helped resurrect Canyon Land for a few weeks in 1993, I tend to imagine what current lively buildings and attractions would be like if they became old an abandoned. Like Starbuck’s, for example. Twenty years from now, will all those Seattle-esque building be defunct? Like the old Food World building that remained years after the Super Wal-Mart came to town.

Not so much a ghost town. But a ghost attraction. Once filled with people laughing and buying ice cream. Now, only visited by raccoons.

Canyon Land is so forsaken that not even the Internet really acknowledges it. No Wikipedia entry. The best Google was able to do was take me to Ebay where someone is trying to sell Canyon Land postcards and tickets from 1970.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fort-Payne-Alabama-Canyon-Land-Park-Card-Tickets-1970_W0QQitemZ310185209860QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SRCH:US:101?rvr_id=

Also, for anyone who would like to purchase Canyon Land, it’s currently for sale. For the low, low price of $2.4 million.  http://www.mycampgroundsforsale.com/park_detail.asp?ID=11