Lost Season 3

[A Gunslinger]

From EW:

Did last week's season premiere rock or what?

Maybe as perfect an episode of Lost as there ever has been. An emotionally compelling blend of character-driven drama, forward-moving mythology, head-spinning answers, and, naturally, head-scratching new mysteries.

Which brings us to the matter at hand. Buckle up, kids. Because this batch of Lost theories is my bestest yet! Without further ado, I bring you our weekly Wednesday special...

THE LOST MYSTERY HOT SHEET
A weekly ranking of Lost's watercooler mysteries

1. WHO'S ''HE/HIM''???

LAST SEASON No. 5

ANALYSIS One of the few burning questions about the Others that the season premiere didn't explicitly address — or did it? ''He/Him'' would be the alleged leader of the Others, previously referred to as ''he'' by Mr. Friendly/Tom and ''him'' by Henry Gale/Ben. In the premiere, it appeared as if Ben was the honorable mayor of Othersburgh, which to me looked like The Village (The Prisoner) by way of Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls). (And judging from the passive-aggressive snickering, bug-eyed Ben isn't the most beloved authority figure, either.) Is the matter settled? Is Ben the Keyser Soze of the island underworld? Or have we not yet met the ominous Godfather of the Others?

ANSWER Definitely not settled — yet. According to a very knowledgeable Lost source, the matter of the identity of He/Him is ''a good question to be asking.''

THEORY The phantom regent who rules the Others has not yet been seen, but when the curtain is finally pulled away and this elusive Number One stands revealed, I predict ''He/Him'' will be played by Number Six himself, The Prisoner's Patrick McGoohan.

ESTIMATED CHANCE OF BEING RIGHT 6%

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2. IS MR. FRIENDLY GAY?
(LOST DEBATE OF THE WEEK!)

LAST SEASON Not ranked — not by a long shot.

ANALYSIS Of all the cryptic bits in the premiere that Lost fans could have pounced upon for water-cool discussion, Tom's conspicuously coy explanation for why he wasn't excited by the prospect of watching the designated hot chick take a shower — ''Kate, you're not my type'' — was definitely the most titillating. Lost certainly has attached many ambiguities to Big Tom since his first appearance in season 1, but I never in a million years would have thought his sexuality was one of them. After all, we're talking about a man who belongs to a secret, closeted society that lurks in wooded areas at night, likes to play dress up, and listens to Petula Clark records. And his nickname is Mr. Friendly! Doesn't sound like any gay man that I personally know. How about you?

MY POINT, MINUS THE SARCASM, PLUS A THEORY OR TWO The menacing Tom would seem to be an unlikely (not to mention risky) choice for Lost's first gay character. But Lost could be smart enough to make this work. Certainly the Others could be used to create a rich allegory for ''one of them'' demonization, culturally formed and reinforced prejudices, and plain old ignorant thinking. Remember, according to Ben, ''We're the good guys.''

A SECOND OPINION I had a great conversation with my EW colleague and fellow Lost fan Adam B. Vary about this subject. I asked him if he would share some of his perspective, and he obliged:

''The moment Mr. Friendly told Kate last week that she wasn't his type, my immediate reaction was, 'Oh, he's gay — finally.' For two seasons, I'd watched Lost explore people colored with practically every strand of diversity imaginable: rich to poor, young to old, thin to heavy, Southern, Northern, Midwestern, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, European, African, Australian, agnostic, Christian, Muslim, single, married, formerly married, (formerly) disabled and on and on and on. But never gay. Given how we're told Lost's showrunners have a Grand Plan, it really begins to bring up the question: Where in this Benetton collection of tortured souls are all the 'mos?

''Before I get too excited by last week's winking, however, I'm reminded that, on Lost, the obvious explanation tends to be the wrong one, so I'm actually inclined to believe Mr. Friendly isn't gay. Which is a relief, really — what would the show be saying by making one of its skeeviest characters its first Friend of Dorothy? — but only dangles that question in front of me even more insistently. Of course, when this is asked of Lost's powers-that-be, we're told, 'How do you know there aren't any?' So maybe some LGBT's really are lollygagging in the background on the beach. I'd just like to get to know at least one of them.''

THEN AGAIN... Maybe Tom just prefers blonds. Or polar bears. (Keep reading...)

ESTIMATED CHANCE OF TOM BEING GAY 10%, but probably a lot higher than I'm admitting right now.

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3. WHAT'S WITH JULIET'S MUST LIST?

LAST SEASON Not ranked

ANALYSIS Being the geeky Romeos that we are, we've become immediately smitten with Juliet, Lost's Stephen King-reading, Petula Clark-grooving new Other. But when we began to dissect her Must List for Big Theory clues, we began to worry for the melancholy tropical suburbanite. Take ''Downtown,'' Clark's 1964 smash, which begins: ''When you're alone and life is making you lonely you can always go... downtown!'' But without a hipster party zone on the island that we know of, one wonders if Juliet might consider chasing her blues away by following the tragic example of her Shakespearean namesake. Things get more foreboding when you scrutinize the ''Downtown'' sequence and see that the Clark disc was tucked inside the case for Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues, which features ''Burning Down The House.'' The strange musical pairing becomes downright chilling when you pause, squint, and see that Juliet's ''favorite book'' is King's Carrie, which ends with the pig blood-drenched telekinetic teen not just burning down the gym (and incinerating her cruel classmates), but also burning down her house (and killing her abusive religious mother), then burning down the roadhouse bar where her miserable mutant life was conceived. (If this is Juliet's ''favorite book,'' I wonder what the rest of her top ten looks like.)

THEORY Juliet and the Others were psychic Dharma Initiative lab rats who rebelled against exploitive ''parapsychology'' experiments, which were probably intended to create mind-control and mind-swapping techniques; hence, Juliet's huffy book club speech about ''free will.'' (FYI, if we are correctly interpreting the Map that John Locke found in the Hatch, one of the Dharma facilities ''divested'' — revolted? — from the project in 1985.) The Others aren't actually malevolent; their lonely island mission is to redeem Dharma's demented legacy and guide the lost souls who reach their strange shores toward the same kind of personal enlightenment that they possess. Which is the real reason why Mr. Friendly told Kate she wasn't his ''type.'' Spiritually speaking, she's not good enough for him. Yet.

ESTIMATED CHANCE OF BEING RIGHT 75%. But please: We never want to see Kate and Tom getting too friendly.

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4. THE DHARMA ZOO

LAST SEASON Not ranked

ANALYSIS When Juliet casually revealed that Jack's cell inside Dharma's former zoology facility, the Hydra, had been a lab for studying sharks and dolphins, I naturally began to wonder what kind of weird science was being conducted inside this station. I thought, ''Doc, aren't sharks and dolphins natural enemies? Perhaps these brainy, aquatic rivals were being used in experiments designed to purge aggressive behavior and reconstruct hostile survival-of-the-fittest instincts. Just imagine if that research could be applied to human beings. In fact, maybe Dharma was trying to turn the Utopian dream of John Lennon's 'Imagine' into a genetically engineered reality.''

And then I thought to myself, ''Nah! That's crazy talk, Doc! Bring it back down to plausible science. Clearly, what Dharma was really trying to do was... manufacture human/animal hybrids, just like The Island of Dr. Moreau!''

THEORY Think about the Others. Think about their cute, simple pet names. Ben. Tom. Juliet. Think about their bare feet, padding silently and easily through the jungle as if they were born to it. Think about ''Henry Gale,'' and how he links to The Wizard of Oz, which includes one of the most famous human/animal hybrids in pop culture, the Cowardly Lion.

In fact, the more you think about it, the more it makes sense that there's some kind of dark animal magic on Lost. Mr. Friendly/Tom could be part polar bear, a seemingly cuddly yet very dangerous predator. (Hence, why Kate isn't his ''type,'' and why he knows that it only took two hours for the bears to crack the food puzzle.) Henry Gale/Ben could be part shark, allegedly villainous but actually misunderstood. (Again: ''We're the good guys...'') And Juliet could be part dolphin, playful, empathic, and always coming to the rescue, like the way she reached out to Jack when he was drowning in flashback angst. Her Flipper-esque nature also explains her uneasy relationship with Ben; remember, dolphins and sharks don't mix. Just like ''Fire + Water,'' the title of the weirdest Lost episode ever (it was the one where Charlie was inexplicably overwhelmed by religiously tinged hallucinations), and the episode that just may explain all of this theoretical monkey business. During one of Charlie's flashback scenes, there was a visual reference to the cover art of Pink Floyd's Animals, a concept album inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm. Now, we know that Dharma was doing experiments in zoology and parapsychology; perhaps the animals were test subjects for experiments in mind/body separation and consciousness transfer. In fact, Smokey the Monster — which roars like a bear, hunts like a shark, and thinks telepathically like a dolphin (or so some believe) — may have been the prototype for switch-and-mix hybrid engineering. (Further proof: according to the Map found in the Hatch, Dharma referred to Smokey as ''Cerberus,'' a mythic beast with three heads.)

According to The Lost Experience, the summertime Internet extravaganza produced by the show's creative team, Dharma's mission was to not only explore ways to improve mankind (see: Dr. Moreau), but more pressingly, to develop radical strategies to preserve the human species from impending self-destruction (think: Noah's Ark); perhaps Dharma was trying to download human consciousness into sea creatures in case one of Al Gore's awful inconvenient truths triggered another flood.

Regardless, it's possible that my animal-magic contention supersedes or possibly intersects with my previously stated Dharma-test-subject-uprising theory. Maybe the Hydra animals telepathically took control of the scientists. Or maybe they melded minds with the human test subjects and drove the scientists away. (According to an annotation on the Map of all the Dharma facilities found in the Hatch by John Locke, an unspecified entity inexplicably ''divested from the project in 1985''; could this entity be the Others?)

So why are these beastly Others obsessed with the Oceanic 815 castaways? Maybe it's an instinctively mandated Darwinian turf war. Maybe they want to transfer their consciousness into Jack, Kate, and Sawyer's stronger, younger bodies.

But I have a kinder, gentler theory: Maybe the Others represent a new kind of being, one that lives in harmony with nature. (The fact that they walk silently and barefoot through the jungle seems to suggest that they possess an animal's sense of ease in the jungle environment.) And maybe as such, they have something they want to teach our human castaways about living better, more enlightened lives. Yes, the Others do sometimes behave like rabid dogs... but really, they just want to be man's best friend.

ESTIMATED CHANCE OF BEING RIGHT Negative 99.999%

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5. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE GUYS IN THE HATCH?

LAST SEASON No. 1

ANALYSIS I refer, of course, to Desmond, Locke, and Mr. Eko, who were in the Hatch when it was blown to smithereens. Similar to last season's three-part, three-episode opener, Lost is going to take three episodes to address all the cliff-hangers from its sophomore finale. Tonight's outing will deal with the beach-bound fuselage crew, and in particular, Sayid, Jin, and Sun (the Korean couple will get the episode's flashback story). And while we might catch a glimpse of one of the Hatch boys (a very revealing glimpse, according to some spoiler reports), the former button-pushers will be bringing up the rear of the trilogy next week.

TEASE OF THE WEEK According to my sources, at least one of the three button men will return to action transformed in such a way that gives him something in common with one of the heroes over on Heroes.

ESTIMATED CHANCE OF DOC JENSEN'S SPOILERISH TEASE BEING ABSOLUTELY RIGHT 93.999%. After all, Lost theorizing isn't an exact science. Not like making animal/human hybrids.

[Kil Tyme]

Ahh too deep for me. I just think the part where Sun shoots that "other" women in the boat was the best scene in a long time. I actually cheered for someone finely standing up to those insane people. Ya, and Sawyer, too for punching the daylights out of the other other....

I also thought the seasons 2 hour ender was the best of the season.

[A Gunslinger]

Sawyer is a cagey bird. Too bad that Henry is onto him!

[Ted Bloodstone]

Sawyer got crabs from having sex with someone in Tallahassee Florida. You don't buy a salve ointment for herpes, you take pills. But crabs are bugs. So you need something external to put on them to kill them. That's what Sawyer & Jack were talking about.

Of course, now that you know that I know, I'm willing to bet that everybody thinks I have ugly, crab-infested goods. No, this is just some random usless trivia I picked up from having lived on the planet for a few decades or so.

[[Syl]]

Got crabs once. In bootcamp. Apparently, the recruits in charge of the laundry weren't really washing it all... yeah, fun stuff.

[A Gunslinger]

Boot camp...sure!

[sindatur]

Sawyer got crabs from having sex with someone in Tallahassee Florida. You don't buy a salve ointment for herpes, you take pills. But crabs are bugs. So you need something external to put on them to kill them. That's what Sawyer & Jack were talking about.

Of course, now that you know that I know, I'm willing to bet that everybody thinks I have ugly, crab-infested goods. No, this is just some random usless trivia I picked up from having lived on the planet for a few decades or so.

But, wasn't the word "burning" also included in that conversation? Would crabs produce burning, or just itching?

[[Syl]]

Itching. Though if you scratch anything enough, I suppose...

[Ted Bloodstone]

But, wasn't the word "burning" also included in that conversation? Would crabs produce burning, or just itching?

Well Lost just like everything else is not perfect. Very good, but not perfect.

However, if I were to speculate, the burning would be from the medicine itself.

[Kil Tyme]

Finely a Locke episode. His initial story in season 1 is what got me hooked into the show. I hear we might find out how he ended up in a wheelchair this season.

[sindatur]

Finely a Locke episode. His initial story in season 1 is what got me hooked into the show. I hear we might find out how he ended up in a wheelchair this season.

Yea we were hoping we would get that answer last night, but, a spoiler from the PODcast earlier this week told us we wouldn't. We can hope it will in the second set of episodes.

This episode was fantastic. Locke has been taken back to "spiritual" roots and the Sweat Chamber was awesome.

Spoiler

Boone looked really good last night. He didn't look so girly, as if they laid off some of the makeup or something, and he also didn't look so greasy and sweaty, like a speed freak, as he generally does in everything I've seen him in.

So, another Polar Bear? We've seen both a real looking Polar Bear, and we've also seen a Polar Bear that looks extremely obviously CGI. Is that for a reason? Is the CGI Polar Bear who attacked Walt, and carted Eko off last night, something other than a real polar Bear? IE: One face of the "monster that ate the Pilot"? There was a spoiler over the summer that said something along the lines of "The viewers have seen the monster but, probably didn't realize it"

[/spoiler]

[Ted Bloodstone]

Actually, the answer to your question is on DVD Season 1 Boxed set. They explain how they do all that & why it looks that way. I wish it were more mysterious, but it's just budget constraints.

[sgt.null]

the sweat lodge trip was outstanding! i can't wait to see it again.

[Ted Bloodstone]

You're right. The sweathouse & the return of Jon Locke to his mysterious ways is very fulfilling. Much better than the whiny woe-is-me daddy stuff.

Also, Charlie has been a real hoot lately with his wry little smiles & dry little sarcasms. But it's quite funny & I like this far better than the whiny woe-is-me Claire needs to be my wife cause that kid needs a daddy stuff.

The first episode of this season had me worried, but they look to be moving in whimsical & interesting directions despite the CGI & forgivable continuity errors. Lost is the best show since Millennium.

[sgt.null]

and maybe the Lost will get off their asses and do something about the others. about damn time.

where are Rose and her husband?

[Ted Bloodstone]

Well, about the "others"

Remember the end of Season 2 episode, Michael asks, "Who are you people?"

Ben (the other's leader as we know so far) replies, "We're the good guys Michael".


Also, remember when Ben was pretending to be Henry Gale, and they questioned him about the "others" leader, referring to the Bearded Guy. And his response was, "HIM? HE'S NOTHING!"

Then later, while talking to Locke, he said, "You'd like him, he's so benevolent (paraphrased as I forgot the real words, but basically worshipped by the others)."


----


Also, recall that in the cave Locke was just in there were many bones, and specifically the camera locked onto one skeleton with a Dharma uniform. Immediately, I remembered the "film" in which the Orientation guy explains that there was "an incident".


Anyway, I like how all of this is tying in & the web they are weaving is very complicated & yet it is working. I'm quite impressed.

[A Gunslinger]

and maybe the Lost will get off their asses and do something about the others. about damn time.

where are Rose and her husband?

They'll be around, I am sure. Next week looks very intense. It also looks like a Kate Flashback, though i could be wrong.

[sgt.null]

i'd like to see someone else from the Lost group step up to fill the void of all of the missing members.

[Wyldewode]

Umm. . . yeah. Great episode!!! I was facinated by

Spoiler

John's Vision Quest at the airport. . . too cool.

Must see again.

I like the part when

Spoiler

Locke is being the hunter. . . and throws the knife at Hurley. I laughed so hard. . it must have been comic relief.

And what did everyone else think about Desmond

Spoiler

when he said the bit about John and "going after them in his speech." Since when did Desmond become a time traveler? I know that is what the Heroes reference is about, but how do you think that plays into the story? And how in the hell did he survive the implosion?

Oh yeah. . and he's naked too? Oh, brutha. .

I think for every question this episode answered it raised three more. . . just like any good hydra.

Woot! I love Lost. That is all.

~Lyr

[taraswizard]

Realizing you're all beyond this by now. But [quote]taraswizard wrote:
I liked season 3 premier lots and lots more than season 2 finale. I f***ing hated, hated the season 2 finale, thought it was boring waste of time, and it almost put me off watching the premier.


Really, you hated the Finale and thought it was boring? I quite enjoyed it myself.

LOL Syl[quote]

There was one good thing the seeming removal of Michael and Walt (IMO, it's no mere coincidence that Walt and Weasley both start with 'W').

Sucky things:
no resolutions of any of the mysteries and no narrative to speak of (Locke arguing with Echo is not a narrative, nor is Jack scheming with Saayid).

Walt and Michael taking the boat (eventhough it's a welcome development concerning my enjoyment of the story overall, it made almost no sense to the story such as any story existed for the episode or the series arc).

The guys at the arctic (seemingly) station, WTF is that all about. Furthermore, that has had no mention in the first three episodes again these writers are messing with us in very dishonest ways.

Overall, many of us have watched this story since its premier and we know no more about why these people are on this island, what is the nature of this island (is it an island?), what is the Dharma project than episode one, season one? NOt SAYING we need all the answers, but we have no answers.