The "Getting Lost" series is about a Lost newbie's attempts to watch all five seasons of the show for the first time, just as the sixth (and final) one rolls along.

What I Watched on Week 13: Season 4, Episodes 11-14 ("Cabin Fever" and "There's No Place Like Home"); Season 5, Episodes 1-5 ("Because You Left", "The Lie", "Jughead", "The Little Prince" and "This Place is Death")

Indeed, following Lost's fifth season is pretty confusing. I mean, all these timelines! What happened after the Oceanic Six escaped, what happened three years after that, what happened after Ben moved the island, what happened during the flashes... and so, for most of this week, I decided to forget most of my other questions and think about time travel, again. I figured that understanding how this concept plays out further will help me understand all of these timelines. That, and what I said last week about me being a big picture kind of person.

Sure, the ground rules for Lost-style time travel has been established in "The Constant", but when Ben turned the wheel and sent everyone on the island in a warped frenzy, I felt the rules were changed. So, initially, when your brain jumps between times, you go catatonic (say, in Desmond's case, he's blank in 2004 when his head's in 1996). But this time, the island is the one moving in time, else the time jumps would be different for each survivor--and yes, that's more confusing--so nobody gets catatonic. Well, supposedly. Oceanic 815 crashed in 2004, but the survivors can't be there since the 1950s, right?

Turns out, they disappear. Slight cop-out, that one. Time travel before Lost involved stepping in a portal of sorts and literally traveling to some point in time. After I watched "The Constant" I thought the idea was cool, but after realizing that Jin disappeared in 1988--during a flash, in front of a young Rousseau--I felt a bit cheated. They don't really disappear in 2004, right? What if they become catatonic in 2004 when the island goes to another point in time? Heck, I already got that figured out and I forgot to consider that until today. Let's just say I can't really explain what I'm trying to say.

The other thing that's got my attention is the fact that, possibly, the survivors are ultimately responsible for everything that happened to them since the crash, and maybe before that. Locke, for one, told Richard to meet him after his birth in 1954. If that did not happen, maybe Locke wouldn't have been determined as "special" in Other standards. Who knows, maybe Faraday was ultimately responsible for Charlotte's death--him telling her that she shouldn't return to the island would do nothing but whet her interest to return there, right? Maybe they were even responsible for the "sickness" that affected Rousseau's crew, or for the purge against the Dharma Initiative.

So it must be spiritual! The forces that be wanted these people to do certain things so the things that we saw for the past five years (or, in my case, three months) happen. Again, I cannot fully explain it, but I'm sure you get my idea or can translate it. The question, as always, is why--I'm actually thinking the island wants to reveal itself to the world, just to stop Widmore (for one) from claiming it for himself, or maybe take advantage of it, or something. Maybe to stop Ben, too.

I had a thought a few weeks back, something along the lines of science being merely a tool of fate to carry out its plans. It's elementary science: when you follow a certain sequence of events, certain things happen, and more or less the outcome is absolutely the same when the variables are absolutely the same. But, since science is just a tool, whoever's using it can tweak it to manipulate the results to his liking, like genetically modified food. For the first three seasons things were pretty absolute, but by the fourth we all get a Jack moment: we realize that things on the island (and, by consequence, within themselves) are not as straightforward as it seems.

Maybe that explains the way the survivors changed their lives before they even knew it. Maybe that explains why people who have left the island can still return, even if it's said that nobody can do so--and that applies to both the wheel and other means. For one, I'm certain that explains the explanation (undead!) Christian had when Locke got down to the wheel. He said the flashes were because the Oceanic Six left (and, possibly, because Locke wasn't the one who turned the wheel), never mind the more logical explanation--say, when you spin around and suddenly stop, you get dizzy. That's what happens when you move the island in space and time: there's a moment of disorientation. So, Christian, a doctor, will not believe that logical answer?

Then again, the Others seem to be living in a different planet than us. Now it's certain that they aren't limited to the island--Ms. Hawking, Ben, Widmore, possibly Christian, and by consequence, Claire and Jack--and factoring in everything else, it seems the Others are mere observers in time. Sure, I got that idea after watching Fringe and getting amazed at their idea of time being a string that's observed from afar, and in Lost's case, the Others are the ones looking at it, which explains why they know certain things (like Locke's death) and why they aren't affected by the flashes, or at least seemingly so. And maybe the reason why some of the survivors aren't as badly affected by the flashes as Charlotte, else they all would've died early on. Because the French version of Lost (Rousseau and company) didn't work, so the American version should.

"When you aren't satisfied with the way your life is going," Alyssa told me in a conversation that has nothing to do with the show, "there comes an incredible desire to go back to the past and change its course." That should explain everything. Or so I choose to believe.


The series so far:
Week 1: An Introduction and the First Six Episodes
Week 2: I Want My Australian Accent Back!
Week 3: The Week I Felt Like Locke
Week 4: All These Numbers Are Giving Me A Headache
Week 5: I Tried So Hard, Shannon, But I Can't Seem To Like You
Week 6: "I Guess It's All Relative Now, Huh?"
Week 7: The Science of Going in Circles
Week 8: You Know, Like in Cartoons, When You Watch Too Much and Your Eyes Swell?
Week 9: Can You Help Me Untangle This One, Brother?
Week 10: Killing Charlie Softly and Other Destiny-Related Issues
Week 11: If Anything Goes Wrong, I'm Dead
Week 12: An Assault On The Senses





(Image courtesy of ABC)