Friday, December 18

The Constant (S4, ep. 5)


The Rewatch Column for "The Constant" has been irradiated for your reading pleasure on Chud.com.

Check out my theory on the end-game of the show and the potential events of Season 6!

9 comments:

  1. Terrific post, Morse! My mind had been circling around similar ideas about the end game, off and on, for sometime, but I haven't been able to articulate it nearly as well as you did. I suspect we'll soon find out that you're right.

    The thing that continues to puzzle me though is how the Island itself, Jacob and the Mib fit into that theory; in other words, why do they care about these people and their success in running their "maze"? After all, there are roughly 6 billion others out there making similarly bad decisions...

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  2. Perhaps Jacob and MIB care because they are the scientists, the Daniels who oversee the maze experiment. The Losties (and maybe humans in general) are the rats. Or maybe it's all part of a game, one Jacob refuses to concede. If the Losties can somehow change what is supposed to be unchangeable then suppose anyone could do the same? Suppose some would try to harness such power or knowledge? I think the MIB feels that fate is already decided for humanity. Weather they come by boat or by plane, mankind is unable to pass the maze. Thus, MIB wins the game. But Jacob isn't willing to throw in the towel just yet.

    There is speculation that the smoke monster and MIB are one in the same. And that they are the island's judge, jury and executioner. If the losties, who managed to escape death when they survived the crash, can restart the experiment, but with knowledge of their mistakes, then maybe they can learn to sidestep death, or at least, learn to prolong life (as Jacob and Richard seemingly have been able to do). Maybe this is why MIB wanted to kill Jacob for so long. That Jacob somehow was able to put off the inevitable. That Jacob was able to do it, and avoid the smoke monsters (or MIB's) punishment. And he's trying to prove to the MIB that others could do the same.

    T

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  3. Caution, minor SPOILERS for the Season 6, Episode 1 Title below:





    I thoroughly enjoyed the column, Morse, as well as your theory on the endgame. I suspect that at least some of what you propose will come to pass (or if not I hope the writers have come up with something equally compelling).

    I would humbly like to offer a counter theory with respect to the season opener title, however. I agree that the "X" in LA X is both a roman numeral and a pun on the airport, but I would suggest that the "10" in question here functions much like the "Oceanic 6" in identifying a group of people (perhaps the very group who will be rerunning their mazes).

    In this case, I think we would be talking about the Oceanic 6 (Sun, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid and Aaron) plus four more (Jin, Sawyer, Locke, and either Claire or Lapidus). I can't decide the last because while Frank is definitively alive and was supposed to be on the plane, Claire would seem to have had more importance attached to her in the long run, even though we haven't seen her for a season.

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  4. In the GQ article Morse directed us to Lindelof says (about The Stand, a major influence on Lost):

    "...there's this guy, Randall Flagg, who's a force of evil, and there's this elderly woman...named Mother Abagail, who's a force for good, but nothig is ever explained about where they came from...whether they knew this was going to happen, why they're aggregating people for this big battle..."

    If this is a hint then who exactly Jacob and the MiB are, where they came from, etc, may be one of the unsolved mysteries. They ake it pretty clear in the interview that they are interested in the characters far more than the mythology.

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  5. I prefer Greg's interpretation of the S6 Premiere title (and Frank would likely be one of them, having been made a full-time cast member for S6). I enjoyed the theory on the endgame. Keep up the good work Morse.

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  6. Good thoughts on the title, Greg. That also makes good sense to me.

    I do think, though, that this won't be the first loop backward for the castaways, and I think there's evidence throughout the show to suggest it. I'm going to post a Too Much Information column by the end of the weekend that will list out evidence in favor of the "castaway reincarnation theory," mostly because I think it'll be fun. Here's the first bit of evidence I intend to use:

    Locke's seemingly-supernatural ability to predict when rain will start and stop.

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  7. I look forward to the TMI column. We're midway through season five and have been noticing little things that would seem to suggest either parallel universes or time-loops. I'll be interested to see what you've found.

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  8. We still don't know why Naomi claimed that she was there for Desmond, or why she had his picture. This bugs me. Were they supposed to extract Desmond along with Ben?

    I love the cut between them escaping the sick bay to Desmond in the stairway.

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  9. Widmore knew Desmond was there, for some reason, and he provided (via Matthew Abaddon) the instruction that that be Naomi's cover. And also that they not answer Penny's calls.

    This is me filling in the implied blanks. I don't think this will be connected any further than this, explicitly, but who knows.

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