Lost Season Two Finale

Thomas Merton somewhere said that the only reason that the world continues to exist is because of the monks in their cells praying, which keeps the world's roof from caving in.  I know, it sounds a bit grandiose, but this is a gloss on the "righteous man" tradition that goes back at least as far as Abraham's bargaining with God in Genesis 18 to save Sodom and Gomorrah from divine destruction.  Bottom line: if ten righteous men can be found in the cities God spares everyone. God relents, and the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah go about their business blissfully ignorant that their lives had hung in the balance depending on the advocacy of good Father Abraham.

Valentin Tomberg frequently describes prayer as vertical breathing.  It's not something everybody does, but because enough people do those prayers function like columns of grace that prevent the sky from falling, which in turn allows room for everyone to continue with their horizontal breathing, which is the metaphor for our biological existence.  Evolution is the combined effect of the horizontal breathing of everyone (the Darwinian dimension), and the vertical breathing of the few (the salvation history dimension).

So these are the first thoughts that gelled for me after watching last night's "Lost".  It was in its own way a gloss on the righteous-man tradition.  It was the story of Desmond, Locke and Eko, and their role as righteous men charged with keeping the sky from falling  It was the story off Locke's original belief and his loss of it, and of how that almost caused the end of the world.   It was the story of Eko and Desmond, who had enough faith to counter him. 

At first I thought that Locke was crazy to keep pushing the buttons, and I didn't understand his original fervor to do so.  And certainly his first encounter with Desmond in which he tells Locke that the reason he's pushing the buttons is to save the world sounded nuts and grandiose.  And as convinced as I was that Eko is the key personality in the whole drama of this island, I was wondering why he was so convinced more than ever after watching the video in the second hatch that pushing the button was an essential task.  But as I suggested in my post about the episode two weeks ago, punching in those number might be like a mantra or the repetitive tedious prayers of the rosary.  It might be that it's what's holding the sky up.

That being said, this episode raises more questions than it answers.  Is life on the island life lived within a glass ball as Desmond is convinced it is.  Is there no physical escape except through death?  That's what I thought, and it was the basis of my "Sixth Sense" hypothesis--that the survivors were really already dead, the island was Purgatory, and that the Others were 'angelic' testers.  The back story narratives of each of the principal survivors was information for us to better understand the nature of the tests they had to pass before it was time for them to "go home." 

Then in my post two weeks ago, it occurred to me the writers were playing with the alien abduction theme out of Whitley Strieber.  And last night suggests the same thing when he says he thinks the Others are aliens.  Maybe, but I think that's a red herring. But the one new piece of evidence from last night that undermines the Sixth Sense hypothesis is the quick scene at the end in which the electromagnetic anomaly is detected by the Portuguese (why Portuguese?) speaking guys in the observation station which looks to be in Antarctica. And then their call to Desmond's love Penny who is still looking for him.  It's the first bit of evidence that there some physical connection to the world the survivors left behind exists. But is electromagnetism in its essence really physical?   Or is it the physical manifestation of something not physical?  Whatever?  It seems to have had a physical, chartable location that the Portuguese-speaking guys found.

Random questions:    What does "home" mean when Henry says that he's going to take Kate, Sawyer, and Jack there?  What about the number 922 which Eko carves into his prayer stick and which was the date of the plane crash and Desmond's system failure (echoes of 9/11?)  The promos for the show suggested that we would finally learn who the Others were.  And Michael asks Henry point blank, "Who are you people?  And Henry's answer is "We're the good guys, Michael."  That supports what I've been saying about them, but who really knows? Do you believe him? Did it surprise you that he let Michael and Walt go? That he will keep his promise not to hurt the three?  Do you think that Michael and Walt will really get back to the "real" world following compass bearing 325? Or does "find rescue" mean something else?  Why do the others bother at all with the charade requiring the beards and disguises and hiding their real names?  Did you notice that Kelvin, Desmond's predecessor at punching in the numbers,  was the American intelligence officer that paid  Sayyid off to become a traitor during the first Iraq war?   

Whatever the answers to these questions, "Lost" continues to be must-see TV.  If you haven't seen it, get the DVDs and start from the beginning.  There is nothing like it that even remotely attempts to do what it is doing.  At least not that I'm aware of.

Comments

[Robert the Red]

"Do you believe him?" (being the good guys, that is)
-- not entirely; e.g., why did they light the raft on fire after kidnapping Walt? Of course, "our" good guys have tortured people, so they aren't spotless.

"Did it surprise you that he let Michael and Walt go?"
-- yes. I thought that Michael would be killed. This is the strongest piece of evidence (vs hope) that the Others aren't "bad guys"; that is, that their violence isn't gratuitous, but always has some purpose behind it. What that purpose may be is pretty opaque at this time.

"Our guys" are clearly suffering from a serious case of atomism -- each person keeps his/her knowledge private. The unseen (to them) connections between their pasts symbolize this failure on their part.

The Others perhaps are TOO unified in whatever their cause is.

[Marshall]

Oh man, I was sure that Michael was toast. I couldn't believe that they had Walt waiting in the boat for him.

Another strange thing to ponder is the bent and twisted metal quarantine door that fell from the sky when the button went unpushed. Could the island be in a giant "Truman Show" type soundstage?

Those guys finding Desmond at the end...weird. I thought they were in a satellite.

Did you see the size of that pile of notes about the buttonpushers that nobody ever looked at? What's up with that?

Maybe the others are part of the experiment too. Led to believe that they need to do worthless experiments on our heroes, they are in fact merely part of a larger unseen experiment. By aliens.

[Jack Whelan]

I think there is room for all kinds of speculative lines. But there are a couple of things that set the basic stage.

1-There is a religious/spritual dimension to the island. The rationality vs. faith debate is a big part of the underlying tension of the story, and the faith party seems to have the better grasp of the situation. The smoke monster hasn't shown itself lately, but that's clearly not "natural" being, and I don't think it has anything to do with the electormagnetic business. The apparitions. John's and Rose's miraculous cures, and Sun's impossible impregnation are also indicators that the normal rules of nature do not apply on this island. All the coincidences and the intertwining lives are clearly signs of an invisible superior intelligence, whether malign or benigh, arranging things. I'd be disappointed if this turned out to be a story about aliens, but it can't be discounted at this point.

2-It's clear that some kind of experiment is going on, but it's not just a staged thing like the Truman Show, because if you don't punch the numbers, things really do begin to fall apart, and at this point I am inclined to think that it will meana the end of everything. The threat comes from some kind of build up of electromagnetic force, and it's very real. I'm not sure I understand what Desmond did to stop what appeared to be the end of the world. Is there now no need to punch the numbers?

3-The Others, despite the Survivors fears, are not evil. They keep their word, and we haven't yet found out what the purpose is behind their abductions. It may or may not be for evil purposes, but it's clear they have the upper hand and the survivors are plaything's in their hands. So if they are not evil, they are not therefore necessarily good--they are morally ambiguous at best until we learn the reasons for their actions. They may be playing a role of some sort in a larger drama, but it is for them a dangerous game--several have been killed already by the Survivors; whereas not one survivor has yet been killed by them. Don't you find it interesting that Hurley, who you could say passed the test in not wanting to take vengeance on Michael, is let go and told to go back to the camp. It's as if his goodness was being acknowledged in some way.

[Robert the Red]

"whereas not one survivor has yet been killed by them"
-- not quite correct; Ethan and Goodwin each killed at least one crash survivor. In both cases, for very minor reasons. Of course, they were killed themselves in short order. Their victims were minor characters, though, so it is easy to forget these incidents. The major characters that have died have all been killed at the hands of other crash survivors.

I personally think that the Others are themselves caught in this maze of twisty spiritual/moral passages, but having been there longer have some more knowledge that they can use, and thus perhaps think they understand what it going on. And the Others are far more unified -- the almost total lack of unity and planning on the part of the crash survivors is a major cause of their plight.