Lost - "LA X"

The phrase “most excited ever” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Here we stand, less than one week away from the start of Lost’s final season. I can’t think of any storyline – in any medium – that has held onto its secrets as long as Lost has. We’re going on seven years of debating the mysteries of Lost Island and its characters… and after all that waiting, it’s finally time to get some payoff (or a disappointment so big that it will send the globe into a worldwide depression the likes of which we’ve never seen).

Let’s do this.

Episode Title: “LA X”

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Lost Season Six has been under more lock and key than all other seasons combined. Sure, the creators of Lost have always been super secretive about their show, but never to this extent. They went so far as somehow convincing ABC to not air a single frame of Season Six in any of their previews – which is pretty much unheard of for promoting a television series.

(Note: or at least they were supposed to. Eagle eyed viewers noticed there was a single new frame of footage snuck in with the latest Lost commercials, featuring this shot of a gun-toting Claire:

Curiously, this frame has since been removed from the commercial, as if they realized the error of their ways and / or got a stern talking to from the Lost writers.)

What could be the reason for all this uber-secrecy? Per Wikipedia:

Season six is the first and only season of Lost ever to not feature any kind of preview or official promotional material such as sneak peeks and promo pictures for future episodes since the Lost producers consider any single frame from the first episodes to be too revealing. According to Lindelof, "even a single scene from the show would basically tip what it is we're doing this year, and what it is we're doing this year is different than what we've done in other years".

If that doesn’t make you giddy like a school girl, you should probably stop reading the Blog right now. Your kind isn’t welcome here.

The thing is, Damon is totally right. As I mentioned in my “Top 10 Unanswered Questions on Lost” post (below), the storyline for the final season of Lost could go off in a number of very dramatically different directions, all depending on what exactly happened when Juliet detonated the Jughead. If they’re doing “something different than what they’ve done in past years”, it may indicate that we’re done with all the flashbacks and flashforwards. If that’s the case, and we’re finally going to have all the action take place in the “present”, showing a single shot of our Survivors could very well reveal what happened to the audience. If we saw our Survivors clean cut and back in the “real world”, we know that they were able to change the past. If we saw a single shot of our Survivors in Dharma suits on the Island, we would know that it didn’t work.

Here’s the thing - I’ve spent more hours thinking about and analyzing Lost than 95% of the world’s population, so you would think I’d have a hunch about what’s going to happen in Lost’s final season… but you would be totally wrong. I have no freaking clue what the final season of Lost will hold. It’s equal parts maddening (“I should be smart enough to figure this show out!”) and exciting (“It could be anything!”), but above all else, it makes me truly appreciate all the lengths that the show’s creators have gone to in order to keep it a surprise.

Which brings us to the season premiere, intriguing titled “LA X”. It’s our first (and as you’ll see in a moment, the ONLY) clue about both the first episode of Lost’s last season – and the direction in which the show is heading.

Most people know that “LAX” is the airport code for the Los Angeles International Airport, which of course, is where Oceanic 815 was originally headed on September 22, 2004. Is the episode title our proof that Juliet was successful in changing the past? That she prevented the Swan Station from being completed – in turn preventing Desmond from needing to push the button – in turn preventing Desmond from failing to push the button while off killing Kelvin – in turn preventing Oceanic 815 from crashing onto Lost Island? Will the final season of Lost will focus on what our Survivors do with their new lives, as complete strangers, having never been to the Island?

Hell no.

As I’ve said before, although the writers have teased us with the concept of doing a “reset” and changing the past and future, it’s the ultimate cop-out because it wipes away all the stories, emotional attachment to the characters, and character development that we’ve watched over the past five seasons. So it can’t be that simple.

It’s also important to note that the episode title isn’t simply “LAX” – it’s “LA X”, with a space between the “LA” and the “X”. So it’s not simply a reference to the Los Angeles airport, although I do think that’s a piece of the puzzle and not an intentional misdirect.

In researching the episode title, I discovered that the Los Angeles International Airport wasn’t always called “LAX”. Back in the day, it was simply referred to as “LA”. But as the country added more and more airports, the abbreviations were expanded to three letters. “LA” changed to “LAX”… but the “X” actually has no meaning or symbolism. Weird, right? Could this mean that the episode title also has no meaning or symbolism?

Double hell no.

This is “Lost” we’re talking about, and with the exception of a few lousy episode titles over the years (I’m looking at you, “Eggtown”), they almost always deliver – summarizing a key theme or moment of the episode while offering a double meaning for the obsessive among us.

While I think the reference to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is intentional, and not simply a red herring, I think the bigger deeper meaning comes when you read the episode title as Los Angeles X. To me, it makes me think of an “alternate” Los Angeles… which is exactly what I think we’re going to get in the first episode of Lost’s final season. But before we break it down any further, let’s see if there are any additional clues from the rest of the episode information…

Guest Stars: NONE.

Guest Star Breakdown: What is this? For the first time in Lost history, are there really no guest stars this episode?!? Nah – something tells me that if the Lost writers were able to convince ABC to not air any scenes from the sixth season in their promos, they’re also able to withhold the traditional listing of guest stars in the press release.

Again, I love their decision to go this route, as the guest star listing can often provide a good deal of insight to the storylines of an episode. But with none to analyze, we’re simply left with the season’s regular stars. In case you were curious, and since we don’t have anything else to discuss in this space, here they are:

"Lost" stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Ken Leung as Miles, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Terry O'Quinn as Locke and Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana.

The interesting thing here is that Alpert and Ilana have been “promoted” to series regulars in Lost’s final season. Given that these two characters exist in the “current” storyline on the Island, it already eliminates the possibility that Juliet and the Jughead prevented Oceanic 815 from crashing – otherwise these characters wouldn’t be around. It also reminds us that after a full season on the sidelines, Claire is back (and apparently packing heat!) along with all the questions that surround her character’s fate and connection with Christian Shephard on the Island.

(The most noticeable absent character is Desmond… which is sad – since he’s such an awesome character, but also happy – since his life is pretty much perfect right now, meaning it has nowhere to go but down if he gets involved with the Island again. Stay away for your own good, Desmond!)

Episode Description: The aftermath from Juliet's detonation of the hydrogen bomb is revealed.

Episode Breakdown: I love it. The only thing this episode title tells us is that Juliet did indeed detonate the Jughead at the end of last season (which wasn’t really being debated, was it?), and that we’re going to find out what happened (thus answering Lost Outstanding Question #10 on my list!) It leaves the rest up to the viewer to wonder and ponder (two words that look like they should rhyme, but don’t) the mysteries of Lost for one last time.

So that’s all we get. From those few morsels of information, I’m supposed to come up with some genius, coherent theory about what “LA X” is all about. Yikes. Here goes nothing…

Here are the few things I’m confident about:

1. The Island will remain a prominent player. From the start, I’ve said that Lost can never really stray too far away from the Island. More than just being a character on the show, it’s probably the most popular and important character on the show.
2. The most interesting and important storyline on the show right now is the Jacob / Anti-Jacob storyline. It’s the storyline that will move story forward from an overall timeline perspective (it’s the one that takes place in the “present”), and it’s the one that will yield the most information about all Lost’s great mysteries. We need to get all our characters into this single storyline as quickly as possible.
3. Whatever happened, happened. This still holds true – because without it, you can’t continue with the “present” storyline with Jacob and Anti-Jacob. It would be totally different and potentially eliminate the “loophole”. Also, as mentioned earlier, changing the past cheapens everything that’s happened for the previous five seasons.

So where does that leave us with “LA X”?

Somehow, against all odds, and against all the things I just said I’m sure about, I fully expect the season to start with Oceanic 815 successfully landing in Los Angeles. More specifically, I’m expecting a shocking opening scene where we see Oceanic 815 flying over the Island – and not crashing. It would just be a shockingly powerful and puzzling moment, and leave the audience wonder WTF (why the face).

But it’ll all be a tease.

Here’s where I struggle reconciling all this in my head. I’m expecting the writers to tease us with the notion that Juliet and the Jughead did change the past, even though we all know there is no way that could happen. I just can’t figure out how exactly they’re going to do it – because even the best explanations I can come up with still leave me wanting more.

The best I’ve come up with is the Lost version of “It’s a Wonderful Life”. So for an episode or two, perhaps we’ll be treated to an “alternate reality” of “what could have been” if Juliet and the Jughead did change the past – only to find out in the end that it really didn’t work.

Initially, this seems like a cop-out and waste of time. Unless you approach it from the view of the audience realizing that the crash on the Island was the BEST thing that ever happened to our characters. The “alternate reality” or “Los Angeles X” scenes feature things like Jack spiraling out of control with drug abuse, Kate rotting away in jail, Locke going back to a miserable life at the Box Factory, and Boone becoming a vampire. Then when we finally realize it’s all a tease, we realize that even though it’s been a rough journey along the way, the Island is truly a “magical” place that changed all our characters’ lives for the better.

So that’s one option. Here are the other two I kicked around that were even worse than that:

1. A play on the concept of “The universe has a way of course correcting itself” that we’ve heard on Lost in the past. Even though Juliet and the Jughead temporarily changed the past, somehow everything still shakes down the way it always was supposed to be. The universe found a way for something else to bring down Oceanic 815, Desmond did something different with his time on the Island, etc. In the end, all our characters end up in the exact same place, even though some of the details in getting there have been changed. So even though detonating the Jughead threw a big rock in the stream, eventually, the stream found a way around and back down the path it started down.

2. A play on the Desmond flashes. When Desmond was involved with the implosion of the Swan Station, he ended up naked and gained the ability to see the future. What if when Juliet detonated the Jughead, something similar happens – but our Time Traveling Survivors see the “alternate reality” future in flashes (and – fingers crossed – Juliet and Kate end up naked).

See what I mean? Each of them would technically work, but none of them are great. And I’m expecting (read: hoping for) something much greater from Lost.

The bigger problem that we haven’t discussed yet is the pesky issue of getting our 1977 Survivors back to 2007, where they need to be for the main storyline to continue in the present. I see two options available here:

1. Quite simply, the detonation of the Jughead “zapped” them back to their true time. Heck, maybe you even tie this in with the whole “Universe Course Correcting” thing. Maybe the Universe doesn’t want our Survivors to change the past, and in order to prevent it, it flashes them forward to 2007 right before the Jughead detonates.

2. Jacob touching the Time Traveling Survivors in the past effectively “activated them” to be called upon if / when he dies. Ben stabbing Jacob and pushing him into the fire “calls” our Survivors to Jacob, even though it means pulling them through time. Kinda “magical”, but Jacob seems like a magical kind of guy.

See how crappy all these theories sound? I told you this season is impossible to predict! Those crafty writers!

At any rate, those are the two major storylines you should be thinking about for the next week – getting all our Survivors back together, and figuring out how they’re going to trick us with the “Los Angeles X” alternate reality. Or you could just sit back and relax, knowing that we don’t have enough clues to make any really good educated guesses, and just enjoy the surprise.

Also, you might want to start saving up all your brain cells and analytic abilities for immediately following the Season Premiere. Check this out:

Lindelof finally conceded that "by the end of the season premiere of season six, you will have pretty much all the fundamental building blocks you need to put together a hell of a theory as to what it all means and where the show [will] end."

Translation: after the next two hours of Lost, I’ll have no excuse for not being able to figure out how Lost will end and how all the mysteries and storylines will tie together.

Yikes. That’s a lot of pressure. And it all starts this Tuesday.

Programming note!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND, 2010

8:00 – “Lost: Beginning of the End” (clip show)

9:00 – “LA X, Part 1”

10:00 – “LA X, Part 2”

11:00 – Visit “Lost and Gone Forever” for the group freak-out session

Until then, Happy Losting!

http://facethewoods.com/lost/index.php?topic=488.0