While most mythological stories explore at least one or two truths about the way our world works, Lost is unique in that it explores hundreds of them. It’s almost as if Lost is a spiritual guidebook to life. While I sometimes joke around about it, I’m beginning to truly believe that fans of the show will be better equipped to handle the strange new world we are going to inherit in the upcoming years. Whether consciously or subconsciously, it is almost as if Lost is training us to be able to mentally handle the future. The Good Book says that the meek shall inherit the earth. Perhaps it was referring to Lost geeks.
Continuing in the same vein as Part 1, Parts 2&3 was mostly action/adventure and little mythology. And what little there was still seems to support my theory.
For starters, at the end of the last episode’s update, I wrote:
In “Something Nice Back Home” Hurley even suggests that none of them made it off the island, and they were, perhaps dead. Not dead, just stuck in limbo between worlds. I feel like the season will end with the five of them not being rescued as we think, but getting hurt, and this whole flash-forward has all been in their minds.
Since the purpose of these season finales is primarily to finally link together the flash-forwards with the story on the island, there’s very little mythology involved. While gripping and fast-paced, it’s really all soap opera stuff. For that reason, there really isn’t much to say about them from a mythological perspective. Except perhaps, that they seem to give further weight to the island having been real and not a simulation after all.
You can always be sure that the Locke-centric episodes will focus more on mythology than action and this episode didn’t disappoint. Between Locke’s creepy dream of Horace Goodspeed, his exploration of Jacob’s cabin, his conversation with Christian Shephard and an eerily entranced Claire, and the flashback scenes hinting at his strange childhood with appearances by an unchanged Richard Alpert, there were more than enough mysteries to keep fans occupied.
This episode had a really good mix of suspense and mystery, closer to Seasons 1 & 2 Lost. Early on in the episode, we get a flash-forward of Jack where he goes to visit Hurley in the Santa Rosa Mental Hospital. Hurley hasn’t been taken his meds because he believes that he and the other Oceanic Six are all dead and that none of them actually made it off the island. Hurley asks Jack about his day and Jack tells him of his life now with Kate and Aaron. Hurley compares Jack’s life with Kate to heaven. Hurley then mentions that he still sees Charlie and talks to him and Charlie had a message for Jack: that he’s “not supposed to raise him,” apparently referring to Aaron. Hurley then tells Jack that he would also be getting a visit from someone soon. That person winds up being Jack’s father, who Jack sees clearly sitting on the couch at the hospital where he works. So are Charlie and Jack’s father still alive? The simulation theory presented in “The Myth of Lost” predicted that they were, but not in the ghostly way that they’ve been appearing on the show.
Besides being vastly intriguing, another reason I love “The Constant” is because it gets back to the mythology that’s been mostly missing this season. In this episode, we see that Desmond’s mind is moving back and forth between his life in and around the island, and his life in the so-called real world. Even though he’s not on the island during the time-jumps, he’s still apart of it. He may even still be in the simulation. In The Myth of Lost, I mention how the Portuguese guys who contact Penny from some frigid region are also within the simulation—just another part of it. Similarly, it is entirely possible that Desmond is still in the simulation, but only the area in and around the island is affected by the glitch. As Desmond crossed through the infected area of the simulation, it may have infected him, bringing about the time-jumps in his consciousness as his mind is hooked up to the program.
