For a show that’s been such a cornucopia of mythological goodness, it’s pretty surprising that Lost hasn’t spent much time exploring the one theme that is the foundation of most classic myths—love. Oh sure, we’ve seen plenty of love triangles and quadrangles, and forbidden love has come up from time to time along with lost love, but the mysterious ways in which love works has not really been explored to any major extent. That is, until Lost’s 91st episode, “LaFleur.”
When I think about the TV shows and movies I used to watch as a kid, it was always very easy to tell who was good and who was bad. Superman—good. Lex Luthor—bad. Mike Brady—good. The dude who faked whiplash to win a case against Carol—bad. The Scooby gang—good. The masked villains who would’ve gotten away with their dastardly schemes had it not been for those blasted kids—bad. Looking back at it now, I honestly think this black and white view of the world tainted my perception of people and experiences. Teachers and kids were either good or bad. A hot lunch choice was either good or bad. My day was either good or bad. And because I grew up thinking this way, much of this mindset is still with me, for better or for worse.
We all know that Lost is filled with lots of hidden clues—everything from the books the characters read and the philosophers their names are based on, to the anagrams, whispers, and backwards-talk found in many episodes. While these hints can help us to understand the show, there is something else woven into its many mysteries that is far more valuable to our everyday lives…
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.
This is the first episode written after the writer’s strike, and to me, it felt like it. The story was rushed, the dialogue seemed out of place for the characters (i.e., Sawyer telling Ben that he’d kill him if he harmed on hair on Hurley’s head—since when does Sawyer care that much about anyone but himself?), and the action was kind of unbelievable at times (Sayid turning his head all the way around to notice Ben photographing him from atop a building behind him). In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, I also found this episode pretty funny.
The episode begins within the flashback of “Other” woman Juliet where she meets fellow Other, Harper Stanhope. We learn that Harper is a psychologist to the Others and married to Goodwin, who Juliet later has an affair with, making her the other woman from Harper’s perspective. Of course, the other woman may also be Harper herself from Juliet’s perspective. Either way, the fact that Harper is a psychologist definitely fits in with The Myth of Lost simulation theory because of one of its major points: that many of the Others are providing therapy to the Losties. If this were true, just as in our world, therapists see their own therapists regularly. So, having a resident shrink on the island is a big boost to the simulation theory.
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.
Thirteen webisodes/mobisodes that were released weekly from November 2007 to February 2008 on abc.com (and Verizon mobile phones). Running between 1:22–3:27 in length, each mobisode filled in a gap in the story from LOST’s first three seasons. Episodes can now be found on YouTube. What follows below is the name of each episode, a brief description, and some points on how it fits in with the simulation theory presented in “The Myth of Lost.”
The Layman’s Answers To Everything is a spiritual comedy (or spiromedy) about an unlucky guy who believes he’s meant to do something amazing, but has no idea what it is. After experiencing many challenges and meeting a bizarre cast of characters, he stumbles upon secret messages hidden in TV, movies, and music that are aimed at guiding humanity. Using these messages, he starts a new religion which changes his life, and ultimately, the world. This is so much more than just a story though, because throughout the journey, we learn how to discover and fulfill our own destiny using the clues of the universe that are all around us.
