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.
One of the recurring themes of Lost, involves a character named Desmond who is able to jump his consciousness around to the past and future of his life. Last season, Desmond’s mind traveled back in time with his memories in tact. This enabled him to predict everything that would happen as he remembered it. Last week, the consciousness from Desmond’s past jumped into his present, and had no idea what was going on. If you think this is confusing, I’m only scratching the surface of this episode.
Like the writers of Lost, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of being able to communicate with the past and future versions of ourselves.
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.
I’ve come to the conclusion that while still very entertaining and intriguing, Lost has become a completely different show. Once falling in the realm of myth or sci-fi/fantasy, now, I’d say it’s more some suspense/action adventure drama. There really isn’t a lot of mythology on the show anymore, and that is exactly the scenario I had feared which inspired me to write The Myth of Lost. At only three episodes into the new season, Lost definitely has time to redeem itself, but I really wish it would start answering the questions about the mythology before giving us new, relatively unrelated plot mysteries. Still, the more questions Lost leaves unanswered, the more satisfying a book with a theory that answers them is likely to be, so I guess I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Just as predicted in “The Myth of Lost,” not all of the castaways have made it off the island—at least not this time. Apparently, there are only six, and my guess is that all of them will need to go back if they want to be cured.
What if you were the only real person in this world and everyone and everything else was just some kind of simulation created to help give you the experience of your life? There has been at least one Twilight Zone based upon this premise, and the movie, The Truman Show, also explored a similar concept. I wrote about this quite a bit in Layman* and contrasted it to The Matrix myth where everyone is sharing the simulation together. In Layman, the protagonist decides that the world isn’t real, but he can’t decide if it’s all just his dream, or the dream of the entire world. I won’t give away the conclusion he comes to, but I will say that I get the feeling that we’re all sharing a collective dream with bits and pieces that are unique to each of our lives.
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. I truly feel this book is going to make a real impact on the world, and set into motion a spiritual domino effect that’ll help change it for the better.
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.
