(With apologies to Jeff Lieber, who I hope doesn't mind discussion of the show that turned from Lord of the Flies to Lord of the Rings....)
To a Lost fanatic, I would not count as a fanatic -- there are a couple of seasons out there of which I've only seen a smattering, though I've read summaries -- but I am a fan. I enjoy working through the theories to account for the series's mysteries and to see whether the writers and producers truly can end the narrative in a way that doesn't leave viewers who have tried to follow the series feel cheated.
I'm sure that there are great discussions out there somewhere, but I'm not inclined to turn over every stone to find them. You are my people, and you are the people with whom I'd like to discuss the end of the series. And anyway, on Friday nights here pretty much anything goes. So if you've seen discussion elsewhere that you think others here would enjoy, bring it on over!
SPOILERS BELOW
As I noted, I don't have the advantage of tooling around many message boards and fan sites to see others' theories about Lost, but I did read the recent tripartite discussion of the show on Slate (of whom one person, Chadwick Martin, is actually worth reading, and had collected some interesting theories from around the Web. It struck me that even intelligent people are blind to some of what's been going on. So, I'll toss out some of my thinking, you feel free to critique and to toss out yours, and we'll see how things go. And, in case you need it repeated:
SPOILERS BELOW
I had gotten to the point where I didn't think that the writers could convince me that they had really had a solution in mind from the beginning, that Lost was going to end up as some sort of shaggy dog story, where eventually the joke was on people credulous enough to follow it, like the latter two-thirds of the second season of Twin Peaks. I was wrong. In fact, I didn't see it even after the "Jacob and Esau" episode that ended last season, so I give them credit for that.
What's the secret behind Lost? The island is a prison. It's a prison for a god. A commenter at that Slate link named Tracy Melody Slack has the smartest observation I've seen -- search the page for the word "Osiris" and dig in. A precis: Esau -- now perhaps best called "Smokey" given that he's the Smoke Monster -- may be an Egyptian god, presumably Set, who is being guarded (and has been for some long time) by another god, who might just be Osiris. As for me, I thank any god that can take credit that the use of hieroglyphs all this time was not merely trendy mysticism but something that actually did advance the plot! (By the way, it may be only a coincidence that the Dharma Project from the University of Michigan would probably have conducted its research using the university's proprietary social science software program of that era, called ... OSIRIS! Or it may not be one.) Anyway, read Ms. Slack's commentary for some truly enriching speculation.
Now, we knew a lot of things before now. First, Lost truly does exist in a supernatural world, which for me was driven home when Sayid could not commit suicide because the Island prevented it. We also, in my opinion, pretty much knew that the being pretending to be Locke was the Smoke Monster -- remember when Locke said that he couldn't accompany Ben into the Place of the Smoke Monster, and then Smokey appeared as Ben's daughter, telling Ben to do whatever Locke told him to do? That seemed like sort of a giveaway, even before Ben turned out to be the loophole.
Where I'd go further is that it seems to me that Esau/Smokey/Set -- let's just call him Esau in his Locke form -- is anti-Christian, and that is why he clobbered the stuffing out of Mr. Eko. What is the Christian theme about? I don't know -- but tell me, who has generally been appearing as Jacob's oracle and speaker for the past few seasons? Jack's dad, right? What was his name again? (He also appears with Claire, who has a huge role to play in the series, if you credit Ms. Slack's theory.)
So: the island is a prison, Jacob has tagged people from all over time and space (including poor pirate ship galley slave Richard Alpert ... the late Richard, apparently) to come and help him out in a time when he must have known he would be in need, because Esau would find a loophole. (By the way -- isn't Ben's realization amazing? There's nobility in the old boy yet, I expect.) And that is why everyone has been coming to the island and why they haven't been able to leave. Jacob needed them. (Well, he only needed Michael until Christian told him he could go.)
The best line of the night, aside from hating the feel of English on one's tongue? That would be "I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN ALL OF YOU!" Oh yeah, now that he's feeling his oats, Esau/Set/Smokey is going to be a joy to be around. But he's not quite full of vengeance, exactly; he wants to be worshiped. (Get to it, Ben!)
So this last season of Lost will be the story of a group of people who have been brought together to contain and tame a powerful God. You know -- I think that I can stand a few months of that! And if at the end it truly does make sense of all that happened before -- once you get past the effect of the hydrogen bomb (my prediction: towards the end, you'll see the timelines converge ... or maybe almost, as one beloved character is killed in one but lives on in the other) -- then I for one will be one very satisfied customer.
What about you?