Loading ...LOST: Theories On The Oceanic 815 Reboot And Hurley’s Sanity
By Evan ~ February 9th, 2010. Filed under: lost.
It’s Tuesday again, which for the next four months or so will be known as “LOSTday” to a community of television nerds to which I belong. Rather than make some bold predictions about what is going to happen on tonight’s episode, or write a recap of last week’s stellar season premiere, I’m going to write briefly about two conversations I had with friends this week. Each one led to a crazy revelation which — and I don’t want to build us up to be geniuses or anything — I have never once read about on any LOST related-website. Here goes nothin’…
The other day I was talking to Tom while I was at work. He asked me if I wanted to re-watch the episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” because he was wondering about the moment when Desmond turned the hatch key. He said, “What if ‘the incident’ which sent the castaways forward from 1977 to 2007 was not the bomb, but the release of the electromagnetic energy. And then when Desmond turned the hatch key, THAT was somehow related to the explosion of the hydrogen bomb.” We figured either way, one event was related to the release of too much electromagnetic energy, and the other related to the hydrogen bomb. In short, we conjectured that the failsafe was somehow connected to the bomb. Then Tom asked if, when Desmond turned the key, could his “reboot” tell us anything about the “reboot” of Oceanic 815 we witnessed in last weeks’ episode, “LA X.”
So we started watching LOST. The first thing we tuned into was the last few minutes of the Season 2 finale, when the island vibrates and flashes upon turning the key. The first time we see Charlie after the hatch implosion (by the way, a “radiation implosion” is the direct result of a hydrogen bomb going off, so says Wikipedia!), he is holding his ears and complaining that he can’t hear. Same as Kate in S6E1. Interesting…then we moved on to “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”
Desmond’s eyes open. He’s in his apartment. He flinches, having maybe some kind of subconscious nostalgia or feeling of deja vu. He looks as if he does exactly know where he is, but he also doesn’t seem to recall that he had just been on the island. Same as Jack when his eyes fluttered at the beginning of the “LA X.” Penny rushes over to Desmond, and tells him that he shouldn’t drink while painting. He’s on the floor covered in red paint. No mention of the island, but he’s still a little woozy. Is he just concussed, or is it something more…
In the next shot, Desmond is standing in front of a mirror getting dressed for his job interview with Charles Widmore (the interview that isn’t really an interview; Desmond plans to ask Widmore if he can marry his daughter). Des is tying his necktie, and Penny comes to help him. She swings around back of him and begins to knot it for him. That’s when we noticed something incredibly strange, but totally mind-blowing. Desmond still has a dot of red paint on his neck near his shirt collar. Tom and I were freaking out, wondering if it was some kind of joke, but then Penny says, “You have something on your neck,” and we see her wipe it away.
Red splotch on neck in mirror. First Desmond, now Jack. Both episodes “Flashes Before Your Eyes” and “LA X” are written by Damon Lindelof. It has to be more than just a coincidence.
We theorized from that moment that what is going to happen to Jack and Co. in the alternate 2004 — when Oceanic 815 lands without incident — is what happened to Desmond when he awakens after the hatch implosion. These non-castaways are going to start getting weird deja vu moments. The first one, you could say, was Jack seeing Desmond on the plane. Jack asked if they’d met before. Odd, no one else on the plane saw Desmond. It’s hard to say how exactly Des will fit into this timeline, whether he will be a guide or use his unique powers to help steer the castaways consciousness’ back to the island, but it’s worth much more investigation and postulation.
If you have time, go back and watch “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” I think that’s going to prove to be the biggest clue we have as to where Season 6 is going to take us.
So Nate’s softball game was cancelled last night. Nicci was sewing a dress. We decided to re-watch “LA X” in preparation for tonight’s episode. We’re watching the first few scenes after the castaways wake up in 2007 realizing that they are no longer in 1977, but not on their plane to Los Angeles. Jacob visits Hurley in the jungle as he is watching after a badly injured Sayid. Jacob asks Hurley to take his wounded friend — along with the guitar case he was given before the Ajira 316 flight — to the temple in order to heal him. Jacob also tells Hurley that only he can see him. To Nate, this was confirmation that Hurley has never — in the entirety of LOST — been crazy. He has only always seen dead people. So, when Nate told me this, there was one immediate question which popped into my head.
“So, Who is Dave?”
His instantaneous response: “Libby’s husband.”
Remember the episode “Live Together, Die Alone.” Desmond meets Libby in Los Angeles and winds up buying a boat from her…the boat which will eventually take him to the island. She tells him that it was a gift from her late husband. He named the boat after her. “The Elizabeth.” Her husband’s name? David. If that’s not the most amazing, simple way to tie together Hurley’s story, I don’t know what is.
This raises a couple of questions, but they are largely inconsequential. Was Dave a patient at the mental institution where Hurley was? Is that what brought Libby there? Is that how Dave and Libby met? Was she suffering from a nervous breakdown after his death? Maybe she even thought she was still seeing him or hearing him? Hmm… We also know that Dave only appeared to Hurley on the island after he meets Libby. It’s so amazing to me that after all these years of thinking Hurley is batshit crazy, we find out he is the exact opposite. Maybe even the sanest of all the castaways!
Feel free to comment about either of those points. I’ll spare you non-LOST fans more of my drivel until next week. One post a week is definitely more than enough for this website. I don’t want to expose myself as too big of a nerd.
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Great detective work my friend.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Awesome post. I got chills reading about the paint splotch. And I can’t believe the Dave thing never occurred to me……Fucking love LOST!
February 9th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Another interesting note is that in the new timeline Charlie is still fated to die. In “Flashes Before Your Eyes” Desmond explains several times that he is trying to save Charlie from dying but that “the universe has a way of course correcting” and he can’t hold it off forever. It appears that not even in this alternate reality is Charlie saved from his fate, even though there are several other differences(e.g. Shannon not being on the plane, the stewardess handing jack 1 bottle instead of 2, etc.). Most interesting perhaps is that Charlie knows he is going to die.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
(fingers in ears)
…LA LA LA LA LA LA LA…
February 9th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
If Dave is Libby’s dead husband, it explains Libby’s romantic interest in Hurley: she realizes (since she had been watching him at the mental institution) that he sees (and is the only person who can see) her dead husband.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Also, Dave is a lot like Hurley, which further explains her attraction.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:03 am
It also serves as another instance of how Hurley’s luck is actually good: being put in a mental institution eventually led to a kind and attractive woman falling in love with him.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:55 am
Perhaps Jack’s deja vu/double take upon seeing Desmond on the plane that lands at LAX can be explained by that scene when Jack bumps into Desmond while he, Des, is running the bleachers “preparing for a race.” They have a brief conversation, about wha tI can’t remember, but I think Des gives a mopey Jack some nugget of comforting wisdom. I have no idea what episode or season that was in.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Jonathan: I thought this too but after last night’s episode and Kate’s reaction to Claire mentioning Aaron’s name, I am no longer so sure.
February 11th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Check out Lostpedia, where Damon Lindelof says:”As to Libby’s ex, that’s an entirely different David we may or may not meet in the future.”
February 16th, 2010 at 1:31 am
Just quick-read your post. I’ll read it more carefully in the next few days, but I’ll say this much now: I’ve long thought that Desmond is the most crucial character in understanding what is going on in Lost. He’s half of the most significant inexplicable coincidence in the series – running into Jack on the stadium steps, before either gets to the island – and he time travels. See my http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/01/lost-keys-to-whats-really-going-on.html and http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-45-desond-1-and-desmond-2.html for more.