#flash-sideways

[donheisenberg]

Classics Reviewed: Lost S6 Ep1/2 LA X

Its been six years since Lost aired its sixth and final season, but for some pain and frustration that this season brought hasn’t worn off. Part of the reason Lost stays in the pop culture conscious is its divisive final few episodes, particularly the finale but also just season six as a whole. I’ll in large part defend season six, but it is Lost’s most uneven season and I think that the reason for that is very much the flash-sideways conceit.

There has been a fair amount of debate as to what extent was the flash-sideways justified, particularly in light of the finale, but I think you almost have to assess it on an episode to episode basis. Some weeks it seemed like the most useless and unnecessary structural device and in other weeks everything just coalesced and I was delighted by its existence.

LA X tends more towards the latter. Partially when originally watching this the dis-orientating nature of the, in particular, opening scene but also the episode as a whole, made evaluate the pros and cons of the alternate timeline difficult.

I think though LA X mostly gets at what made the flash-sideways work, when it did work. While it maybe doesn’t do this as well as some of the episodes to come like Dr Linus and The Substitute, LA X highlights the differences in the these universes, but in a way that informs the characters and justifies its own existence.

Mid-way through the second part of LA X, Jack and Locke meet for the first time in the sideways-verse. After a conversation about what the airline lost (Jack’s dad and Locke’s knives, both of which ended up on the island in some form) Jack asks Locke why he’s in a wheelchair, Locke tells him it doesn’t matter but Jack insists that “nothing is irreversible.”

That statement reflects the key difference between the two different narratives being told here. On the island somethings are irreversible, it was only in the last episode that Jack explained how he had lost Kate and that there was no going back for them as a couple, plus they did detonate a bomb to undo it all only to fail pretty miserably resulting in Juliet’s death.

It reflects on Jack as well though. The Jack we now see on the island is a different one, one that accepts that he can’t “fix” everything like he has always tried to, one who has been confronted by his limitations and now has to abide by them, one who maybe understands that somethings are forever.

But it says something about Locke as well. Not-Locke (I think I might call him Smokey from now on) explains to Ben who exactly Locke was. Locke was the only one smart enough to see the pitiful state of his past life, off-island, but he was also a man at the butt of some cosmic punchline and a man who had been damaged “irreparably”.

Maybe in the flash-sideways that is not the case and all the terrible things that have happened to Locke and co don’t have to be as permanent or as terrible.

Overall LA X is a really strong two part premiere with just a couple of issues. Firstly anything temple related I could have done without. I’ll try formulate my thoughts, for future reviews, on exactly why the temple was such a weak part of the show but for some reason it just fell really flat for me and a lot of the audience.

The stuff with Kate in the flash-sideways is also weak and highlights the problems with that narrative. I’ll get more into it in the next review, which will be of a Kate episode but suffice to say what Lindelof and Cuse got right about Locke and Ben in the sideways they don’t about Kate.

The episode ends with Jon Snow Sayid waking up from the dead, possibly vindicating Jack’s earlier assessment of how everything is reversible, possibly not.

A-

Spoiler Section:

So many, many hints about how sideways-verse is in fact purgatory. Rose tells Jack to let go in the very first scene, is that an indication of the moment he dies? Charlie insists he’s suppose to be dead, Juliet’s final words to Sawyer, Locke’s talk about how the airline couldn’t really know where Christian is now that he’s dead. The list could go on.

So the island underground. For some this was a really annoying one, as far as I’m concerned it is clearly designed as a red-herring and there is nothing particularly wrong with that.

[allwindows]

[bonierrope2-blog]

The Flash-Sideways

Season 6 introduced a new narrative technique - the flash sideways. Like flashbacks and flash forwards, flash sideways intercut into episodes' main action a secondary storyline, which covered the centric characters at a different time. The series finale revealed the nature of the world the flash sideways portrayed: it showed the characters meeting after death. As such, the flash sideways are in a sense Flash-forwards.

The main characters created a metaphysical realm to find each other after their deaths—a place producers and fans called the "flash sideways" world. Though they all died at different times, the characters appeared in the realm together, letting them meet and remember the "most important part of their lives": their time together on the Island, and then finally "move on".

Much like the Island itself, this realm let them reflect on their lives and revisit past choices. Experiences during the flash sideways—pain, unconsciousness, brushes with death and deja vu—helped them recall their lives. Connecting with something particularly significant, often a loved one, brought back all memories and let characters "move on" to the next world.

According to Christian, the characters created the flash-sideways world to "find one another". Finding one another let them "remember and to let go". To this end, the characters ran into one another repeatedly after a series of coincidental circumstances. Eventually, characters connected with someone or something that let them fully recall their lives.

Before meeting one another, the characters imagined new situations for themselves. Director Jack Bender describes this other life as letting characters see "what you wish for or what you're scared of." (Lost: The Complete Sixth Season (DVD))

Suggested Nature

Red herrings initially suggested the flash sideways world was not a form of afterlife.

The flashes' first appearance immediately followed a flashback to Jughead's apparent detonation. This suggested that though the 1977 characters traveled to 2007, the detonation also somehow created a separate timeline. ("LA X, Part 1") Later episodes alternated between the flashes and the main timeline, suggesting two timelines ran concurrently.

The semi-canonical Lost Untangled recaps claimed that the detonation created the flash sideways as an alternate timeline, one in which the survivors successfully reset time and Oceanic Flight 815 landed safely. Sawyer had believed the reset would send them to LAX. ("The Incident, Part 2") Faraday in the sideways flashes later theorized that a nuclear blast had created his world. ("Happily Ever After")

Despite these red herrings, the producers refused to call the flashes an "alternate timeline". (Official Lost Podcast 2/22/2010) The finale finally explained the flash sideways, completely debunking the alternate universe theory. The question of whether or not the blast contributed to the sideways world's creation remained perhaps deliberately ambiguous.

Man in Black's Construct

In the beginning of the season, the sideways flashes revealed the island underwater. The Man in Black later attempted to "destroy the island" by sinking it, but the link turned out to be a red herring. In "Sundown" the Man in Black offered to give Sayid "anything" he wanted, including the woman who'd died in his arms. The episode juxtaposed this offer with the flash sideways, in which Sayid's dead wife Nadia still lived. This juxtaposition too turned out to link unconnected situations.