i should have seen this coming
("it worked")


of all LOST's storytelling devices (the traditional flashback, the mind-bending "future-back" or flashforward and now the brilliant flash-"sideways"), i think the current, flashsideways is the most intriguing. quite frankly, the more thought i've given it, the more i feel i should have known this was how it was going to end all along.

on a show that has given us as much depth, mythology and as many headaches as LOST, was it ever going to be as simple as the castaways thought? was it really going to be as easy as them being rescued, a boat (or freighter) out of nowhere coming to pick them up and take them back to the lives they all left behind? of course not! and so, with this season, we are being presented two different but very real timelines, two timelines that i imagine will ultimately be reconciled early on in the series finale, the show coming to an end in a two hour magnum opus that sees what is left of our heroes coming to terms, consciously, with their plan having "worked". worked, but maybe in vastly different ways than they would have imagined when daniel farraday initially presented to them his plan of devastative-redemption.

at least, that's my guess...i am sure i am wrong.

make no mistake. i firmly believe we as viewers were given a preview to how it will all end when juliet (or if you are sawyer...JUULLIETTTTT!!!!) told her love through miles from the grave that "it worked". of course it did. farraday was too brilliant for it not to, right? but as the producers hinted in a series premiere exit interview a couple weeks back, and i am paraphrasing, "the plan may or may not have worked. but if it did, the castaways certainly were only thinking of how it would affect them. if you reboot a timeline, surely there will be unintended consequences and after-effects." or, something along those lines.

what makes this storytelling conceit so fascinating is that we've all been there, right? if we have lived enough life, we have hit what, for us, felt like rock bottom. we lost our job. we lost a friend. we lost a parent. we lost a kidney. our life or someone we loved was forced to fight a battle with a disease they didn't ask for. we told a lie that we couldn't take back. we lost touch with our parents. something happened somewhere in the cosmos that turned our life down a path that we didn't want or didn't need, but we didn't have the power to fix it ourselves.

or,... maybe we did and could change it all, but we just needed a little help. a little nudge. the confidence from someone or some...thing that "you can do this". what if, at that rock bottom point in our lives, some version of daniel farraday presented themself to you. he was a genius. you trusted his plan. he knew it would work so, in turn, we wondered if we, too, knew it would work. he warned us that he couldn't predict how it would work. he tells us that there are risks. you would have to give up certain things to find your ultimate reward, your finding yourself away from your darkest hour, but you would get away from this one thing and you would be able to start anew with a second chance...at something.

would you do it? would you take it? would you take your dad back? your kidney? your job? your friend? your dog? your dream? even if it meant you might not remember the path that you had forged for yourself since that black moment? since you were shipwrecked on your own private "island"? i would bet you'd have made the best of your situation since then. i would bet that, in moments, you would have felt like your lowest point had somehow made you a better person. a wiser person. a more educated master of your world. but, if you could go back ("kate!!! we have to go BACK!!!"), would you?

keep moving forward? or not.

two steps forward. or two steps back.

our castaway heroes (or, at least our hero jack) let their daniel farraday convince them that they could do something that would prevent their plane from ever crashing on "this island". jack ran the risk of not remembering his kate. they all ran the risk of forgetting everything that they had become since they found their way to this place, this purgatory, this whatever it ends up being. they were presented with a plan, and they took it. they pushed the reset button.

and "it worked."

my hope is that, by the end of the season and series, jack will find happiness. whether it was the producers want or not, he is the only character i find myself hoping makes it out redeemed and "alive".

why is the flashsideways so incredible to me? because it presents "what might have been" and makes us ask the question, "is this really better than what we left behind?" as the story of LOST works its way to an endpoint, i am sure we will be served with the fact that there are pros and cons to both timelines. just like there are with any choice we make on our own journeys.

we can choose to make a difference or not.

we can change or not.

we can "limbo" or not.

we can be comfortable or not.

each way we go, there will be good days and there will be bad.

which way serves the greater good? which way serves the most people the most satisfaction?

where do we find happiness?

how do we find it?

do we do what we always have done?

are we happy with what we've always got?

do we "limbo" or find comfort in the limbo?

is this all there is?

can we find more?

do i drive out in the snow or do i stay home?

why am i scared?

there aren't any monsters in the closet.

or, are there?

should i look?

or should i wait?

why wait?

...