Reckoning

It’s hard to fathom that Lost’s fourth season begins in just about a month. I guess it’s true that after a few months in seclusion, you acquire a sense that all things are eternal. From this day forward, all Lost geeks can reset their internal cycles and pretend they are just waiting out a slightly longer than normal holiday hiatus. While we’re waiting for Lost to return, though, maybe it’s time for us to break a little radio silence and do a little theorizing on some of the latest Intel to leak out of Lost island.

One of the biggest things to come up during the time Lost has been resting between seasons is the orientation video for a yet to be discovered new station on the island. I am talking about the Orchid station. You can look it up on You Tube if you haven't seen it yet. At first many fans wrestled with whether or not to accept the film as canon, mostly because of Dr. Marvin Candle, under yet another pseudonym, famously dropping the f-bomb. A new, not so authorized, picture has shown the world that "The Orchid" not only exists, but will be featured around midway through the fourth season. It’s purpose is still unknown, but a curious set of dinosaur-sized bones sticking from the ground near the station stirs memories of a four-toed foot, and questions over just where the rest of that statue is. If we get too see it with the writers strike still going on i still unknown.

In the video, a bunny is apparently duplicated by accident. Now, what is important about this is that Lindelof and company have made a few promises. They have promised no clones. They promised no twins, or at least that twins were of no importance. But they never said no duplicates from alternate time lines. Although, they have told us that the future, as seen in flash-forwards, is set. I’m not saying that by process of elimination the producers have begun to present us with the bare bones of the more fantastic elements of the story, but they may have. Then again, there is another aspect to television, particularly of the mystery variety, that is sometimes overlooked completely. It is an illusion.

A good mystery is like a good magic trick. I recently spoke with someone who was into street magic. He talked about part of the art being creating the question of whether there was a genuine paranormal force involved. If the audience only thinks of it as a trick, they look for the moment they are fooled, or wonder when it took place. Good magic, in other words, depends on good lies. When I found out that the best mind reading acts involved stooges, I thought that was a bit disingenuous. But the trick, according to the guy, is to make the audience wonder how you were able to pull that off without a stooge. If they believed the lie that the stooge was not in on it, the trick was successful because what the magician wants the audience to believe is that he somehow used trickery to create the illusion of mind reading, and not just used a stooge who was in on it. Two principles of magic that translates very well to the way a story is effectively predicted in a production as open to the media as Lost is. The point of all this? Lindelof and Cuse will never lie to us, but they are masters of semantic illusion. Many theorists are stopped dead in their tracks by what Lost’s writers tell us is accurate, and not. But it would be a mistake to assume that there are any absolutes when it comes to how fine a grain Lost’s-story smiths will winnow out the details of their epic in progress. With The Orchid being canon we know that at least some variation of the concept of duplicating, cloning, or twinism exists in some parallel sensibility, and we also know that the writers have used sly tricks of semantics to avoid admitting that this element exists.

Take comfort that no matter the fact that our crazy theories are shot down, only to be validated through a loop-hole of language, the mission of the Lost crew is to excite, dazzle, and amaze us with a story that in its purest form springs from the unexpected. Even if that requires a little verbal slight-of-hand. In case you haven't seen them, there are some more of the "Lost - Missing Pieces" mobisodes out now. The best one, in my opinion, is the titled "Room 23". It's about Walt and what happened to him when he was taken from the raft and put in room 23. Apparently Walt did not like that too much and Juliette and Ben get to see some of his power. A pretty powerful and unnerving few minutes. Dr. Arntz is in another new one and the latest is Sun and Michael, from way back in season 1. The Sun/Michael short may be the one that raises the most eyebrows to date. Go check it out, you should find it on you tube as well. The newest info I have been able to gather is still in the rumor stages and not what I would credit as a spoiler yet, but it might be going into that stage very soon. All I can say right now is it involves who is now being called "The Oceanic 6". There are six Losties getting off the island and that's it. Some of the rest either decide not to leave, can't leave, or die before getting the chance to leave. More info aplenty to be coming up soon.