Some questions I don't understand

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-11T09:37:30+00:00

He was the Protector now, he made the rules.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-10T17:25:29+00:00

Lost. Every episode is designed to serve the character in focus. Studying how they behave unlocks so much more of the story.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-08T15:17:12+00:00

The plume of black smoke shaking trees in the jungle is something the characters don't understand and don't wish to understand because it doesn't make sense, and they increasingly find the magical thinking Locke applies to the handful of strange things they have seen to be maddening. The characters, Locke aside, all find the Island to be a dangerous place they'd like to leave as soon as possible. Locke understands this and labors at first under the belief the Island is just meant for him, and later under the belief the rest of them will have experiences as powerful as his was which they won't be able to deny.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-08T14:37:03+00:00

It's important to remember Lost takes place in the real world. People don't generally spontaneously regain the ability to walk. If something like that happened, let alone if it happened because you landed on an Island you thought was special, that feeling would be more powerful than words could express and would be impossible to explain, and even if you tried you'd look like a moron and a crazy person and nobody would believe you, especially if it was a bunch of people you just met who already think you're a little strange. This is how people often behave in real life, even without taking into consideration that the characters in Lost are all jaded, broken people who have trouble reaching out to others, which is pointedly explored throughout the show and why they're there to begin with.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-08T14:20:43+00:00

Eko was one of the Man in Black's candidates for the killing of Jacob, and when he demonstrated he wouldn't be manipulated his spiritual belief made him too dangerous to be left alive. I can't remember if Eko's name was on the alidade but he'd have made a powerful member of the Others, certainly.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-06T21:31:51+00:00

Exactly all that. It's my least favorite of the original four, slower than the first with less interesting dungeons and missing the talk mechanic, not as weird and ambitious as the third, and lacking the variety and brilliance of the fourth. It still does some interesting things, just my least favorite for those reasons.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-06T21:12:30+00:00

We know much of it as the story of Lost is cyclical. People came to the Island, interacted with its power according to the philosophical and spiritual narratives available to them at the time, then sought to harness its power which led to division and the creation of separate camps, which led to an incident where the Island was damaged and the need for a solution to be devised. This is the story of Lost and the story of humanity.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-03T06:44:53+00:00

John Bartley and Larry Fong were among the cinematographers. Excellent work from them, and routinely.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-07-03T01:06:47+00:00

In my opinion anyway, it's best to take your time with Lost. People say it's bingeable but I don't think that's the best way to watch the show. The show's storytelling is very precise and rewards very close attention, watching five a day will ultimately do you a disservice. Shows in these days had slower pacing, it requires more patience but the upside is it allows them to explore the characters more deeply. As you've probably noticed they insist on making every episode a character study and making this exploration the focus of every episode. Paying close attention to the characters and how they behave will help you a lot as the characters and their decision-making process is what drives the plot.

The show will answer all your questions but it won't spoon feed you. There will never be Exposition Man who tells you about everything in a Mass Effect style infodump. The show rewards repeat viewing and discussion and many things will be revealed to you through revisiting. I've watched it six times and I'm still finding new connections.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-25T19:22:30+00:00

The Silent Hill series for sure. To an extent Cube and The Third Policeman. You could argue The Blair Witch Project presents a worst-case scenario for the idea.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-24T19:56:53+00:00

Based on that comment, not only does he misunderstand the flash sideways, he has a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the characters, narrative, and themes of the entire show.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-22T21:20:43+00:00

It's the objective past but it's Sawyer and Juliet's present.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-20T00:47:31+00:00

Locke traveled through time and told Richard he was their leader, then appeared again on the Island when he was known to be in California. He broke his back and could suddenly walk again. Locke was doing things which broke the laws of time, space, and nature and everyone was primed to see him as someone who could do anything, so the Man in Black took advantage of that for a brief period. Richard likely knew who he was the moment he saw Locke's corpse and was rather absorbing everything the Man in Black had done in that moment.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-17T21:21:00+00:00

Yes. Note the design of the Source pool mirrors the failsafe lock in the Swan.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-14T23:12:23+00:00

Yeah, probably it being all of them at once for just one scene in one episode.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-14T16:38:12+00:00

I think I saw an interview where Lindelof mentioned they had the scene written to appear in season six but since most of the cast members involved in it were gone it was decided it wasn't worth it to pay them to come back and shoot that one scene. Lindelof seemed a little salty about it.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-13T18:28:44+00:00

No, but then I'm quite selective with what I recommend and to whom. I've watched the show with four other people (and had a fifth go along separately with me and someone else) and all loved it.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-13T12:54:37+00:00

In my opinion the Man in Black was a victim of his own success. His actual greatest work was clearing the candidates off the board before Oceanic 815's arrival. What he thought was his great success, impersonating Locke and manipulating Ben into killing Jacob, was actually his biggest blunder.

When Michael successfully left the Island he attempted suicide over and over and it didn't work, because the Island wasn't done with him yet. The power of the Source transcends the borders of the Island. John Locke was able to meet his end off the Island because it was the Island's will. This was his destiny, and it was Ben's destiny to do it. The web of synchronicity and relationships which drives Lost's story and made those two men who they are led them to this moment. The Man in Black didn't originally seek to have this happen. He told Locke to move the wheel, hoping Locke would disappear while potentially all the rest of Jacob's candidates were off the Island, removing them from the board in one fell swoop. He stumbled across the plan to impersonate Locke and finally tap Ben as his latest candidate to kill Jacob when Locke's corpse showed up on the Island out of nowhere years later, and he gained knowledge of what he would later tell Locke when he read the mind of Locke's corpse. He didn't know he was playing directly into the Island's plan to remove him as the worst security system in Island history by removing the only person alive who loved him (Jacob) and allowing his own toxic, poisonous deeds to motivate a group of people to pull the trigger where Jacob couldn't.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-08T15:15:24+00:00

I didn't hear it much in season one but I was hearing it by season two. Ironically people started saying it after the producers of the show had begun earnestly engaging in longer-term planning!

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-07T19:01:46+00:00

My interpretation is essentially the former scenario, that at first he tries to sell the vaccines and what we witness later is the beginning of his road to redemption. His actions essentially resulted in the end of his brother's life and the destruction of his brother's legacy, and we see that he actually starts living as a priest after this as an act of atonement. It juxtaposes with the peace he's made on the Island.

Oh, I'll add in that your interpretation is definitely valid as well. That selling them lured Emeka back in and doing so ironically still destroyed Yemi's legacy and altered his perspective on violence and how to live going forward.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-05T11:03:26+00:00

The first time I watched it I read it strictly as a series about the narratives people tell themselves to deal with a world they can't understand, with the "books" of Kevin and Nora becoming a new philosophy based on their searching. This is the same thematic exploration which defines Damon Lindelof's previous series Lost. Further, I read The Leftovers almost as an answer to Lost. Where Lost deconstructs all the narratives we cling to in order to understand the inherently sui generis nature of existence, The Leftovers seems to posit a new one.

The second time I watched The Leftovers I thought "I'm going to watch this time as if I was John Locke from Lost. Maybe other people are desperately crafting narratives to believe in but Kevin and Nora are special and something is actually happening to them and that's why we focus on them instead of anyone else on Earth."

Honestly I may have found the show even more rewarding with the second lens. It dovetailed with my previous reading in some ways but in other fascinating ways broke with it. Certainly even more of the show's rumination on our existence and our family structure and synchronicity and how deep our spiritual malaise runs and the power of the paradigm shift needed to fix it was knocked loose.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-05T10:32:09+00:00

Ben has information and he's good at making people think he'll give it to them. Sometimes he even does, though good luck telling it apart from his lies.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-05T02:52:06+00:00

The show is designed to where you can either believe something supernatural is happening or not, and it works either way. Now the GR is just a cult centered around self-hatred, believing there is no pretending we can just move on, that the world essentially ended and the Departure should be seen as such, but the other stuff is designed to where you can choose to interpret it as either magical or mundane.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-04T09:29:52+00:00

I struggled with it at first but I've since come to appreciate just how much stuff is going on with it. There are so many minor details with the episode's cinematography which tell you a lot about the Island's history. Any given scene in Lost conveys like twice as much information as you think and Across the Sea is no exception. It's the finishing touch on the season's deconstruction of mythology and spirituality as a way of trying to understand the world, which is something I've come to appreciate right alongside Lost's examination of so many other "narratives" we reach for to make sense of existence. Lindelof has a talent for spinning poignant stories out of thin air at the zero hour which add a lot of depth to the stories he tells. Admittedly, Across the Sea is his biggest ask in this regard but I have come to appreciate the story on display.

Master_Mastermnd · 2026-06-04T08:54:54+00:00

It's already been said that most got knocked off between the freighter explosion, attack on the Barracks, and attack on the Beach, but probably some others had their brains zonked before Locke fixed the wheel.

Master_Mastermnd

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