Last night’s LOST was an absolute mind trip and I loved it. For the purposes of time—it’s tight this week—I’d like to completely skip the recap aspect of my review and get right down to the cold hard theory.

My thesis: The flash-sideways timeline occurs between the time that Juliet sets off the hydrogen bomb, and the survivors wake up, on the island, in the present day (2007) timeline.

Here’s where my thinking starts. When the hydrogen bomb went off Juliet declared, “It worked!” It did work, in a way. Juliet’s consciousness, but not her whole self, was transported to the flash-sideways timeline where it looked like things were as they should be. On the cusp of it, Juliet could see the other side, but still communicate back to Sawyer, who held her in his arms. In the same way, the other survivors’ consciousnesses traveled to the flash-sideways timeline. This is done in the same way that Desmond traveled when he got unstuck in time while on Widmore’s freighter. His whole body didn’t travel, just his mind did—he blacked out during the experiences.

The flash-sideways is a reality inhabited by the consciousnesses of the survivors.

Desmond flashes to this same place when he’s exposed to the electro-magnetic charge by Widmore back on the island. Desmond missed the explosion going off, which sent the rest of the survivors to this timeline, because he was off the island with Penny. But when exposed, he flashes sideways to this other reality.

Desmond’s job now, as he sees it, is to bring the rest of the survivors to the realization that they’re living in this alternative reality and that it isn’t really their lives. Interestingly enough, he asks for the “passenger list” from the Oceanic flight. He specifically and intentionally says “just the passengers”. Remember, Lapidus is the pilot on that flight, isn’t he? And what about the Others? Ben and Dogen and Roger.

Whatever happens next I suggest that Desmond’s plan must have worked because the survivors wake up, after the hydrogen bomb, but they don’t remember anything. They don’t remember that flash-sideways or meeting Desmond or anything happening. The bomb went off, they flashed back to 2007 (from the 1970’s) and they wake up. I suggest that in that time in between, the entire flash-sideways has happened.

This explains a few things. First, it explains how their bodies could’ve remained on the island while their consciousnesses traveled to this other timeline. Much like Desmond was merely unconscious for a few seconds while he was there. Secondly, it explains the bleed through.

In Season 6 there’s been a significant amount of bleed through from the flash-sideways to the 2007, island reality. The choices that Ben made as a high school teacher bleed through to the choices, and his personality, on the island. Same with Sayid, Jack and Sawyer. And Sun’s lack of English in the flash-sideways bleeds through to her life back on the island. My thesis, is that this bleed through is a result of the fact that the flash-sideways occurred during the time between the explosion and the return to 2007. In that timeframe, the whole flash-sideways—what we’ve seen and what we haven’t yet—happens. That’s why the choices these characters make on in the flash-sideways mirror the choices they make on the island: the flash-sideways affected them, and their lives, even if they can’t immediately remember it happening.

This is important in terms of character development. When I originally wondered what would happened when the bomb went off, and then how the alternative, flash-sideways timeline would realign with the 2007 reality, I wondered what they would do in terms of character development. My wife, Maria, is very passionate about this, too.

Originally, a lot of people thought that the flash-sideways was how the show was going to end. The plane didn’t crash, end of story. But this negates all the character development that happened in the entire series. The characters don’t crash, life is how it should’ve been, and everything that happened on the island doesn’t matter. This would be a huge literary gaff because it would undue all of those lessons that our characters learned and all the experiences they had. That would be a huge letdown.

But this is also why I think the flash-sideways occurs between the explosion and our survivors waking up in 2007: because it allows the character development experienced in the flash-sideways to affect the real timeline. Otherwise, the flash-sideways would be pointless, too. With the bleed through we’re experiencing now, it allows the writers to write in the flash-sideways, but not to negate the whole thing when our characters flash back to reality, and the timelines merge.

This is also why the flash-sideways, in my opinion, needs to happen between the explosion and the waking up. If the survivors were to wake up from this flash earlier, somehow, say before the explosion in the 1970’s, or some other time, it would negate the present timeline, the stuff that’s happening on the island with Jacob and the Smoke Monster right now. It would all be undone, and all the character development that’s occurred since, particularly with Richard, would be undone, too.

Let me just say again: the flash-sideways timeline is happening between the explosion and the survivors waking up after the hydrogen bomb explosion.

There are a whole bunch of questions that I don’t think we have the answers to still. First of all, does Charles know that Desmond traveled between the realities? He doesn’t seem to. What role do Jacob and his Nemesis play in these two timelines? What role does Daniel’s mother play? And, really, we still don’t know the whole purpose behind the alternative timeline. What’s it all about? What’s it for? What does it mean?

Of course, it wouldn’t be LOST without answers to questions bringing up more questions. I think I might have something figured out here, but of course, again, we’ll have to just wait and see.

This was written post-haste, and I didn’t have time to proofread because I wanted to get it written as soon as possible. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.