Wednesday, February 18, 2009

"Lost" preview: put some Scripture in your pipe and ...

Editor's note: In the continuing quest of this site to understand ABC's "Lost," I convinced  warblogle.com — even more obsessed than I — to post his thoughts in advance of tonight's episode. He is an Aub — all grammatical and syntactical errors are officially excused — and so any and all references to Dead Bears, Living in the Past and Redneckery are simply part of the gig. Enjoy.

First off, I would like to thank firewillheath.com for allowing me to grace these hallowed pages in a positive light for the first time. I know all 3 readers — well 2 'cause I don't count — are used to seeing my name bashed and slandered about because of my hatred/man-hate for the Tahd (sic). Oh, and Mrs. Heath, I'm just joking. I man-love your son, and he has a very reputable Web site/blog. But if you're reading this then that really just leaves one real reader doesn't it? Who is it? That's a mystery.

Anyway, firewillheath.com has given me the opportunity to preview tonight's episode of Lost/talk about anything else related to the show of all shows, the king of kings (Biblical reference? Yes!), the best thing that has ever graced my eyes besides my beautiful wife. Who am I kidding? She's not going to see this, but you get the point.

If you don't know, I'm a Lost geek, and firewillheath.com, along with George of FansPoll.com, Zach of ZachMay.com and I of WarBlogle.com regularly converse, argue, fight, and lie over Lost pretty much 8-5. It usually starts on Thursday with someone saying "Dude, that was awesome." Once I realize they are talking about Lost and not my latest blog, I usually agree. From then we talk about what this line meant, and what that look meant, and where the story is going now. Anyway, there's my backstory. Have you lived it before? Maybe.

This week's episode is titled "316". There are some obvious things that jump out when thinking of 316: John 3:16, Hurley's weight divided by 2, the number of breaths Jack takes every scene, and the number of times we heard Michael say "He's my son" or "WAAAALLLTTTT," just to name a few. I think for purposes directly relating to the future (past) of the show, I'll stick to John 3:16. There are tons of hugely obvious Biblical references throughout the show. We have Christian Shepherd, Jacob, Eko and Claire's baptism, and Eko's story about Josiah and the Old Testament. From the last few episodes, words like sacrifice and resurrection have been thrown around. Where was resurrection mentioned? Check the name of the carpet company on the side of the bus holding John Locke's body. Jumble those letters and what do you get? BAM!

So is John Locke representing Jesus? I mean, he's sacrificing himself for the island and he's going to be more than likely reincarnated (raised from the dead) once (if) they get him back to the island. These are good points, but I mean he threw a knife in someone's back, got Sawyer to kill his dad, and has said lots of dirty words. So where are they going? I don't know, but something Biblical is going on.

Still not convinced? Well I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm sure many of you may remember the airline that was mentioned a few episodes ago when the Flashies (people flashing in time around the island) found the canoes on the beach, and then hijacked them only to be shot at by some mysterious people. Well if you remember, they found a water bottle in one of the canoes. On that bottle was a label for Ajira Airways. Juliette happened to know that they were based out of India. Anyway, if you want my opinion, I believe that Ajira Airways just happens to be responsible for returning the Oceanic 6, or part of them, to the island. This could mean that those people shooting at the Flashies from the other canoe could, should, or would be none other than Jack, Kate, Sayid, etc. Interesting theory, huh?

But that's not all with Ajira Airways. If you're like me and don't stop with just watching the episodes, you know that Lost likes to throw little hints all around the web about things that may happen on the show or point us to websites that make the show seem more real. During season two, they launched thehansofoundation.org. You'll remember Alvar Hanso was the main benefactor of the Dharma Initiative. The site is now very simple and doesn't show much, but click 'Humanity' at the end of the 3rd paragraph and turn your speakers up.

Anyway, back during season 2, it showed all these little articles and had an ape that you could watch in its cage as if Dharma was still up and running somewhere. Between season 3 and 4, they had find815.com. It was a little game you played as an old Oceanic employee trying to find his fiance who was supposedly on flight 815. He wasn't buying the fact that the plane was deemed lost, so he basically did a bunch of research and eventually found that the plane was on the bottom of the ocean. We know now that that plane is a fake.

Now Back to Ajira — a few weeks ago AjiraAirways.com showed up on the InterWeb and after hours of research, and tons smart-thinkings by George of FansPoll.com, we found some hidden numbers and messages within the source code of the web pages. The first page had tons of two-digit numbers in the code with 'HEX' displayed before them. Genius George decided it would be best to run these numbers through a HEX-to-text converter. Wasn't that fun to say? So, what happened next? I don't remember, but I did wake up three hours later with blood coming from my nose and a splitting headache. No really, there in the text box converted from a bunch of two-digit numbers hidden inside the Ajira Airways website was the entire text of John 3:16. For you sinners, that's "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Sounds a lot like John Locke. So yeah, there's that for your pipe.

On the second page was more two-digit numbers. Once run through the converter, it gave us a snippet from James Joyce's book, Ulysses. The entire text didn't seem too important, other than it had "Hurley" in one part of it and that it turns out that the text is from page 316 of the book. Pack it in real good.

The next three pages had short lines of text: "PINEAPPLES IN HAWAII," "SUPERSONIC IS COMMERCIAL THIRTY TILL MERIDIAN" and "WHERE AMERICA'S DAY BEGINS." If you watch the video on the main page, the two women on there will tell you that they are now offering flights from L.A. to Honolulu to Guam to Indonesia. So PINEAPPLES IN HAWAII may have something to do with Honolulu. SUPERSONIC IS COMMERCIAL THIRTY TILL MERIDIAN probably has something to do with the entry point of the window that leads them back to the island. Oh yeah, this is all assuming that we agree that Ajira Airways is going fly the Oceanic 6 back to the island. Do a simple Google search on WHERE AMERICA'S DAY BEGINS and you will see that this phrase is the motto of Guam. Weird!

One other little thing was if you search around on the site, you will see a place where you can print out origami instructions. If you also go and print out the sample boarding pass and fold it into the origami that it describes, it will make a little ball of paper. You blow up the paper and look inside, and you plainly see the airport code for Guam, "GUM." Freaky!

Another weird thing on the Ajira website are some excursions that they listed. They are a Walkabout (John Locke), Polar Adventure (polar bears), Island Adventures (duh), Swimming with Sharks (Shark with Dharma logo on tailfin in season 1 under the raft), and Excavation: Ruins (4-toed statue, etc.) Plus, each of these were posted by Antonio B. MacCutcheon. You will of course remember that MacCutcheon was the type of Scotch that Widmore drank with Desmond in his office in season 2 or 3. He said that one glass was worth more than Desmond's whole life. Is it cool or sad that I remember that? Either way I figured that out/remembered that all by myself.

If you would like to read tons more about this written by people who probably found this a month ago and are laughing that we are just now talking about it, or to go find this hidden stuff yourself, go here.

What does this all mean? Probably nothing. More than likely, they will board Ajira Airlines flight 316 and make insignificant stops in Honolulu, Guam, Indonesia, and board their final plane for Destination: DESTINY.

So there you have it. I realize this means nothing to the casual watcher, and ABC obviously wouldn't hide stuff like this if it was really, really important to the show because I imagine only 10% of the watchers will know about it. Well thanks to me, and this blog, 10.1% will know.

Oh yeah, that is definitely Hurley in the radio transmission reading the numbers. Listen closely to ...28, 42. This brings up so many time loop/cycle ideas that it really does make my head hurt. Like how did Charlotte remember future Daniel in her past if Rousseau didn't remember Jin from her past? I for one don't think they should remember them because they weren't in their original past. The Losties are going BACK in time and they can't change those people's past. Only Desmond can be changed like that. Ok, I have to stop. I could write about this issue for days.

This hasn't been much of a preview, but more of a lecture on Lost and it's weird stuff. And I'm sorry to kind of stop this short, but basically I think 316 will have something to do with John 3:16 (I mean John Locke, hello?!) and their flight will be flight 316. Tonight or soon we will see some or all of the Oceanic 6 return to the island, just my theory, not a spoiler. Thank you for reading, and if you would like to read more from me, head over to WarBlogle.com or kurtbranch.com where you will see nothing like this.

Oh, and W-- E----!(Editor's note: We can abide a number of things on this site. Flagrant obscenity is not among those things.)

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