THE LOST LIST! (cont.)
4. WHAT YEAR SHOULD IT BE ON THE ISLAND, AND WHAT YEAR IS IT OFF THE ISLAND?
A relatively easy pair of questions to answer, but we find ourselves re-asking them as we struggle to stay afloat in the deluge of new chronological twists and turns. The Left Behinders vanished in January 2005. That was the same month and date that the Oceanic 6 left the Island. Since then, more than three years have passed for the Oceanic 6 — but only a couple days (maybe more, maybe less) have elapsed for the Left Behinders, in terms of time spent time traveling.
5. THE NOODLE COOKER: NOW THAT WE KNOW THAT DANIELLE ROUSSEAU ENCOUNTERED JIN IN THE PAST, DID SHE KNOW WHO JIN WAS WHEN SHE FOUND THE CASTAWAYS AFTER THEY CRASHED ON THE ISLAND?
This intrigue will be further deepened tonight, as I can report that she and Jin will share a pretty unforgettable adventure together. A similar mystery surrounds Richard Alpert. We now know the ageless Other encountered Locke and company during the 1950s era of the Island. But did he possess those memories when he was trying to convince Locke to kill his dad and usurp Ben's leadership during season 3?
Perhaps this question was addressed/answered last season in ''The Constant.'' In that classic episode, Desmond's consciousness traveled back in time to when he was in the military. Then he sought out Daniel Faraday for help in solving his time displacement dilemma. That means Daniel should have come to the Island with the memory of meeting Desmond, right? Nope. The episode seemed to establish that Faraday did not possess that memory until Desmond went back in time. This principle was affirmed anew in the season premiere, when Faraday used Island Past Desmond to send a message to off-Island Future Desmond, who had no recollection of that bizarre encounter until about three years after he was rescued by Penny.
The precedent of the Faraday/Desmond moments would seem to suggest that the answer to the Rousseau/Jin question is simply, ''No.'' Adult Rousseau did not yet have a memory of meeting Jin when she encountered the castaways in season 1. That said, Faraday did tell Desmond that he was miraculously unique, that ''the rules'' didn't apply to him. Does that mean that the Desmond/Faraday precedents actually can't be applied to other characters? Time will tell.
GET TO THE (ZERO) POINT!
A theory that could explain almost everything
Last season, in the episode ''Meet Kevin Johnson,'' Lost cited a book that may help explain many of our time travel questions. In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, the hero becomes ''unstuck in time'' and begins experiencing past, present, and future all at once. Perhaps Lost is dramatizing a similar conceit: The Left Behinders have become ''unstuck'' and are now experiencing the Island's past, present, and future in an everlasting state of now. Bookmark this idea.
NEXT PAGE: A coded message on Lost pointing toward zero point theory?
