New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

I'm really hoping that it's the latter. I'm not one to question Lindelof and Cuse. They've proven to be master storytellers over and over in the past, so I'm sure they know what they're doing, but I can't imagine any way of having Jack change the future come across as anything other than a cheat.

You see, they establish over and over the idea that the timeline is a constant; it can't be changed. "Whatever happened, happened." In fact, the very mouthpiece for this rule, Daniel Faraday, has a conversion. He changes his tune, tries to change things, only to die at his mother's hand. Like he always does. Reinforcing the rule. Nothing changes. If Jack does change the future, then all we've learned about time travel has been a lie. This would be a pretty big violation of story structure. You establish the world and the rules by which the world operates in the first act. As long as the rules aren't violated, anything within that world goes. If the rules are violated, it's a cheat.

For that matter, if Jack does change the future so that Oceanic 815 doesn't crash, then all we've seen over five seasons gets wiped out. All we've invested in, no longer holds true. The stakes are lowered because we now know that, if you don't like what's going on, you have a chance at a reset. In fact, all we see in the Jacob story will no longer have happened. The parallel story of the very same episode will have been rendered null and void.

Like I said, however, Lindelof and Cuse have shown that they know what they're doing. Perhaps Jack's actions are a part of Jacob's countermove to Dark's seeming victory. Dark may have checked Jacob, but it's quite possible that Jarhead's detonation is Jacob's checkmate. Or maybe Cuse and Lindelof have something else up their sleeve that would make changing the future seem like a natural and brilliant development. I just can't figure out how that could be.

This, of course, leads me to the conclusion that Jack doesn't change the future. He just causes the past to happen as it always has. It doesn't happen in the way we think it does. The ramifications on our guys' futures will reverberate over the course of the upcoming final season, but I really think Oceanic 815 will still crash.

What if I'm wrong? I could be. I know this. Lost has been one of the most unique network shows, and a show of the highest quality. However it all plays out, whatever reveals we have left, whichever loose threads remain untied, and however many timelines we must juggle, we're in the home stretch of a show that has, in many ways, been the culmination of years of mythology show evolution. Lindelof and Cuse have delivered a work of art, one the likes of which we're unlikely to see again, on the major networks anyway. And I don't want Jack to change that.

Continued:       1       2