More LOST Ramblings
I still love LOST, but this season is a little disappointing. It’s moving slow compared to Season 1, but I’m enjoying all the clues and misdirection. One of last week’s clues supports my theory that this is all going to be some kind of purgatory/Sixth Sense type of thing.
This past Wednesday’s episode showed Locke taking books off the shelf during his search of the hatch. One of those books (the only one they bothered to show the title of clearly) was Owl Creek Bridge. My husband immediately recognized the title and said he thought it was a major clue to the secret of LOST. In the book, the story’s main character, David Coulter, is being hanged for treason from the Owl Creek Bridge, but after the rope breaks and he falls into the water, he begins a journey back home. During this journey, he starts to experience some strange physiological events that ultimately end with a searing pain in his neck. It turns out that David had never escaped. He imagined the entire thing during the time between being pushed off the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck.
In an earlier episode, when they came upon Desmond in the hatch, he was reading a book called The Third Policeman. When I looked up that book online, I found a review that said it was “a chilling fable of unending guilt,” which describes pretty much every character on LOST. They all have something in their past they feel guilty about.
A little Googling turned up that Owl Creek Bridge was also featured on an episode of the Twilight Zone in 1964 (Episode 142, Season 5). Strangely, the author of Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce, disappeared while on a trip in Mexico and was never found. Kind of like Glenn Miller, whose plane went down over the English Channel and was never found. (When Hurley and Sayid are fiddling with the radio, the station they pick up is playing Glenn Miller.)
These are the kinds of twists and connections I adore, why I keep coming back even though the show frustrates me so badly at times.
