Schrodinger's Eye-Land

Schrodinger's Cat is a physics story, which means that very few people can truly grasp the whole thing, but what it boils down to is this: When two possible outcomes exist, there exist 2 parallel universes, one for each possibility. Eventually one will collapse, but not until the other is observed. If you close your eyes and flip a coin, you split the universe in two, and it is only when you open your eyes and see that it came up tails that the other universe collapses and a single reality exists.

This is important to the story. How many times has a chapter begun on a shot of someone's eye opening? Tonight it was Kate, and what she saw was bleak. The survivors were thrown back to the future, all of them, and what they saw was bleak. Whatever happened, happened; it was all for nothing. They still built the Swan, and the plane still crashed. Out of 72 original survivors, now only James, Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sun, Jin and Sayid remain, and Sayid is nearly dead. Jack's plan didn't work and it got Juliet killed. Only Juliet wasn't quite dead; she lived long enough to almost tell James, after a teary goodbye and a bloody kiss, what she told Miles after she died: it worked.

In one reality, it certainly seems that way. We saw the flight of 815 again, with a lot of little differences and one big difference: it landed. The survivors had minor run-ins with each other, and there seemed to be the faintest sub-time recognition, but they went on their ways, and I'm sure we'll follow them as they are inexorably drawn to their destiny, because the universe has a way of course-correcting, you know, and I'm sure it won't be long before the passengers of flight 815 start shaking their fists at the heavens and screaming into the night: "We have to go back!"

So we have two possible outcomes, both of which, according to the cat, exist until the observer of the experiment opens his eyes and sees whatever happened. Juliet, near death, seemed to be aware of both, and tried to tell James what she had seen, but everyone else seemed to be aware of only one of the realities they were in. What I am getting at is a question: Whose eyes will open and collapse a universe? Who is the observer, if everyone is living their life and choosing their sides as if the coin had already been flipped? I have long believed that the main action in the story is being watched by some unknown party. Whether for scientific research, sport, entertainment, or some religious notion, I'm not sure, but I have an idea that the whispers we hear so frequently are the voices of those observers; the transcripts reveal clearly that whoever is speaking has some awareness of the people who hear them and their circumstances. Maybe they lost their feed when the bomb went off, or the House is still taking bets before revealing the outcome.

I have a feeling that the next time we see an eye opening, it will be the eye of the Man Behind the Curtain, and a universe will collapse, and the battle will begin.

The best Lost recap out there...

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

So. In one timeline we have a big hole in the ground, a pocket of electromagnetic energy, a hydrogen bomb, and one almost certainly dead fertility specialist, Juliet, whose detonation of the bomb left millions questioning over the hot, boring summer the nature of time travel, pondering whether you can change the past when you visit it or just play a role, ignorant of all that will happen, powerless to change your future.

In another timeline we have a man in black, wearing the disguise of a dead man's identity. The dead man, all his life he felt he was destined for something bigger, something more than the below average hand he'd been dealt, and the man in black, sensing desperation, knowing how badly the dead man wanted to believe, preyed upon him, told him he was special, led him down the path of his own destruction. The dead man was conned, not just by the father who stole his kidney, but by a devil claiming angelhood. And now the man in black has won. His rival is dead, thrown into the fire by his once most loyal disciple, whose doubts the man in black used to suit his own needs. This is inside the statue. Outside, in the shadow of the statue, those loyal to the rival of the man in black have just discovered that the dead man, he has not risen, and the man claiming to be himself is an impostor. The impostor, the man in black, has no name that we know, but his rival does; his name is Jacob. Not much is known about Jacob. We know that Jacob loves you, and we know that God loves you as he loved Jacob, and we know that Jacob made lists, and we know Jacob's last words, as his lifeblood was dripping out of him, before he was kicked into the fire like so much kindling: "They're coming."

Thus the stage is set for the final act. We've read books, we've heard music, we've studied names from the past, we've examined minutiae and theorized endlessly, but all of that is secondary to this: we've followed an extraordinary set of characters through their amazing, karmic, sometimes redemptive stories. We've seen through them how our lives are the sum of our experience, how every moment in our life has led us to this moment and this moment alone. We've seen that moment in their lives when their flaws are on display and never redeemed. The telling of this story has been a monumental achievement in writing before all. Is it going to end well? That depends. Some will hate it, of course. Some will love it. Some are worried even now that they will be disappointed, but I'm not worried. Life has jagged edges sometimes, I know this well, but these writers have not let me down before, and I trust them to listen to the characters and give them the endings they deserve.

Sure I have questions I want answered, but I know that the answers are never as much fun as thinking about the questions, and I know that ultimately the story is about the people in it, and I look forward to seeing these people finish their journey.

I didn't forget about you, loyal reader...

The final season starts in 9 days. Watch this space.