Dr. Linus was a great episode, one of the best of the Season. There were a couple of interesting little reveals in this episode. In this article I will take these little nuggets and see if I can spin them into a possible idea of what the heck is going on in the Flashsideways.
Facts:
- Ethan Goodspeed is an OBGYN in LA, having not grown up on the Island.
- Ben Linus lives with his old, sick father, Roger. Roger mentions DHARMA and the fact that they went to the Island and subsequently left.
- Alex and Danielle live in LA, not on the Island.
- In 2004 the Island is underwater and has vestiges of DHARMA on it, indicating a DHARMA presence before the sinking.
Speculation:
I propose that the first five seasons of LOST are in fact the “Alt” as in an altered timeline. The Flashsideways that we have been seeing depict the original, unaltered timeline.
How would that work?
Ben didn’t grow up on the Island, he and Roger left for some reason. What if they were evacuated? But not due to Jack and company trying to blow up Jughead, but because of the drilling at the Orchid setting off the Swan. The difference is because Ben was evacuated, he doesn’t grow up to turn the donkey wheel. Without the donkey wheel turning there were no time travelers. No time travelers means no Jughead.
Ergo, the Flashsideways depict the original, unaltered timeline and what we have been watching for five years has been the result of the time traveling in Season 5.
Back to Ben being evacuated. If he was evacuated then it stands to reason that Chang and Co. figured out Radzinski’s drilling was mucking everything up on their own. Why not? It’s not as if they had Sayid the Hostile and LaFleur and Juliet the Traitors-in-Their-Midst to worry about. So if they figured it out on their own they probably ordered the evacuation, but couldn’t stop the Swan from exploding because they didn’t have Jughead.
Maybe that’s why the Island sunk, because of the chain reaction set off by drilling at the Orchid.
So since the Island sank in 1977, then it wasn’t there for Danielle and her crew to wash up on, thus they made it back to civilization and Alex lives a normal life.
Conclusion:
The Flashsideways are not depicting an alternate timeline where Jughead was detonated, it is in fact depicting the original timeline where none of the time traveling and Incident stuff in Season 5 took place and the Island sank as a result of the DHARMA Initiative drilling at the Orchid.
For some as-yet-unknown reason, Jacob and/or the Man in Black decide on a do over, (perhaps Jacob in his capacity as the Guardian of the Island) and cause the time traveling, which in a chicken-or-the-egg scenario cause the real Alternate time line, ours, to come about.
We’re the Alt.
101 Responses to “We’re the Alt”
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Eh…six of one, half-dozen of the other. It’s a difference that makes no difference, and ultimately answers no questions.
I would submit it answers the question of whether Alex would get a recommendation letter to help her get into Yale. (Yes.)
Interesting theory, but there are still tidbits surrounding the Incident, minus Jughead (or The Original Incident) that don’t fit in. All the orientation films we witnessed described the “incident” in a much different situation than the one we witnessed in S5. Especially in terms of containment.
Now, whether this is deliberate, or the producers not really knowing what they were doing back in S1 and 2 and now we have continuity errors, I don’t know. Lots of those seem to be popping up as of late (ie – MiB could not have been prisoner in the cabin since it was seen in S1…but then I’ve theorized MiB is not Smokey, but rather Smokey is a vehicle MiB controls, and before MiB escaped, it was programmed on autopilot to protect the temple, or put another way, MiB stole Smokey after he escaped and now controls it exclusively).
With nine eps to go, I’m not feeling too confident we’ll get answers to explain all those discrepancies.
i dont know about that one. If I’m not mistaken, Flockes words to Ben were “I’m sorry you had to see ME like that” after smokey busted ass in the big stone foot.
How do we know that the ash line around the cabin wasn’t broken before Oceanic 815 crashed?
It’s entirely possible that MiB could leave the cabin (as Smokey) before the crash if this were the case.
we see christian( MIB?) and the trees rumbling( smoke monster) in the pilot episode so I definately think he was on the loose before 815 crashed
The monster was not a prisoner in the cabin. This has never been established, and the narrative seems to point otherwise. Ilana says “someone else has been using the cabin [not Jacob].” Jacob leaves a clue as to where he will be (the statue). The ash seemed like it was most likely a way to protect whomever was inside the cabin– not to keep them trapped.
If you’re worried about discrepancies or continuity errors, I think they are mostly going to errors of viewing by the fans.
This is GOOD man. So good.
This sounds an elaborated version of my comment in the preview of the scene from next week.. nice steal tho
not a steal. variations of this theory has been around since the premiere. I like it, could be true.
If someone steals your theory you should take it as a compliment. Like I do when people try to retro-actively steal my theories by claiming that I stole theirs.
I hate you..
Now, THERE is a snappy come back.
Hey Marc, I ate breakfast this morning. Did I steal that idea from you too? If so, I apologize.
You two should write your own show!
Now there’s an idea worth stealing!
Yeah i already have a working title.. “Imfromthepast vs Marc.. the legend continues”
LOL! Excellent Title.
I already copyrighted that one so dont steal it..
Dang it!
On a side note, I’m glad you have a sense of humor.
If that were the case then I will never forgive myself for sticking with it.
Forgiveness comes from within…
Without the time travelers, Faraday wouldn’t wound up on the island in 1954 and tell the others to bury Jughead. Without Faraday, Jughead might have explode years before the DI comes to the island.
not with the underwater scene showing the barracks.
oops nvm
correction: without Faraday telling the Others to bury the bomb a couple more people would have had radiation poisoning. Burying the bomb was just a stop gap measure against the radiation, not to keep the bomb from blowing up. It’s not like putting the thing underground disarmed it somehow.
But how did the alt-Island timeline get started. If what we’re seeing in the sideways(c)reality is before Island-reality, how’d it get altered?
I’ll let you know in May.
It was always existed. If you bother to pursue this question, you have to ask how the other universe started. It’s not a productive question and it’s not relevant at all.
The sideways reality isn’t an “altered reality.” It’s a parallel universe.
“It was always existed.”
?
I thought you said you were not illiterate?
that’s a typo, dude. Learn the difference.
To be honest, I just don’t care anymore.
Great idea, well thought out.
There is a little problem left: Roger talks about leaving the island, not been evacuated. He is unlucky with (probably his) decision to leave and since that time he asks himself what would have been if they stayed. It seems he doesn’t know the island had a problem and is sunk today. So this indicates, that they didn’t stay until the swan-drilling. The only other explanation could be that Roger hesitates because he believes, that he or Ben could have saved the island if they stayed (longer).
in this timeline, roger might have gotten fed up with being a “workman” and left the island with Ben before any madness happenned on the island. Remember how mad he was about being assigned a crappy job. Also, Dharma is so secretive about their operations that once roger left the island, he probably was cut off and had no further contact with Dharma and therefore,he is unaware of the island’s fate.
Haven’t checked this but did Roger say they shouldnt have left the island or shouldnt have left the Dharma Initiative or both?
One of the best episodes of the season?? I guess it is in the top 7.
lol.
Maybe they’re all gonna wake up and realize everything was a hallucination brought on by eating rancid coconuts (ala “Nightmare of Milky Joe”).
I really like this theory, you are definitely on to something here. Instead of asking what happened to cause the flashsideways timeline, we should be asking what happened to cause the *original timeline*.
The one piece that doesn’t fit for me is Roger Linus being so regretful that they chose to leave the Island. He tells Ben that he wishes they had stayed, which doesn’t sound to me like they left under the threat of an impending disaster.
The problem with this theory is that the producers have specifically said that neither sideways story should be looked at as “alternative.” Both have equal weight and consequence; both are actually taking place independent of one another. It’s faulty thinking to assume one storyline is what “actually” happened. Both “actually” happened in their respective worlds.
Yep, Jim’s right, they did indeed say this.
I think everyone understands this, but we have to give a name to the timeline we saw exclusively in season 1-5, and the other timeline we are concurrently watching now. So people call the familiar timeline *original* and the newly introduced timeline *alternate*. It’s just a naming convention, though admittedly an inaccurate choice of names.
Islands don’t sink.
Islands don’t move
Islands in the stream, that is what we are…
lol…you go kenny
Continents do, however. If you Wiki the mythic continent of Lemuria it talks about sinking contents and how, although Lemuria wasn’t one of them, two known contents have sank.
Manhattan is sinking.
I mentioned this theory of mine in one of the other threads, but it seems to fit better here. What if… what we’ve been seeing in the flash sideways is the original reality that Jacob viewed through his lighthouse to help him decide who would be a candidate, and/or who he would simply draw to the island. I bet in the Jacob/ MIB episode coming up, we will see a flashback of Jacob viewing one of these flash sideways in his lighthouse.
The “facts” in this article need to be corrected. We don’t know where Ethan Goodspeed grew up. For all we know he left the island at the same time as the Linus’.
that’s what I said.
That’s what SHE said.
Wait, that doesn’t work here…
This doesn’t really make sense to me. If the original timeline ended in the island sinking then there would be no way for a parallel timeline to even exist. There would not have been a nuclear explosion during the incident. I don’t believe Jacob and MiB get to have “do overs”.
I think the whole purpose of the ALT timeline is that it is going to end in some sort of cataclysmic event because the island does not exist. It will be a way for the writers to show us how important protecting the island is.
So why did the hatch get built?
If this theory is right, then that means Miles was right last season i.e. Jack and company exploding Jughead was the Incident. And thus their actions are what caused their plane to crash. (And because of time travel weirdness, this means their plane crashed because their plane crashed!)
I am reminded of “We are the causes of our own suffering”, as seen in Room 23 in season 3.
Anyone else find it humorous that Alex lives in LA, when had she not been on the Island, she would have grown up, you know, back in France with her mother?
Humorous? um, no.
It’s either extremely lame, or a strong indicator that the flashsideways are some sort of reward being given to the faithful.
I think I dislike all of you.
Why so?
This discussion is filled with stuff that isn’t in the show, people complaining about the show because they don’t understand it and use their misunderstanding and jumbling of facts as “bad writing,” and speculation that isn’t very helpful.
Thanks for removing the spam, though.
hmmm. I want to help you out here so you will be able to enjoy the site to the fullest. To this end, are there some specific things that we, as the commenters, can do or not do that will make this site better suited to your tastes? I don’t know if you realize it, but this blog has a system whereby comments would have to be approved before they are posted. Doc has opted not to enable this feature, but I could if you wanted. I could go further in my mission to please you and make YOU the user that gets to approve all comments before they get posted.
Of course, if we went this route you would be required to read each and every comment in order to determine their worth, and given your expressed distaste of the general flavor of the comments at this blog, this seems like a less than ideal solution.
So you tell me.
Help me help you.
(Yes, Marc, I stole that line from Jerry Maguire.)
But seriously, I want to help, just tell me how.
Oh this is very good.
Seriously dd you know how Randy is, that’s how you are coming across. Let it go dude, embrace the light side. We all simply adore the additions to the debate that you bring us every week with your effervecent comments.
It’s not just this blog. It’s just about every discussion on LOST. I think the more reasonable voices have been drowned by belligerent idiots, shippers, and “theory” quacks.
It’s great that people use this as a creative exercise; but when the expectations of the story are undermined because it doesn’t match the story they have created in their head, I don’t really care to hear their criticism– especially when they aren’t even straight in what is happening in the show proper.
You can easily go through the comments for this section and see the majority are by people who are upset because they simply misunderstand what is happening.
Still, these people are still not as bad as the top three worst reviewers.
I find myself forced to agree with dd on this point.
Wow, dd…you are really arrogant.
It’s not arrogance. I’m just not illiterate and I tend to be reasonable.
reverse that
imfromthepast: No.
Well, uh. Ok.
I’m just messing with you. Nothing personal. You and I actually have a lot in common.
Of course you know all there is to know about this show dd? And all the other fans are just so ignorant? Why,it must be anoying, taking time to read all these blogs and winding yourself up.
Great post imfromthepast, a fantastic theory relating to the flashsideways.
Why is it a fact that Danielle lives in L.A.? While Alex being there makes this likely, we certainly don’t know it for a fact unless I missed a line of dialogue somewhere confirming it.
Only guessing here, but i believe, since she is Alex’s mother and Alex lives in LA, that it is safe to assume that Danielle would live there too.
Alex says her mother has to work two jobs to make ends meet. This sentence in any other television show in the history of the universe would lead any rational viewer to conclude that Alex lives with her mother in LA where she goes to school.
But you’re right I am probably reaching with this.
:\
HAHA. Too true!
This theory’s interesting but questionnable in light of Juliet’s message that “it worked.” If this theory is true, then she should have said something like “you stupid &*$#! idiots, you would’ve been fine had you just left everything alone”
I wanna know what is scratched on the post in the black rock that RA looks at next to the chains. I cant make it out…
Why is The Black Rock loaded with dynamite AT ALL? The Black Rock left port last in 1845. When was TNT (dynamite) invented?
1867. By Alfred Nobel. He’s the founder of the Nobel Prize.
We have a 22 year discrepancy to deal with.
two words. TIME TRAVEL.
O_o
Most people watching the show will not know when dynamite was invented. This isn’t real life. It’s a tv show that is going to describe a world that is like ours but isn’t. Besides– who cares?
What do you mean “this isn’t real life”. You mean these people that I have come to be so curious about are just a figment of someone’s imagination. I shall now be sad. JK
I removed all the spam comments. FYI.
This is a really interesting theory, and I like your presentation, stating the facts first (may want to clarify that Ethan did not grow up on the Island but was born there).
It may be possible that the Island did sink because Daniel never went back in time to tell them to bury Jughead, and Jughead blew for some reason(the whole thing, not just the detonator).
So it may not have sank in 1977, but we do know it sank after Ben and his Dad left the Island.
Unlike some of the mysteries, I’m confidant we’ll get the answer to this one.
The only thing we know for certain concerning when the Island sank is that it happened after DHARMA built the barracks and after they branded Ezra J. Sharkington.
Unless of course DHARMA was trying to create a race of submariners…
This theory is so flawed I don’t know where to begin. This is just bad. You seem as confused as Hurley.
you can’t say something like that without justifying it. Your statement is so flawed I don’t know where to begin. Your comments are just bad.
So…you’re a hypocrite, then.
perhaps I didn’t explain myself well enough for you. All I am saying is the episode established that ben and Roger were on the Island and then left. We also know that Alex and Danielle are alive and well living in LA.
Taking these two facts as a jumping off point I am merely suggesting that perhaps the sequence of events that make up the collective perceived history of the storyline known as the Flashsideways (or the “Alt”) are depicting what would have happened in 1977 without the interference of the time travelers.
This is meant as a counter point argument to the prevalent theory that the two timelines are differentiated merely by whether or not Jughead went off.
Hopefully I helped cleared that up a little for you. Now if you will be so kind as to present your arguments against mine, we can begin a civilized discussion and perhaps together we can discover the truth.
Unless you’re just all talk, in which case, simply don’t comment and we’ll all know it.
Why did Ben and Roger leave the Island? Because:(crackpot theory BEGIN){
Since the plane did not crash, Sayid did not get trapped on the island, then thrown back in time, he kills a bunch of people on Ben’s behalf and poor Sayid become nuts and shoot young Ben. Ben was still with the ‘OTHERS’ when the people were evacuated on the submarine. (am I remembering that correctly?) Roger was a jerk, but not so much of a jerk that he would have left without Ben. Roger sees Sayid, Roger shoots Sayid. Bad Roger.
In the ALT timeline, when they drilled into the pocket of energy it caused an explosion and all sorts of strange events. They all got scared, and many were evacuated. This time, Ben was with his father because he had not been shot, so was not given to the ‘OTHERS’ to cure in the spring. So they were both evacuated. The Island eventually sank because the bomb was not there to counteract it the drilling into the pocket of energy. Those who were evacuated never found out that the Island sank because they never heard from anyone from Dharma again.
Perhaps because of a close call with death Roger realizes that Ben is all he has left of his long gone wife, and realizes how important he is to Roger, and he gets his act together and treats Ben with the kindness he deserves. Perhaps he was just a better person in this time line.
}(crackpot theory END)
that crackpot theory sounds just like one Merc posted in the comments in another thread!!!
Better not let him find out.
Dynamite may only have been stored in the ship after it had been stuck in the jungle. Ie: the explosives may have come to the island long after the ship, and simply stored there away from where people lived and/or worked.
I think with Faraday explaining his perception on time in “The Variable” the writers are wanting us to think about what is and isn’t possible. Faraday claims that time is a string where you can move forward or backward on but NEVER can you create a new string. This sideways flash, I would call it a new string with similarities from the orginal string that we’ve been watching for 6 years. Think of a timeline on these strings, on one timeline Jack’s appendix was removed as an adult, yet on the other timeline it was removed when he was a child. It goes along with WHH except the points on the timelines are off, it doesnt make either one wrong because ultimately the beginning and end of the string will be the same, that is why some people are just meant to die. Just spinning the wheel, maybe we’ll get more answers if Miles has a sideways moment and his dad, Chang, is still around like Ben’s dad to throw an answer out there.
Anyone else feel like the “Alt” timeline or whatever you want to call it is taking away precious storytime that could be used to explain the island and its history? That, or there will be a glut of info packed into the last few episodes. I’m starting to worry about answers, as in, not enough. I thought introducing MIB so late in the game brought it’s own challenges as well. Guess we’ll see.
I think there are going to be a huge number of unanswered questions. Probably not as many as most shows, because lost fans are a little bit, ah, how can I put this politely…
Well, never mind how to put it, yes, I think there are going to be plenty of annoying ends that are not going to be tied up neat and tight. I guess that would be like real life.
Its always possible they will make a book out of the series, if they think it will sell. I think that was done for another show.
I don’t think the ALT timeline would be shown if it wasn’t important though.
I proposed the same theory a few weeks ago, as it is the only one that maintains the temporal consistency of each timeline without paradoxes. Indeed, each timeline would have to be separate — parallel universes if you will — where in “our” timeline, Miles’ observation holds true that rather than changing things, the use of Jughead always happened, neutralizing Radzinsky’s drilling into the pocket of energy, while flashing the Losties back to the Ajira Airways time of Ben, Sun, Frank, et al. Indeed, Sayid’s observation in Season 2, that the Swan was built over a pile of concrete reminiscent of Chernobyl seems to indicate that there was an atomic detonation at the site that needed to be capped. That Desmond’s turning of the failsafe acted similarly to Jughead also points to this.
The “alt” timeline would not only lack the impacts of the time traveling Losties before 1977, but would also lack any of Jacob’s interference which may have been more pervasive than what we saw in the Incident. What the loss of the Island means though is still the key question.
It’s almost like the FS/Alt is real life. If the Island was sunk in the 70s then today in the Aughts life would be free of it’s voodoo. And it would be a lot more boring what without time travel and smoke monsters.
What about when Miles said that Juliet told him, “It worked.” You’re theory seems to have a lot of holes, but would be a cool one if true. The fact that Juliet said that, means you are wrong sir.
that’s debatable. Besides, it’s not so much a theory as an idea…
This whole theory smacks of the “it was all just a dream” type storyline, which both showrunners have repeatedly said they wouldn’t do. To quote Damon Lindoff from a interview he had during Season 4, he said the following:
“The one thing that Carlton and I are steadfast on saying over and over again, and that we’re not lying about is that the show is not all a dream. It’s happening in the real world, there are real stakes, you’re not going to get to the end and cut to black and suddenly realize that this was all sort of a fantasy. That’s the only thing that we sort of need to get out there in the world, because it does diffuse a lot of wacky theories.”
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