Validation

Though my jaw was still scraping the floor following the Lost season finale last week, I was able to post a brief theory on the thrilling notion that love and Mr. Desmond David Hume were the true center of the vast Lost world.

And, lo, someone at Entertainment Weekly seems to agree with me:

Call it corny, but I'm nutty for the idea. And I think I'm right. With its season finale, Lost revealed its true identity: It's actually a gloriously old-fashioned, ridiculously idealistic romantic epic. But the Romeo and Juliet of this love story aren't Jack and Kate (but I did love their non-verbal Han/Leia ''I love you''/''I know'' nod-and-blink exchange — a
fittingly coy way to end the show's bad-guy-triumphant Empire Strikes Back season), or Charlie and Claire (that kiss — an abrupt turnabout in their relationship, don't you think?), or Jin and Sun (even though their relationship is Lost's main source of human grounding).

No: The star-crossed lovers of Lost are Desmond and Penelope Widmore, the English heiress whose powerful and possibly Dharma Initiative-connected father Arthur Widmore...seems determined to make sure that his daughter and the lovelorn hatchman will never, ever be together.

I don't know which is more exciting: that someone whose job it is to theorize about Lost has developed a similar view on the subject or that, for the sake of the story's narrative arc (not my own ego), my Desmond-centric theory might actually be true. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. I want it to be true that the love between Desmond and Penelope is the show's reason for being.

So if such a theory has enough merit to appear within the hallowed pages of EW, well, hell, my little romantic heart is aflutter.

See you in another life, brother

I am absolutely in love with the fact that Lost seems to have made Desmond the prime mover within the show's fantastically woven web of existential, six-degrees-of-separation drama. It is an utter stroke of genius that a character who didn't even appear until the series' second season -- and only had a part in a few episodes, at that -- has been revealed as the potential cause of both the fall and redemption of our flawed band of protagonists. (That is, if Desmond's failed button-pushing indeed caused flight 815 to crash, and if his turning the electromagnetic key indeed sent a signal to the outside world that will save them all.)

And how brilliant and simple the whole of Desmond's motivation: love. Astounding. Just when you think Lost is trapped under the weight of the elaborate Dharma Initiative mythology and the us vs. them conflict and the mysterious sicknesses/vaccines/smoke monsters -- boom: L O V E. It really is about human relationships after all.

(My awe is aided by the indisputable truth that clean-cut, post-prison, pre-race-around-the-world Desmond is smokin'. I just think it needs to be said.)

It is going to be a long, painful summer.

Looks like Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Watros will have a lot of time on their hands to collect DUIs

Lost. Wow.

I cannot recall the last television show I watched where so much jaw-dropping action happened during each and every episode. The X-Files wasn't even this good.

And that Hanso Foundation ad? More references to Bad Twin? Yes, Lost creators, please keep allowing this fictional world to encroach on our own. More evidence, if you ask me, that all the action in this series is unreal -- that human psychic activity is what's moving the plot forward, not polar bears and smoke monsters and menacing islanders.

Is Claire Jack's half-sister, the one Jack's dad was searching for in Sydney? [yes] Is Michael the Others' leader, the one Henry Gale describes as great but not merciful? [don't know, but he is looking rather messianic in the clips for next week] Is the actor who plays Henry Gale the single creepiest human on the planet? [absolutely] Did Michael's brief remorseful look following his shooting Libby signal that she is, indeed, an Other, and that he had made a mistake? [friggin' yes] Do Josh Holloway's abs ripple like a pebble dropped into a flat calm? [so much so it almost makes me uncomfortable]

All I can say is, thank goodness for May sweeps. And curses for the barren, lonely, Lostless summer to follow. Here's hoping Fox brings back Gordon Ramsay for another edition of Hell's Kitchen to attempt to fill the void.

Could it be that it's some sort of mass hallucination?

I am all caught up on my TiVOed episodes of Lost, and I'm thinking that -- after last night's Hurley-centric adventure involving creepy hallucinations of Harry Goldenblatt -- the whole premise might be some kind of collective drug-induced psychosis among the patients at Santa Rosa. Hurley's there. Libby's there. The taking of their daily meds is highlighted in a way that a minor, meaningless detail would not be otherwise. Leonard's numbers are endlessly echoing around the lounge.

Perhaps other characters are institutionalized, too. It's not like life has been trauma-free for any of them: Jack has father issues and a messiah complex. Kate is responsible for the death of her childhood love, plus she killed her fake-real dad. Locke has extreme daddy and abandonment issues, not to mention a serious inferiority complex and fleeting paralysis. Ana Lucia lost her unborn child and murdered to avenge that loss. Sayid saw his relatives gassed, lost the love of his life and was forced to do all manner of unkind things. Sawyer's parents were killed in front of him, turning him into a predatory loner. Charlie has a serious drug habit, combined with the humiliation of being a member of Driveshaft. Jin is a reluctant gangster. Michael had his son taken from him and then got hit by a car. Really, any of these things might be enough to put these people over the edge. And I'm willing to bet that those characters' backstories that we don't yet know are disastrous as well. You know Bernard once accidentally killed someone with a dental drill.

I generally believe that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Rather than surviving a horrific plane crash and landing on a mysterious island with smoke monsters, hatches and Dharma Initiative-branded ranch dressing and sharks, I find it much more likely that these characters -- whose stories and lives are so interconnected that even Kevin Bacon is jealous -- are occupying the same institutional space, taking similar mind-altering medications and having related hallucinations within their own fragile psyches. They're working into each other's dreams/nightmares, with the island as their gigantic therapist's couch. Which explains why each of their personal demons just happens to be there: Kate's horse, Jack's dad, Hurley's food, Charlie's Virgin Mary heroine stash, the remains of Eko's brother, Sun's pregnancy test.

Of course this theory is just that, and will evolve as May sweeps approaches. But for now, there's no way this story is "real."