Rémi, 29 — Paris (France) :
Season 2 is when Lost locked me in.
Its opening sequence is jaw-breaking, and the absurd role of Desmond in the Swan station immediately alludes to psychological topics that fascinate me: routine, mental conditioning, self-motivation… And soon, the whole push-the-button dilemma becomes the next big thing. But the best is yet to come.
When Locke and Mr Eko discover the Pearl station, we start seeing the Swan station from a different perspective, through the explanatory video: “Your duty is to observe team members in another station on the Island. These team members are not aware that they are under surveillance or that they are subjects of an experiment. […] You will record everything you observe in the notebooks we provided. […] Each time a notebook is filled with the fruits of your diligent observation, roll it up and insert it into one of the containers provided. Then, simply place the container in the pneumatic tube and – presto! – it will be transported directly to us.”
Feeling of “Aha!” moment – the numbers-entering requirement was a joke all along, how could Desmond have been such a fool?
Except the joke is on us, we just don’t know it yet.
Because the story does not end there. In fact, it reaches a whole new level in the last episode of the season, when Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer and Michael stumble upon the other end of the pneumatic tube. It’s a dump. A dump of containers. Containers of notebooks. Notebooks that were never being read, notebooks that were never intended to be read.
Desmond thought he was pursuing something, when in fact he was the guinea pig of an experiment, observed by someone else, who in turn thought he was pursuing something, when in fact he was the guinea pig of an experiment, observed by someone else: me.
Second “Aha!” moment, quickly overridden by a puzzling question: What if we were also part of another layer of the experiment? Who is observing us?
I actually never gave much thought to this question, but the simple fact that this question popped in my head, even for a couple of seconds, created a special bond between Lost and I.