Lost Season 4 Recap #2: Is Lost Ripping Off Twin Peaks

Confirmed Dead
written by Drew Goddard and Brian K. Vaughan
directed by Stephen Williams
My girlfriend has accused Lost's producers of ripping off Battlestar Galactica with their "Oceanic 6" revelations. I'm inclined to agree, and now I am wondering if Lost is not biting from another one of our favorites - Twin Peaks. It strikes me as though Lost may be building to some kind of good vs. evil battle, centered around religious mythology, much in the same way Twin Peaks did.

In Twin Peaks' final hours, we have the makings of an epic battle existing across dimensions between the white lodge and the black lodge. ("Whilst they're actual locations in Twin Peaks, they also seem to represent human capacities, the dark and the good side in everyone." - from Twin Peaks Theories). Lost is setting up potentially a similar battle.

Jacob's cabin is the white lodge - or a sort of gateway to heaven. I think of "Jacob's Ladder," described in the Book of Genesis as the ladder to heaven. Abaddon (introduced in the season premiere, and seen here in flashbacks assembling a team to send to the island to track down Ben) is the keeper of the black lodge. Abaddon is a Hebrew terms meaning "destruction" and I've learned from Wikipedia, "In Biblical poetry (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11), it comes to mean "place of destruction", or the realm of the dead, and is associated with Sheol. Abaddon is also one of the compartments of Gehenna.[1] By extension, it can mean an underworld abode of lost souls, or hell."

Don't get all excited again you purgatory theorists - the survivors of Oceanic 815 are alive and well. Much like the haunting woods of Twin Peaks, where red curtains drape and allow you to enter the black lodge, the island, or maybe just parts of it, exist somewhere between life and death. This would explain why the simple rules of life and death do not apply on the island, whether it comes to cancer or pregnancy. This would explain why Jack sees his dead father - and later Hurley sees him, too. I initially thought - after this episode - that Jack's dad was in fact Jacob. But let's assume for a moment that Jack's (and Clare's) dad is simply a bridge to Jacob. He does have connections to several of the survivors (Jack, Clare, Sawyer, Anna Lucia). Remember the Man From Another Place ("I am the arm") in Twin Peaks?

When it comes to Lost, nothing is quite so simple as good and evil, so expect a more complicate battle. But consider season four to be J.J. Abrams's Fire Walk with Me. He's already introduced a series of new characters, some of whom possess special gifts in order to show that what is happening is something greater than just the island. Daniel, Frank, Miles and Charlotte are quite possibly the equivalent of Chester Desmond, Phillip Jeffries, and Sam Stanley. Unlike Lynch, however, it appears as though Abrams will have the opportunity to see their stories through.