Back to the Island: "We Have to Go Back!" But Did They? Were The Oceanic 6 Supposed to Return?

 

It is one of the most iconic moments in television history.

We've spent most of Through The Looking Glass trying to figure out where In Jack's long and troubled history these flashbacks are taking place. Then at the end of the episode he sets up a meeting at the 'usual place'.

It's just outside LAX. (We never learn why this is the usual place, of course.) It's in the middle of the night and Jack is there. A car pulls up. The driver gets out…and it's Kate.

Who Jack never knew before the crash.

The conversation that follows is stilted and awkward. Jack tells Kate that he's been flying over the Pacific, hoping for a crash. He tells Kate "We were not supposed to leave, and of course that iconic line: "We have to go back, Kate!"

The moment I saw this episode like everyone else; my jaw hit the floor. I'll be honest, for a few hours I even felt a sense of betrayal. Eventually I went into a long period of speculation, most of which involved: "How? What? How?"

During Season 4 we learned very quickly that in fact six survivors would make it back to civilization. Before the mid-season break we knew who they were, in addition to Jack and Kate, they were Hurley, Sayid, Sun and Aaron, who Kate was saying was her son who she gave birth to on the island. And furthermore almost all of them were dealing with miseries. Jack was seeing visions of his father and had become an alcoholic and addicted to Oxy, haunted by visions of his father. Sun had never forgiven the group for the lie they told and had basically raised her daughter Ji Yeon and had cut off all contact with them. Sayid had married Nadia but lost her within a year and become a hitman for Ben Linus. Hurley had started to see the ghosts of Charlie, had recommitted himself to Santa Rosa, and had degenerated so badly that he believed they had died on the island. Only Kate was still living a decent life in motherhood to Aaron. But even that was soured by the fact that she and Jack had gotten engaged and his only guilt and baggage had caused him to ruin that relationship.

So by the time of the final flashforward in There's No Place Like Home when Ben told Jack they all had to go back to the island, it seemed like not only something that dramatically would have to happen but that wouldn't take much persuasion. But in fact Jack was the only one who wanted to go back to the island. Sayid had rescued Hurley from Santa Rosa, but it was clear he'd broken off all ties with Ben. When Ben confronted Hurley and said if he came back to the island he wouldn't have to lie anymore Hurley's immediate reaction was to hand himself over to the police. Sun would reach out to Kate but she had no desire to return to the island but to kill Ben. And Kate's only priority was Aaron and keeping him safe, the last place she was going was back to the island.

As I wrote in an earlier article Ben wanted to get back to the island and he knew the Oceanic 6 were his ticket back. He had always been willing to say or do anything for his own interests and he clearly saw Jack as the easiest way to get there. And both he and Eloise Hawking made it very clear that they were supposed to go back to the island.

Now of course with the whole series done with we know that all of them were pawns for a larger force. And that force as we know had made the rules that no one was allowed to leave the island. And yet, as we saw in the season finale Ben was perfectly willing to let all of them go, and anyone who would have wanted to be rescued could have been.

This would lead to two separate but related questions. First, did the people who left the island need to come back in the first place? And second, considering the significance of several of the ones who were allowed to leave, why did they get to leave with no strings attached?

This essay will attempt to address the question by looking at the lives of the six people who were rescued by Penny in the finale and whether their decision was marked by fate or free will. Aaron as we all know didn't come back to the island in the final phase, but as we all know he wasn't the only person who got roped back in during Season 5 and he will be included as well.

Any discussion of the Oceanic 6 should begin with 'The Lie', the story that the survivors told to the public about everything that happened on the island during the first four seasons. There's an irony about how Jack tells Kate in Through the Looking Glass that 'he's sick of lying' because from the start we see he made it clear that the lie was necessary and that he basically strongarmed his friends into going along with it. There's an argument so much of what happened in the flashforward to the survivors was the consequences of the lie – Sun cutting ties with the rest of them, Hurley believing the ghosts were because of his guilt, Kate feeling she had to make contact with Cassidy as a promise to Sawyer and eventually everything that happened to Jack. Sayid doesn't seem to have suffered any direct consequences because of the lie, but he didn't like doing it when he was asked.

As Nikki Stafford pointed out the show's reason for the lie – to protect the people they left behind – didn't hold up to scrutiny. Even before Sun told him, Widmore knew of the deception as he told Locke. I think the reason makes more sense when you consider that Jack was driving the train.

Jack, as we know, spent his time on the island having every aspect of how he saw reality questioned at every moment and denying it was real. Every time Locke or Ben challenged him he ignored them, no matter how many times they were right and he was wrong. (To be fair, almost all the other survivors did the same thing but because Jack was the leader, there's an argument they were all taking their cues from him.) If he had to tell the story of what happened, he wasn't merely afraid of being called crazy, he would have to explain it over and over to the outside world and Jack did not want to do that. He'd seen the island disappear before his eyes just a few hours before he came up with the lie and he denied that happened. The world he'd left behind may have been miserable but it was rational and that was what Jack wanted to get back to more than anything else. He just wanted to leave it behind.

This basically explains Jack's behavior in so many flashforwards. He can tell to lie to the general public but not to his friends. It also absolves him of all the deaths that were caused up until they were rescued. And most attractive he can deny the existence of John Locke.

So showing the impeccable bedside manner he showed throughout his career he uses the survivor's guilt his friends are feeling to push them into the narrative that is best for him, never taking the feelings of others into account. This is particularly true of Sun.

It has to be remembered that Jack is basically asking Sun to lie about everything that happened on the island, including how she got pregnant in the first place, hours after she thinks her husband was killed. She never blamed Jack or Kate for Jin's death directly – as we later learn the people she holds responsible are her father and Ben – but the fact that she essentially cuts ties with them after the news conference in Hawaii makes it clear of her feelings. Hurley is the only person who reaches out to her after Ji Yeon's birth and she's clearly happy to see him. The fact that he's  happy that none of the others show up makes it pretty clear that in this case, he knows the burden they put on her by lying. (It's not clear if they've been seeing each other before Sun gives birth; by the timeline of the flashforwards he ends up going back to Santa Rosa not that long afterwards.)

Of the Oceanic 5 Sun has the least reason to go back at the end of the fourth season. She's stood up to her father and taken his money and power from him. She's raising her daughter fairly happily. All she wants to do is kill Ben Linus and then she can finally have closure with that, if not happiness. The tragedy is Jin wanted this for Sun too and wanted to make sure she never came back to the island, even to see him. Locke kept his promise to her when he came back and it was only because of the horrible actions of Ben that she is ends up on Ajira 316. Her blood is on Ben's hands far more than Jack's.

Of the Oceanics Sayid seems the least troubled by 'the lie', which fits with what we know of him on the island: he's always a pragmatist and given some of the horrible things he did on the island, he would have no trouble being asked to say they didn't happen. That makes so much of what happens to him all the crueler.

One of the most heartbreaking moments in all of Lost occurs when Sayid walks out of the Oceanic press conference and sees Nadia for the first time. He blinks several times as if he is unable to believe it. During the flashforwards of There's No Place Like Home we see that he and Nadia have gotten married and while she doesn't know what happened on the island she's still part of their friend group. The reason all of this gut punches us is because by this time we know that Nadia is dead and that Sayid has been recruited as Ben's hit man to kill, ostensibly to protect his friends.

It was suspected as early as  'The Shape of Things to Come' that Ben was lying to Sayid about Widmore having Nadia killed. Ben had already lied about how he ended up off the island to begin with, so there was no reason to suspect he told the truth about Ismael Bakir working for Widmore. And indeed when we finally see Nadia's death in The Incident we get a sense that there might have been a larger force in play. I won't reveal the details as to how Nadia died in this article (that's going to play out in a later one) but it's still unclear whether Nadia's death was fate, free will or just random chance. The answer are irrelevant for the purposes of the show because by the time the viewer learns Sayid has essentially been completely destroyed.

After Nadia's death Sayid spends the better part of two year's killing the people on Ben's hit list ostensibly to protect his friends, more likely because he doesn't seem to have any other purpose now that Nadia's dead. When he crosses the last name off the list in 'He's Our You', he's infuriated with Ben because of what he's become and Ben points out, not inaccurately, that Sayid didn't do it for him.

Sayid then apparently spends the next several months doing humanitarian work, trying to atone for his sins. He wants nothing more to do with the island and when 'Jeremy Bentham' tries to bring him back, Sayid is adamant about not wanting to return. No doubt the fact that Locke wants him to protect his friends is the wrong note: Sayid has spent the last two years thinking he was doing just that and he has no desire to go back to the island to do that.

However when Ben shows up and tells him that Locke was killed out of retribution (a complete lie) he puts the bug in Sayid's ear about needing to help his friends. It's clear Sayid wants nothing to do with it and yet within days he returns to Santa Rosa to help Hurley. He still has no intention of going back to the island and he does spend much of the next couple of days helping them – but when he realizes Jack has allied with Ben, he makes it clear: "I don't want any part of this." And it's worth remembering of all the Oceanics who get on the plane, Sayid is the only one who has to be brought against his will.

I have little doubt the reason Ben went to Sayid first, instead of Jack, was because he expected the person that would be the toughest to convince to get to was Hurley. This is a fair assessment because throughout all the flashforwards Hurley flip-flops the most about wanting to go back to the island.

Because Hurley's fundamentally an honest guy who can not keep a secret he raises the most objections to the cover story in the flashback. Of all the Oceanics he has the most of a life to go back to and there's an argument that for a while, he is happy. His parents are clearly supportive in their own way, he's willing to make the effort to fly to Korea to see Sun and he's there at Jack's funeral. But then he sees Charlie at a convenience store and he believes he's going crazy. He's more than willing to go back to Santa Rosa.

While he's there he regularly has conversations with dead people, believing eventually that all of them died on the island and that he himself is dead. When Jack comes to see Hurley – clearly against his will – Hurley seems to have reached a sad case of acceptance. Jack is unwilling to accept this, even when Hurley gives him a message he refuses to acknowledge the significance of.

For all that Hurley spends a lot of time ambiguous about going back to the island. When Charlie tells him 'they need you', he ignores the vision. When Jack visits him – and Hurley's not crazy enough to know why that is – he suggests that they might have to go back, something Jack shouts down.

When Locke comes to see him (and Hurley initially thinks he's dead) he doesn't seem that willing to go back to the island. He seems just as wary about it when Sayid comes to him at the end of There's No Place Like Home. After Sayid is attacked he says: "We should never have left the island!" But when Ben offers him that very possibility (dodging a Hot Pocket as he does) Hurley turns himself into the police. And it's only when a stranger comes to see him after he's released from police custody and asks him why he's afraid to go back that he finally makes the decision to get on Ajira 316. And he makes damn sure that history doesn't repeat itself when he buys the last 78 tickets that are available. Unlike Ben, he does care what happens to the rest of the passengers.

As we see in the flashforward in Through The Looking Glass (and when it's played out again in There's No Place Like Home) Kate is infuriated by Jack about the idea of going back. And with good reason. Her life by far has turned out the best of the Oceanics.

When she chose to say Aaron was her son, it turned out to be the most rewarding relationship in her entire life, and she found happiness in motherhood that was perfect for her. She stood up to Diane's horrible behavior and managed to walk away from her crimes with minimal punishment. She reached out to Cassidy in part because Sawyer sent her and the two formed a great sisterly bond that filled a void in her life. She was even able to find happiness with Jack for a while (I'll get to that). It's small wonder she sent Locke packing when he came to her house: he was asking her to give up everything and in his typical fashion, the only thing he took into account was the island – which Kate had spent 100 days trying to leave.

Ben knew the right buttons to push when he send his lawyer after her to take Aaron away but in what was his biggest mistake when he came back (and he made a lot of them) he somehow thought that would convince her to go back to the island with them. Kate had every right to call both him and Jack insane and walk away when she did.

As I mentioned before Kate was the only one who came back to the island for a purely noble cause and was vilified on the internet for doing so for Season 5. (I won't relitigate it here.) She is seeing everything with clearer eyes that Jack is on Ajira when she tells him: "We're on the same plane. Doesn't mean were together.'

Which brings us, naturally, back to Jack. It's clear watching him in the flashforwards in Season 4 that he's the one who's the biggest promoter of the lie in public and he is the one effectively bullying everyone from slipping up. Sun no doubt has broken away from the others because of this and it's clear when he first goes to see Hurley in Santa Rosa he doesn't care about his friend's wellbeing as much as the fact he might let things slip. To Jack, it's important that the lie hold because HE doesn't want to answer questions.

Jack's problem is that it is harder to control events in civilization then the island. He might not want to be reminded of everything that happen but he keeps getting hit with it. First at his father's funeral Carole Littleton shows up and tells him that Claire was his half-sister and that she was on Oceanic 815. That pushes him away from Kate as Aaron is now a permanent reminder of that fact. He seems to get over it after time passes and the two of them start a relationship and get engaged. But eventually the guilt does catch up with him – and he starts seeing Christian.

It's never explained how any of the dead that the Oceanics see in civilization are appearing to them; the Man in Black can take the shape of dead people but he's bound to the island. What's the most likely explanation is that Jack's guilt, augmented by Hurley, influences him and he lets alcohol and pills – and his own personality do the rest. He destroys his relationship with Kate and begins to deteriorate at the hospital, eventually losing his job and probably his license.

Of all the Oceanics Jack would seem to be the most open to returning to the island by the time Locke shows up at St. Sebastian. Instead he falls right back into his own role with Locke, denying the very real reality of all of this happening as just probability. But once again Locke's words push the buttons they need do and not long after that Jack starts using the Golden Tickets.

In the final season Jack tells Hurley the real reason he came back: "Because I was broken, and I thought this place could fix me." And I think that's the real reason he spends so much of the start of Season 5, listening to Ben Linus and Eloise Hawking and by association Locke. When Ben tells him to pack a suitcase with everything you want in this life "because you're never coming back," Jack doesn't blink at this or the larger implications.

He's going to force his mother to bury her son yet again (there's no indication he says anything to her in the leadup to getting on Ajira) and his nephew. He doesn't seem to mind taking Kate away from her son, not even asking about it until the Season 5 finale. He doesn't care that he's taking Sun away from her daughter or Hurley away from his parents. He's not even sure why he's going back to the island in the first place, only that it's destiny. We can't forget that during the flashforward he's been suicidal and maybe so much of his actions are about 'putting himself out of his misery'. (We will continue to think that at least until the Season 5 finale.) Jack himself says during the first flashforward "I don't care about anybody on board" and we can't help but think that's a large part of this. The other part is his need to think that they were not supposed to leave…and believe a bigger lie.

And this brings me to the last person who was rescued, the one that 'the rules don't apply to' Desmond Hume. We get a glimpse of Desmond's life in Jughead and it stands apart. We see him running frantically through the Philippines to find a doctor to help Penny, who is about to give birth. So far in Lost we've come to association childbirth as either being in balance with death (Aaron's birth came not long after Boone's death; Ji Yeon's birth revealed Jin was dead) or the fertility situation on the island in general. So when Penny actually gives birth to a son in Jughead – and in the present Desmond is talking to him, we see how Desmond stands apart. As Stafford would write he lost Penny but unlike everyone else, he got her back.

Desmond is drawn back into the fate of the survivors because he gets a message from Dan Faraday in Because You Left. Locke has just been told by Richard that in order to stop what's happening he has to bring the Oceanics back to the island. After another time jump Daniel sensed the danger and realizes the danger everyone is in – and decides to tell Desmond because 'the rules don't apply to you.'  But he thinks salvation will come not from those who left the island but his mother. Desmond then awakens from a memory in 2007 and realizes he has to go to England. Critically, he brings Penny and Charlie with him and just as importantly he tells them he has no intention of going back to the island.

Desmond spends the episode tracking down the history of Daniel Faraday based on his own experience from their one meeting in the past. Eventually he learns the connection between Dan and Charles Widmore. This leads to one of the highpoints of the series when Desmond crashes in on Widmore in his office. This scene is a parallel to the famous one in Flashes Before Your Eyes where Desmond stood cowering before Widmore, asking him for Penny's hand in marriage and Widmore told him he was unworthy.

In this case, he bursts the door open, taking Widmore by surprise. He tells Widmore he's not going to answer any questions (and he keeps that promise) but that Widmore is going to tell him where to find Faraday's mother. Widmore is clearly unnerved when Desmond tells him not just about him setting the freighter to the island but that he's been funding Faraday's research for over a decade. For the first time in the series Widmore blinks and gives Desmond everything he asks for. His last words are to tell him to go back into hiding for his own safety, something Desmond sneers at but in retrospect should have taken seriously.

It's worth noting Desmond's initial impulse is to stay with Penny and his son and ignore everything he's learned. But Penny knows her husband to well and that he won't be able to ignore it. So they end up sailing to Los Angeles and Desmond ends up at the church where Ben is taking Sun and Jack to meet Eloise Hawking.

Ben, of course, tries not to show he's surprised by anything but when Desmond says: "You're here to see Faraday's mother, too?" there's a moment where we see that Ben has been blindsided. Clearly he had no idea of Eloise's relationship to Daniel. And Desmond immediately recognizes Hawking the moment he sees her.

I've never forgotten Desmond's behavior during the opening of 316 when everybody is gathered in The Lamp Post where they have been told they will be able to find the island. Considering that he spent three years in a station identical to this one in format, this must be a nightmare for him and the fact that it's being guarded by the woman who told him his path was the island is another realization. Yet he manages to keep it all in until he learns what everyone is doing there and then he erupts. "Am I hearing this right? You're all going back to the island…willingly?"

He then tells them that he's there because Dan told him to deliver a message to Eloise Hawking that she was supposed to save them. Eloise doesn't even blink at the strangeness of this just saying: "But I am saving them." Desmond says: "Consider the message delivered."

Then Hawking says: "Desmond, I'm afraid the island isn't done with you yet." And that pushes Desmond too far and he unloads, talking primarily to Jack and Sun.

"This woman cost me four years of my life. Four years I can never get back. Listen to me, all of these people, this is just a game to us and we are just the pieces. Whatever they tell you to do, just ignore it."

First of all, it's worth noting how much Desmond has changed since we first met him in Season 2. He was one of the biggest believers in destiny of anyone else; he was supposed to push the button, he was supposed to turn the failsafe key, no matter what he did Charlie was going to die. Now he is essentially telling destiny to go screw itself.

Second of all, Desmond is right about everything. He's wrong about who the players in this game are but he is right about the Oceanics and the others essentially being pawns. And having spent far longer than any of the others being a pawn, he has absolutely no desire to return to the field. Left to his own devices he would have no doubt gone back into hiding with Penny but first Ben and then Widmore have other planes. (See my previous article for the nature of them.)

And the thing is well before the Season 5 finale reveals the scope of what this plan is, we get a very big hint that maybe this has all been a lie. And the person who delivers this hint is none other than Daniel Faraday himself. In the opening minutes of The Variable Dan has a conversation with Jack and asks him who helped him come back to the island. When Jack tells him it was his mother and she said it was his destiny Dan says something upsetting: "She was wrong."

By this point we've had a reason to question this very idea. When Locke moved the Frozen Donkey Wheel, he stopped the flashes and the danger to everyone on the island was over. The remaining survivors had built a life in the Dharma Initiative and prior to the arrival of Ajira 316, they did seem to be happy. As a result of their presence in little more than two days everything that the survivors have built in three years is effectively torched.

And it's not like things have gotten better for any of them. Kate's presence has led to a fissure in Juliet and Sawyer's happiness. Sayid has barely escaped execution and shot  young Ben Linus before vanishing into the jungle. Jack had a chance to save young Ben but decided to just let him die. And he doesn't seem to have any idea why he's been brought back to 1977 nor inclined to do anything to that point. Sun came back to find Jin and they're now thirty year apart and Kate is no closer to finding Claire. So by the time Dan shows up we're still not sure what the reason is for the Oceanics to come back and it does seem like Desmond was right in his reasoning.

Of course, there is more to it than that. And the best way to look at it is through the people who were left behind. In the next article in this series I'm going to look at the freighter folk the four characters who were essentially the spine and heart of the second half of Lost and were a major reason why it returned to form so effectively.