Here we sit on the eve (or near-eve…close enough) of the season four premiere of Lost, eagerly awaiting the fate of our now homeward-bound castaways. You need not just sit around and wait, however, as there’s been an alternate-reality game (ARG) underway, much in tune with the “Lost Experience” ARG from a couple of seasons ago. This time around though, the “Find 815” campaign is much more closely linked with the show itself.
Briefly, I’ll say it focuses on the quest of a former Oceanic Air IT guy, Sam Thomas, to find his lost love Sonya. Who just happened to get “lost” because she was a flight attendant on Flight 815. Sam gets fired by Oceanic when he goes public after the airline calls off the search, refusing to accept that she’s gone. He manages to find his way onboard a boat chartered to find the wreck of the 19th century slave ship, the Black Rock (which should definitely be familiar to all Lost fans). Said boat is captained by “Ockham” (an obvious reference to Ockham’s Razor, the theory that the simplest explanation in any situation is often the correct one) and chartered by a mysterious and seemingly nefarious “Mr. Talbot,” who works for The Maxwell Group, which just so happens to be a division of Widmore Industries (the namesake of Desmond’s girl Penny and her dear old dad).
Rather than run the rest of it all down myself, you can either start the game yourself by calling Ocean Air at 888-548-0034, which will direct you to http://www.flyoceanicair.com/, or just head over to Lostpedia for a more in-depth summary. The game looks to wrap up this coming Wednesday or Thursday, just before season four premieres.
What I will address are the season 4 “clues” that the game feeds you as it goes along. Thus far, the clues revealed have been as follows:
- Matthew – I’d guess “Matthew” is a religious reference, which has been an increasingly visible theme on the show, what with the reverence the Others give to Jacob, the scripture-like phrases in Karl’s brainwashing video, and the allusions to temple-like places of worship somewhere on the island.
- 423 Cheyne Walk – Address: Cheyne Walk, Virginia Beach, VA 23454? Probably not. Since our main character, Sam, is Australian, I’ll go with Cheyne Walk, Castlecrag NSW 2068, Australia. Maybe that’s his place.
- Tunisian newspaper – I got nothin’, other than to say we might be going to Tunisia at some point this season.
- Frank Lapidus – This is apparently the character newcomer Jeff Fahey will be playing on the show this coming season. “Lapidus” seemed like such a strange name, and coupled with the Lost writers’ predilection for anagrams, I have to assume his name has some hidden meaning. I’ve narrowed it down to the following variations of “Lapidus” and “Frank Lapidus:”
- us plaid – this is obviously a reference to an evil multinational conglomerate who seeks to oppress the human spirit by dressing everyone in plaid jumpsuits.
- farad linkups – a Farad is a unit measuring capacitance. I have a capacity for overanalyzing irrelevant or unrelated themes and references in Lost.
- franks dialup – a division of Frank’s Pickle Barrelass devoted to providing dial-up service for deserted islands.
- dialup franks – hot dogs delivered at 56kbps!
- uplands fakir – I like this one because it’s definition is the most provocative in terms of what it could mean about the character’s true identity: “The word is usually used to refer to either the spiritual recluse or eremite or the common street beggar who chants holy names, scriptures or verses.” I’m going to assume Jacob’s cabin was in the island’s “uplands.”
- Santa Rosa pill bottle – Hurley was a patient at Santa Rosa Mental Insitution. Perhaps his imaginary friend, Dave, will be making a return appearance, or maybe Hurley will just descend into your more common forms of insanity.
- Queens College (Dept. of Physics)
There, I think that’s about enough space devoted to nonsensical Lost ravings. Be back Thursday night for the first recap of season four!