S06E17-18.5 “The End” Part Ab Aeterno Part 1
[Note: This is being posted in two parts due to it being way too long for Tumblr. Here’s the link to Part 2.]
Rose: “You can let go now.” (“LA X”)
Charles: “Now that’s what life’s all about. Laughin’ and lovin’ each other. And knowin’ that people aren’t really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see ‘em again.” (“Recon”)
Kate: “Who died?” (“The End”)
There were little hints all over concerning the nature of the flashsideways. In the first scene of this season, we are introduced to the differences between the Sideways and the CT (I’m no longer calling the Sideways a timeline), “letting go,” the bleed-in, and characters vaguely remembering each other. Furthermore, in “Recon,” I noted in my recap that the Little House on the Prairie scene was unique because it was a long time to dwell on someone else’s work. I think we all kinda forgot about it, because “Recon” was a bleh episode, but that sums things up nicely.
For all my theorizing, I always assumed that the Sideways was an alternate universe and really never considered other possibilities (even though I linked to a theory about the ending (which turned out to be true) after the first episode). I think it’s interesting Darlton said the Sideways wasn’t an ‘alternate’ universe, but it’s something else, because that implies one is better than the other (or more ‘real’). This makes a lot of sense now.
Many people have problems with the Sideways, and I’m fine with that. But the most aggravating criticism is that the epilogue to the show was essentially all happy, and our characters went off into the sunset. Even in the waystation for the afterlife, we saw deeply flawed individuals confront, and not always overcome, problems that have plagued them their entire life. Jin and Sun know they never saw Ji Yeon grow up. Kate knows she lived without Jack for decades. The Sideways is a world filled with anguish, just not so much in this episode. A rewatch will reveal some of the despair of our characters, which is somewhat chilling.
However, a bleed-in would have been extremely problematic. In almost every one of my recaps I had a bullet point that said: “How are they going to work [these two things] together? Will they just merge? I doubt it…” and then left it at that. It also makes sense why they knew each other even without having their Awakening. Sure, the resolution of the Sideways brought up new questions, but those are questions Darlton want us to ask.
I see questions of the show in two categories: character-related questions, and Island Mythology questions. I don’t really feel like I deserved the latter set of answers, to be honest. This is the thing that make rewatches so valuable, so you can try to come up with potential answers that you want. Meanwhile, answers to questions such as Infection, need to be answered (not like I expected an answer in this episode; this is a Season 6 problem). Those directly effect our ability to relate to the characters, and Sayid and Claire’s condition wasn’t really even hinted at all that strongly. (Note: I swear I wrote this before I read Back To The Island.)
And I still don’t agree with them about The Outrigger Decision.
And as far as criticism of the finale goes, I’m sticking with this. Let’s do it.
[Note: as far as the reading of this goes, I think it is best coupled with a rewatch of the episode itself, and then reading the comments between the commercial breaks. This is because, as usual, I don’t really give a whole lot of context clues to where we are in the plot, and because this is such a long episode, that becomes a problem here. Plus, why wouldn’t you want to watch it again anyway? Spend 3 hours with “The End.” You won’t regret it.]
Just a note: we all know about the circularity of the show, and this episode also comes full circle. After the “Previously on Lost,” there is a complete fade-to-black and then white fills the screen. At the end, we go from white to black. In the Sideways, we start and end at the church.
As far as the opening montage goes, I wasn’t initially a fan. But what it does is prepare you for a unique episode, one the audience hasn’t seen before. It also calls back to previous montages in the earlier seasons to end episodes, which foreshadows the emotion all over the place in this episode. I think it’s a nice way to start, all in all. Christian’s coffin shows the following airport codes: LAX, Guam, Hong Kong, and Brunei. I can’t find any parallels with Brunei (Jack listed HKG as one of the places he flew to at the end of “Through The Looking Glass”), but let me know if you can. Guam is related, of course, because of my favorite character ever:
Fun Fact: do you know what the first word of Lost was? It was….
Sawyer walks past a broken mirror in the montage (which he broke in “Recon”). Every episode has been hitting up over the head with mirrors and mirroring, so Sawyer’s broken mirror-reflection is intriguing. We obviously know that the Sideways isn’t an exact mirror of the CT, but it’s not exactly ‘broken’ either. I think this could play into the “things aren’t quite right here” concept the characters have been knocking around all season. Furthermore, in a philosophical sense, the characters have been looking into these mirrors all year, trying to find meaning. Since they all look into the mirrors and see nothing initially, some see that as an affirmation of nihilism in their world. Others see it as a deeper quest for meaning, one that takes place in themselves, essentially existentialism. The show sides with the latter, and a lot of Lost to me justifies existentialism and questions the danger of rampant nihilism (Season 2 Jack).
The Oceanic deliveryman asks Desmond if he’s “a priest or something,” and Dearest Des replies, “or something.” This is not only setting up the spirituality of the episode early, but also distinguishing the Sideways from religion - anyone saying they didn’t like the episode because they’re an atheist has no clue what’s hannenin. Also, for a show that was entirely about science until this episode (according to people who hated the finale), naming a character Christian Shephard (as Kate points out) seems a little…ahem…on-the-nose. (Another example where Lost mocks itself.)
Desmond: “No one can tell you why you’re here.” Going back to my Lost-as-life theory, and also inserting a little agnosticism.
I really thought the parallel between Desmond and The Man in Black was brought hard here. I don’t think the producers are saying both are evil or anything, but something much more interesting. Both characters specifically say that they want to “leave,” which goes back to the duality. He also claims to be Kate’s “friend” when she is clearly unsure of him, something MiB did with legitimate friends (Claire) and also the other Losties. But also, both locations are relatively ambiguous. I think we can infer from “Across The Sea” that his home is Earth, just off The Island, but who really knows? He’s been dead for 2000 years and is a smoke monster…how will he integrate back into society? Bottom line, they are both discontented with the world they are living in.
Capturing Jack in a really really private moment there, huh?
There are so many religious references in this episode, I won’t even bother to name them all. But this is a theme that has been brought hard all year, beginning way back in “LA X,” most eloquently put in Jack and John’s conversation concerning Christian. John says, who knows where your father is? Coincidentally, he was near Jack all along.
Hurley says that Jacob is worse than Yoda in regards to giving up information. Is this just because he didn’t tell Luke about Darth Vader, or also because of his veiled Leia comment in Empire? It seems like Ben Kenobi would’ve known all of this too. Maybe I’m a little rusty on my Star Wars knowledge, but it seemed like a set-up to “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” These comments end a long tradition of Hurley using Star Wars lines and references in Lost. Wow, it really is ending.
Kate’s progression in this episode goes back to the Kate we knew in “Tabula Rasa” – that is, a kickass girl. When Sawyer goes off alone and Kate stays with Jack, her later choice was already made. More on new and improved Kate later, but…if Darlton could still write her like this, then WHY DIDN’T THEY ahhhhhh
I love Sayid’s face when Hurley pulls out the gun. Not again. Note the change for Sayid – on-Island, almost everything he did (even in 1977) ended with violence. Here, he doesn’t give in. The Sideways, to me, is a place where the characters deal with and overcome their on-Island problems in order to gain redemption/salvation, but also to become more complete people.
Jorge Garcia wasn’t the best actor on this show when it started, but his acting in this episode was wonderful. From his dismissal of Sayid in the car when he beings to get all righteous, to his big grin when he sees Charlie, to his later newfound Protectorship, he sold Hurley to me very well, and I’ve never been a huge Hurley fan. Furthermore, in the Sideways, Hurley says to Sayid about running away: “Well…that’s your choice. But if you stick with me, you’ll be happy you did.” Since Hurley is fully aware of his on-Island life and this happens after he ran The Island, I think this is a good bet as to how he ran things. He took Jacob’s free will philosophy, but also added in a dash of truth: this will make you a better person. Being more up-front is something Ben suggests later in the episode.
Jack: “The Island’s all I’ve got left. It’s the only thing I haven’t managed to ruin.” We see that Jack has one final change to undergo in this episode. As Vincent lays beside him, we see that he has more than he ever knew. Kate’s next line is “nothing is irreversible,” a recurring line in Season 6. I think this can best be applied to Sayid and Claire, but it also can apply to any character, since they all have undergone huge changes. Also, this echoes Rousseau, who dropped a very similar line in reaction to possibly leaving The Island in “Through The Looking Glass.”
From where Sawyer gets up after Ben catches him spying, it looks like the worst hiding place in the world.
Is that the last time Ben is punched by another Lostie? Another historic moment. This marks the 4,815th time Ben has been punched hard in the face.
Darlton deliberately plays with us when Locke says that The Island will be on the bottom of the ocean, increasing our dread what he says (and we saw in “LA X”) actually comes true.
Those paw prints got one of the strongest reactions in my Lost Party. Good reveal. By the way, what does Vincent do now? There was a joke on Kimmel that he would eat Jack, and that’s assuming Hurley/Ben doesn’t find him and go bid the soldiers shoot. Will he continue to live beside Rose and Bernard, or will he deal with the future Losties, leading them to hidden mysteries? Vincent has played the role of a harbinger on Lost the whole time, so I’d expect so.
Rose and Bernard make their annual appearance here. I understand their policy of non-involvement, but I think Lost asks here: is it justified? Is it really working? All of them escape the situation without losing too much face, but I think it’s nice to have characters so different from everyone else on the show (as they said in “The Incident,” everyone is always about detonating hydrogen bombs and what not). And at the end, they can live out the rest of their days peacefully. I’d expect Hurley would make a visit to them, just to let them know about the new management. I think Rose and Bernard work as a once-a-season couple; they’re too peaceful or too bitchy to handle an entire episode.
I like the sense the BSM gets here when he realizes both Desmond and Ben know things he does not: Desmond, somehow, has knowledge about The Light and Ben is plotting against him.
Now we see the tag-team of Miles and Richard, ready to still blow up that dumb plane. There’s been so much back-and-forth about blowing the plane up, then not, then everyone died, then they’re back, that I was totally sick of that plot by this episode. By the way, I knew Richard wasn’t dead. Wrong about Frank. 1/2 ain’t bad.
The scene where Miles sees Sayid and phones Sawyer is the stuff I figured we’d have the entire season, but it’s all here. Anyway, this is the last time we see Miles in the FST, including in the church. Is this because he wasn’t instrumental in the Losties’ lives? I guess the thought is he’d move on with Faraday, Charlotte, Minkowski, etc. from theKahana, but I wonder: he lived with Sawyer and the gang for three years, and was just recruited randomly by Naomi, right? Sure, he would get to know those people on the journey, but apparently who you move on with isn’t dependent on your time spent with people, but on fate. (Or, it could be he’s not moving on with anyone - he was just a necessary creation for the Losties’ Sideways. He could be going to heaven, I suppose, but he doesn’t need to move on with anyone else. I think this makes the most sense for Miles specifically.)
We get one whole break of a Jin/Sun scene, and boy, it’s a whopper. There’s the reveal of Juliet, maybe the most obvious in Lost history (but still nice to see equally obviously), Sun’s Awakening, and then the great moment when we realize Jin had his too. I think Darlton is similar to Peter Jackson, because as much as he loved the massive filmmaking of The Lord of the Rings, every battle he’d go back to his old standard: some head choppin’ and blood spurting out. Similarly, sure, Darlton loves philosophy and character moments, but they also like to play with us a little. When Jin says, “Her name is Ji Yeon,” our Lost Party went pretty wild. Also, Jin and Sun’s montage was almost entirely of them meeting and breaking apart, which was definitely their m.o. during the series. It’s interesting to see which scenes Darlton chose to put in their character-defining montages. Also, you could say that death tore them apart (their hands in “The Candidate”) and here they are brought back together. This one was a surprise because it was so early in the episode. After this, we expected Sawyer/Juliet, etc. to flash.
It’s become Lost season finale tradition to have a group trekking across The Island and to have “Hollywood and Vines” in the background. Now, we have the glorious last time with an aerial shot. By the way, I’m glad that whole Sawyer-going-to-get-Desmond thing was important, since when he got back Jack just said it didn’t matter. Glad we did it, then.
[to Locke] Jack: “Well, there’s always the chance I could kill you… .I’ll see you on the other side.” There are interesting moments of parallelism between the Sideways and CT. I doubt they have any thematic significance, but the dramatic irony is definitely hard-hitting.
Richard: “It’s gonna be a hell of a storm.” An early motif we’ve all kinda forgotten about was the rain-as-danger warning, and of course, soon during the Ultimate Showdown, we have the Ultimate Rain. I read there was a plot point that wasn’t fully developed that suggested The Island could sense when violence would occur, and that it would react with bad weather. Maybe The Cork just came slightly undone, and when evil was punished, it was restored.
Doesn’t it hurt to pluck a hair out of someone’s head? I really do like Richard’s change of heart here, knowing that he will die eventually. This gives his storyline closure, one that has also changed a lot since “Ab Aeterno.” I’m glad he was developed further, and he has easily been one of the best characters this season.
Will Richard just continue to age normally from 1867, or will he undergo Bilbo Baggins age acceleration? I hope the former. Sounds like a good sitcom…ahem…
True beauty.
Frank: “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a pilot.” Ugh. I’m assuming they brought him back to kill the fly-the-plane-off-The-Island subplot for a while, and then bring him back here as a twist. I wasn’t especially surprised with this, but I’ve never been a big fan of the Ajira plane to get off The Island, to be honest. I guess it’s somewhat plausible, but I’d have liked more development on that front. It just seems like they kept bringing up the idea of it and taking it away constantly without any real development.
Black Smoke Monster: “You might want to save your bullets.” Stupid Kate. I’m cool with this Kate though, because she’s showing some real emotion, at least. Once again, Kate was so well-written in this episode, it was aggravating we’ve had to deal with Stupid Kate for three-plus seasons.
[to Jack] Black Smoke Monster: “You’re sort of the obvious choice.” metametameta. Voice of the fans: EVENTHOUGHITMAKESSENSEWITHCHARACTERDEVELOPMENTIWANTFARADAYTOBETHECANDIDATEANYWAYAHHHH. Jack replies with an affirmation of free will. Choices. Hmm.
I do love Jack and the BSM’s conversations throughout the episode. Jack, on how he’ll kill the BSM: ”It’s a surprise.” Just great lines.
Sawyer, on using Desmond on a weapon: “That’s a hell of a long con, doc.” We’ve been shown that large chunks of the show were long cons, all going back to the MiB, the longest con in history.
Hurley, to Jack: “I believe in you, dude.” There’s been a lot of discussion of trust between Jack and Hurley, so the choice, if it was anyone but Jack, would have to be Hurley. We’ve been shown the strongest form of belief between two friends is trust, and that’s what makes this trustfest back and forth work. (Trustfest is coming up as a word. Weird.)
A question ever since “Happily Ever After” has been: how much does Desmond know? We learn he has knowledge of the Sideways in the CT, presumably, because of the summary of the first scene of “LA X” he gives Jack. And if he knows that, he should know the Sideways is an afterlife…right? But he’s wrong in his contention that even if The Island sinks, it doesn’t matter. It does matter, something Christian Shephard reaffirms later. Maybe he’s saying whatever anyone does in their life as we know it, it doesn’t matter, because the afterlife is better. I think what he doesn’t totally understand is The Island gets people ready for their afterlife. If he’s speaking personally of the Losties, then it is an incredibly self-centered viewpoint. In other words, Jack: “All of this matters.”
I think we now know what happened in HEA: Desmond died, momentarily, and his consciousness flashed to the Sideways, into the ‘future.’ He flashed back to the CT when he touched Penny because he wasn’t truly dead yet, like the rest of them. To continue, he had to die. Thus, when the Sideways transition played at the end of that episode and he had his limo scene with Minkowski, that was post-death. To be honest, before this episode, we all thought we had a good idea of his role. Now, it’s much more muddled. Would the Losties have flashed in the Sideways without Dearest Des, or would they have wandered around aimlessly forever? I think he just sped things up, being aware of the world and wanting to leave.
Something brought up on Lostpedia: there is an abnormal amount of white light in this season, something Desmond specifically quotes in regards to the Sideways. Remember that Mother said The Light is “life, death, rebirth?’ Isn’t the Sideways kinda all of those?
Hurley: “There are rules, dude.” Hurley is saying that in the Sideways, the person must experience their flash, not be told about it. But now that we know he’s the Island Chieftain, these words carry a much heavier weight. Apparently, there are rules in the CT and the Sideways, even if we don’t know what they are. They seem to be created by a figure in higher power, whether it be Mother or someone else. This is a question left ambiguous on purpose.
So…Sayid and SHANNON! The first 2 hours and 20 minutes of this episode were pretty much universally praised with the exception of this scene. I think, once again, it’s important to see what’s in the flashes. Almost every scene shows them kissing, which I think shows they are pretty much a sexual couple. That we see them making out right after they flash, as opposed to Jin and Sun who just hug, is important. Also, there may be an editing mistake here, but I think both of them flashed separately, as opposed to the other couples, who flashed together. The shot of them kissing in the firelight is shown twice, once after they show SHANNON!’s face, and another time after Sayid’s face. Maybe they don’t really share the love to flash together, but they are still constants, nonetheless. I’ve theorized the relationships on Lost each show a different reality, if you will, whether it be torn apart, true love separated by societal pressure, etc. Sayid and SHANNON! have to be the sexual equivalent.
The big question here, though, is not any of the defenses I’ve presented above. It is: what about Nadia? Even after Shannon died, Sayid still loved Nadia and actually got married to her off-Island. Really, the only thought I have is the writers are saying what Keamy said to Jin in “The Package”: even if you love, sometimes you’re not supposed to be together. She was still with his brother in the Sideways, so even if in death, you’re not together, then you probably shouldn’t be. Was Sayid wrong the whole time with her? And then, what about the moment in “The Last Recruit” when he was talking with Desmond about the woman he loved? Is it possible he was talking about SHANNON!? I don’t think that does a lot for him, since he was soulless. Bottom line, this produces a lot of questions. I think if Nadia was there instead, even if it was a little out of left field, it would have been better.
To be honest, did anyone else think Sayid wouldn’t flash? I think he would’ve been better for the Ben role, to be honest. How exactly did he work through his Sideways issues? This is clear through Locke or Jack. However, I felt that both Sayids were underdeveloped this season.
We see that this was all started by Boone, who had already flashed. Who did he flash with? (My guess: Shannon, but she didn’t flash. Sad.) I guess it’s possible Desmond was manipulating him as well to get him to flash, but the writers just ran out of time. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see this on the DVD. I do like that Boone was in this episode, apart from my man-crush on him, because he was a major part of The Island mystique due to the comment that he “was a sacrifice The Island demanded.”
Boone:” I just got pounded, man.” /explode “It was a pain in the ass [/double explode] getting her here from Australia.” An inside joke on the prior filming commitments Maggie Grace had (explains why she wasn’t in “LA X”).
Claire has been criminally underused this season. We could’ve seen a chilling madness where we used to know a caring mom, and instead we got Sex Hair Claire. In this post, most of my complaints deal with the season as a whole and not this episode, because I bought her decisions here. I can understand why she wouldn’t trust Richard, Miles, and Frank to leave, but why she would trust Kate.
Jack: “You’re not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face but you’re nothing like him. Turns out he was right about most everything. Just wish I could’ve told him that while he was still alive.” I love this quote because it’s Jack’s final full acknowledgment of Locke’s importance, a journey which has taken him six seasons to go down. The BSM is right, though, to the comparisons to “Exodus” and “Man of Science, Man of Faith.” All of Jack and Locke’s conversations in this episode were dynamite, real Locke or fake.
In movies, TV, and Season 6 of Lost, whenever a doctor calls, you’ve gotta go. Wherever you are, if its your son’s massive benefit show or you’re meeting your sister for the first time, you need to leave when that dumb pager rings. (A pager?) When do doctors get a pass?
In all the excitement of the finale, I almost completely forgot about the meeting between Charlotte and Faraday. That the producers made them meet but not flash is very interesting. Faraday already had a vision of her, and upon seeing her is struck. Charlotte is still in the dark (although Darlton plays with us when she says, half-knowingly, that she’s just “following the instructions”), so does this mean they’re not Constants? I would say: it’s just not their world. Remember, this is a collective mental construct by the Losties, so Daniel and Charlotte would probably go in (if they go in with anybody, which I don’t think is necessary to progress into the Lost afterlife) with Widmore, Eloise, maybe Miles, and Frank (sigh). I personally don’t think they would wake up in this construct unless Desmond pushed them, something we’ll discuss in a minute.
Hullo.
As far as Daniel Widmore and Driveshaft go…I’d see them just from Daniel’s awkward piano playing, but I can’t really support the pairing.
Charlie makes Claire go into labor just by staring at her. He makes her wet. Like, super, super wet.
On a less gross note, this is the last time we see Cute David Shephard (by the way, what in the world is going on in that video?). I’ll be doing another post to explore his importance, but I think his absence is mostly symbolic; he existed in the Sideways, and since his parents had flashed to their old lives, and he wasn’t there, he was no longer needed. It helps to think of the Sideways as important only to the people in the church (which ignores the Secondary Sideways, discussed a little later). David obviously prepares Jack for his reunion with his father, but was he ever real? Only close inspection will tell. I say: yes.
Originally watching this scene, I was sure people would be up in arms. I mean, Hell is under The Island. I’m surprised the criticism of this episode has wholly rested on the Sideways resolution and not a LITERAL cork. Anyway, there’s a lot here to unpack.
First, we see skeletons. This is another sign that this type of stuff has happened before and will happen again. I think it also shows the positive benefits of teamwork, because if Jack didn’t go down there and help him, Evil conquers and Desmond becomes a skeleton.
Is The Light electromagnetism, or at least Lost electromagnetism? Desmond is shocked once he steps in the pool a lot like we saw in HEA, so I have to assume it’s something similar at least. This is one of the good things about being two weeks late with this post: there are some small tunnels running away from the central hub, which were confirmed earlier this week. The link includes a set picture of The Source, along with the analogy that if the center pool is The Heart of The Island, then the canals were the “arteries,” leading to the other pockets of electromagnetism Zoe was interested about.
One of those pockets dumps off into The Temple, and I think we can now answer a question. We saw the healing springs in The Temple in “LA X,” and the water was red (evil). Going back to my BSM-as-pure-evil theory, this would make sense, since it seems like the BSM infected him (insert ‘evil’ as ‘BSM’ at your leisure). What I said in my “LA X” recap holds true:
“As far as The Temple goes, I’d say the water is clear when there’s a balance (Jacob and MiB). Maybe it’s just when one of them is off Island. That’s why the balance didn’t immediately upset Japanese Richard. But it doesn’t automatically heal when the water is red. It either takes time or needs a rebirth, like Sayid experienced.”
Because there wasn’t an official protector, the balance was upset, and the springs didn’t work. Because Richard said Ben would never be the same in “Whatever Happened, Happened,” we still have to assume even the healing springs working correctly still cause some type of change - perhaps a permanent affiliation with The Island. Before, Ben wanted to leave and hated it - after, he grew an affinity towards the place.
I wasn’t originally a fan of The Cork, and I’m still somewhat weary of it. This is the most on-the-nosiest a very on-the-nose show has gotten. I understand how The Cork functions in the episode, and it makes sense in a lightswitch type of way. By the way, the markings on the cork are cuneiform, dating around 3000 B.C., which is 3000 years older than the events in “Across The Sea.” Anyone complaining about the lack of an explanation to the Egyptians should look back at all of the biblical, Roman, and other references the show has used over the years. Cuneiform is associated with the Sumerians, the oldest civilization history can really pinpoint. Lost is a show about humanity, not just part of them.
So who actually made The Cork? Was it there to bottle up Evil from the start, or was it created in a very BSM type of way? Just like the great questions…we don’t know.
As a note, check out Lostpedia for some interesting volcano references I won’t bother to copy. It could be, for you science people, an active volcano, and the shaking, destroying could be movements from some type of seismic activity.
Like it or not, this is some pretty theatrical stuff. Desmond’s shrieks of, “NO!!!!!” are harrowing. He also has a nosebleed in one short shot (although in no others), but this white light could also be connected with the time flashes of Season 5.
Vozzek notes that the light when Desmond, Jack, and BSM get there is not as bright as we see in “Across The Sea.” Perhaps the BSM took some of that light when he exited. This would mean The Light is incomplete in some way when the BSM is free, letting evil run (somewhat) free.
Let’s talk about the logistics of an extremely unlogical thing. According to Jacob’s analogy, The Cork keeps Evil inside. When The Cork is unplugged, Evil can run free and battle Good. (What we’re about to see.) That would eventually sink The Island, and leave us with our world: a world without a cork to bottle up evil, where we fight good against evil every day. I’d define Good as the magic Mother has to keep Jacob ageless, at least partially, because he attempts to use The Island to make people become better. With Evil underneath and (attempted) good deeds above, The Island can make people better. This made perfect sense to me last night when I thought about this, but I think this summary still describes both The Cork and why unplugging it makes the BSM mortal.
