I recently finished rewatching LOST and as usual enjoyed it from start to finish (even “Stranger in a Strange Land” because I had laughing gas at the dentist when I watched it). Despite what haters will say about the series, I have fond memories of the series, even with its controversial ending. The mysteries and easter eggs along the way were ahead of their time, since the series premiered before this age of streaming television. The first season in particular had a few potent mysteries: the Monster, the Others, and the Hatch.
The Hatch (known to the DHARMA Initiative as “The Swan”) was found by Locke and Boone after about a month on the Island. Decades before that, it was the site of a catastrophic electromagnetic incident. “The Incident” was affected by the appearance of the Flight 815 survivors (after having traveled through time). Honestly, it probably would have been worse if it hadn’t been for Jack, Juliet, and their bomb. Regardless, the event had a significant impact on the function of the Swan for decades.
Instead of being solely a research facility for electromagnetic research, the Swan ended up being the means of containing the energy released during the Incident. Every 108 minutes, someone would input the code (Hurley’s numbers) to allow the energy to be released little by little. Why did the code have to be that string of numbers? Why couldn’t the system be on automatic? Why did it need to be put in manually? These are among the mysteries that LOST fans will never have a satisfactory answer to.
Theoretically, the Swan was to be staffed with two individuals for a period of time and switched out with fresh team members. Each team would take shifts so that one could always sleep at one point or another. However, by the time Desmond marooned on the Island, the Swan’s only resident was Kelvin. This former US military man ultimately tried to ditch Desmond, under the assumption that the button didn’t need to be pushed. However, the first time Desmond failed to put the code in quickly, the electromagnetism brought down Oceanic Flight 815.
About a month after crashing on the Island, Locke and Boone were tracking Ethan to rescue Claire when they chanced upon the outer door of the Swan, which they dubbed the Hatch. They tried everything they could to open the door (not knowing there was a side entrance not too far away). Following Locke’s dreams, Boone ended up dying in an attempt to learn the secret of the Hatch. It wasn’t too long after that that the rest of the A-Team learned about the Hatch and opened it in an attempt to hide from the Others.
After opening the Hatch, discovering Desmond, and watching him escape, the Flight 815 survivors took custody of the Hatch and the button. For a while it was a nice reprieve at times from roughing in on the beach. Naturally, someone had to throw a wrench into the mix though… Ben Linus. Posing as Henry Gale, Ben got into Locke’s head that the button was pointless and his venture to the Pearl Station (we’ll cover that another time) didn’t exactly bolster Locke’s faith in the whole thing.
In the end, his broken faith led to Locke and Desmond letting the timer run out, seeing the electromagnetic catastrophe unfold, and turning the failsafe key. With that, the last we saw of the Swan was an empty crater where the station imploded.
With much of the first two seasons centering around the Hatch, it was a central point of the show's heyday. Long before time travel or alternate timelines, the mystery of the Swan Station had center stage. The Hatch and the button played into some powerful themes about how faith and doubt intertwine and what it takes to keep faithful. There’s a gospel analogy in there somewhere. Despite being one of the first mysteries “solved” in the series, it also left just as many unanswered questions. But the fans would never be satisfied. It would take an info-dump to answer all the questions and they’d just complain about the dump. Already I can’t wait to rewatch LOST again (gotta finish a couple of other shows before I can entertain that idea).
4. 8. 15. 16. 23. 42. Execute.
More Content You Might Like:
- "Creature Feature - Smoke Monster” by Spencer
- “5 Unsolved Mysteries from LOST You Might've Forgotten” by Spencer
- “Why I Loved LOST” by Spencer
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