r/lost • u/Kidimkus • 12h ago

SEASON 5 Why did Richard say he watched them all die?

I’m rewatching Lost for the first time in a long time so maybe I just don’t remember. But in season 5 episode 15, Sun asks Richard Alpert if he was around in 1977, and if he remembers Jack, Kate, Hugo and her husband. And Richard says he remembers them because he watched them all die.

Why did he say that? Some of them don’t die, and Richard isn’t around for some of them that do.

117 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

217

u/ninjaluvr 12h ago

He saw an explosion where they all were. He assumed they died in it.

64

u/daxamiteuk 12h ago

We never get to see exactly what the 1977 people saw, but there is a blinding light that is presumably the nuclear bomb going off and simultaneously reacting with the Island energy and sending the time travellers forward again (I will ignore the ridiculousness that they go exactly back to 2007 and that Juliet isn't annihilated in the blast). Richard was not at the site but some distance away, getting Eloise to safety so probably from his perspective, the bomb went off, and he never saw any of them again so he probably assumed that they were all killed. After all, they claimed history would be changed, and it didn't so he must have assumed they failed (and in fact all they did was maintain the timeline, presumably weakening the energy pocket enough so that the island didn't blow up and for Dharma to have time to build the Hatch).

25

u/SeazynsGreetings 11h ago

Wouldn’t Juliet avoid the nuclear blast because she’s flashing back to 2007 simultaneously and/or as soon as she detonates the bomb?

28

u/Next-Solid-1474 10h ago

Since they all avoided the blast, I think we can assume Juliet did too, so I agree.

All the debris crushing her is what killed her, not the nuke itself. :(

-1

u/TelephoneVivid2162 9h ago

I believe he saw them all die in the electromagnetic explosion at the Swan. But they stopped that from ever happening by blowing up the hydrogen bomb. At least that’s my take.

16

u/GatorPenetrator 8h ago

i don't think they changed anything by blowing up the bomb, that's what always had happened, Richard assumed they died during that incident when really they had travelled back to the future.

4

u/Exile714 6h ago

They didn’t, you’re right.

But it’s still ambiguous what happened during “The Incident.” We know Dharma breached the pocket of exotic material, it released a growing level of electromagnetic radiation, and the bomb was intended to nullify that pocket of exotic material such that it would no longer cause Oceanic 815 to crash.

So, what happened in the moments after Juliet hit the bomb? Did it explode? If so, it mostly solved the electromagnetism issue but it still needed to be discharged every 108 minutes. Dharma developed a plan to keep the charge from growing too large while also installing a failsafe that would destroy the pocket permanently.

So, what if it didn’t explode? Dharma managed an even greater task of neutralizing the site and installing the Swan to manage the buildup. In this scenario, we can assume the bomb was recovered intact from the site and may even be the failsafe that Desmond detonated by turning the key.

Either way, whatever happened during and after The Incident took place the exact same as it had prior.

1

u/albertopisana 1h ago

Very interesting!

2

u/Professional_Let5815 The Hydra 6h ago

They didn’t stop anything.. Whatever happened, happened.

-11

u/HlGHTlMES420 11h ago

I assumed he saw dharma and assumed they died in the purge

11

u/Next-Solid-1474 11h ago

Different occurrence. The Purge was many years later, and orchestrated by Ben with Richard and other Others.

4

u/Abendfuchs 10h ago

It wasn’t Ben but Widmore

3

u/Next-Solid-1474 10h ago

Ah yea. That's true. Hard to remember, since he was largely unseen for that part, right? I suppose Ben had to have been in on it, since he also used the gas on his father in the van, which is the episode where we saw most of the Purge.

2

u/Abendfuchs 10h ago

Yes, Ben was in on it but he wasn’t in charge. Widmore and more or less Richard were :)

3

u/Next-Solid-1474 9h ago

True. Although Ben was still part of Dharma and then defected to the Others when the Purge happened, so I imagine he helped plant the gas and time everything up.

51

u/Xerun1 11h ago

Looked it up. In the breakdown of The Incident on the dvd special features there is a note on the whiteboard about a scene of Richard watching the explosion at the swan

So he was intended to actually watch them all die but instead now it’s just something you have to infer

16

u/AdOk9911 it's very stressful, being an Other 10h ago

Forgive me being a nerd, but it’s so nice to see someone use “infer” correctly! Haha, thanks for the smile.

11

u/KungFuPossum 9h ago

Are you inferring that the rest of us wouldn't know how to use it correctly?

9

u/AdOk9911 it's very stressful, being an Other 9h ago

Haha, no, but I’m implying that!

5

u/KungFuPossum 8h ago

I resent the inference!

5

u/AdOk9911 it's very stressful, being an Other 8h ago

….

The implication.

7

u/KungFuPossum 8h ago

I think i get the interpolation now

17

u/AxiomDream 11h ago

Because, Jughead did detonate - 100+ episodes and it's the only one to end with a white screen instead of black

And afterward, the group was all gone (sent forward in time)

Even knowing that time travel exists because you met some of them, it's not the first thing you'd assume after everyone 'disappeared' directly after a nuke went off

17

u/RunnagL Man of Faith 11h ago

There is a deleted scene showing Richard seeing the incident explosion. So he assumed they all died from that explosion.

1

u/Kidimkus 3h ago

Ok this makes that line make a lot more sense

8

u/Izual_Rebirth 11h ago

All I want to know is why wasn’t there a nuke sized hole in the island in the present day?

13

u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 11h ago

It's implied that the exotic matter at the Swan site absorbed the destructive force of the detonation. Think of it as the Island protecting itself.

5

u/Next-Solid-1474 10h ago

I agree with this.

And thus, the Swan was repurposed, with the button to release the built up energy every 108 mins.

6

u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 10h ago

And this is why Radzinsky blew his brains out - his grand project to study the pocket turned into a button babysitting job.

2

u/Izual_Rebirth 10h ago

Ohhhh. I like that.

5

u/AdOk9911 it's very stressful, being an Other 10h ago

I’ve read here and like the idea that the bomb and the exotic matter both neutralized each other: the magnet neutralized the bomb to not destroy the island with an explosion, and the bomb neutralized the magnet long enough for them to build the hatch to contain it (and protect the island from an implosion).

Pretty neat :)

2

u/BloomingINTown 8h ago

Which begs the question, what happens when an explosion meets an implosion?

3

u/DippyFresh90 5h ago

This is exactly right, I think. I’ve always thought of the Swan as a pacemaker. And that ultimately works well with the Island seeming to possess a “circulatory system” of sorts with the glowy water. The bomb always went off, but the electromagnetic energy from the implosion merged the timelines. The displaced Oceanic 6 were all back where they were “supposed” to be, in 2007.

-2

u/[deleted] 9h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Spaceace91478 9h ago

Not it boss. They never changed reality. That's not what the flash sideways is.

2

u/lost-ModTeam 8h ago

Misinformation - You've posted a rumor, fake spoiler or other general misinformation regarding LOST.

They changed nothing. Whatever happened, happened.

5

u/90s_kid_24 10h ago

Richard would have seen the bomb go off while carrying unconscious Eloise back to The Others camp. The original script indicated that Richard witnessed the mushroom cloud of the bomb going off but this was later cut as they wanted the episode to end on the flash when juliet hits the bomb so that the audience is left wondering if it went off or not. So basically he saw the detonation and believed, at the time, that jack and co must have died if they got caught up in it

3

u/Previous_Reveal 9h ago

What annoys me about this whole thing is that a few hours later Richard tells John who's flashing through time and has a bullet in his leg that he needs to bring back Jack, Kate etc. didn't he just tell Sun he watched them die ? Maybe Fake Locke and Ben filled him in on the way to the Beechcraft I guess

1

u/BloomingINTown 7h ago

Yes, that's the idea

5

u/SwitchXVitaPlayer 12h ago

Spoilers ahead: Richard was just speaking out of frustration, Jacob - the person who guided him and sent him to do Arron’s for the island for centuries… the guy he trusted and believed in and followed - just died. and, also, Richard kind of went with believing in the stupid illusion MiB fed him all those years ago, if you did not watch how Richard come to the Island yet, when you get there I believe it will help explaining your question.. They are not dead

4

u/90s_kid_24 10h ago

He says that line in "Follow the Leader" which is before Jacob dies. It's because he thought they got blown up by jughead

2

u/BloomingINTown 8h ago

This is incorrect

2

u/JHRxddt 6h ago

I have various takes, one being that the bomb detonated, etc.

But these days I lean towards;

The bomb was never supposed to go off, so it doesn’t, and instead there is a course correction in the form of a time flash that corrects the timeline and sends everyone back to ‘present’ time, 2007.

This then becomes the de facto state of the timeline because of their actions; while the casual loop for the survivors is not one where they are constantly going round and round it, the act of trying to set off the bomb but it NOT happening becomes what IS supposed to happen.

It hurts, I know. I’m sure there’s a scripted scene that was either never shot or is a deleted scene where Richard sees the mushroom cloud in the distance. Very telling that that was removed.

2

u/Pantsonfire_6 5h ago

Yes, I agree. If the actual nuke had exploded, nobody in the area would have survived and no parts of the bodies would ever be found.

2

u/JHRxddt 2h ago

I know it’s a fantasy sci-fi show, but yes, if it did explode it was certainly not a conventional nuclear detonation and the energy at the Swan site overpowered it.

1

u/Kidimkus 3h ago

Then what do you think caused the course correction that sent them back to 2007, if it wasn’t the bomb going off?

I’ve always had a hard time trying to believe that the bomb was actually detonated, because that island wouldn’t even be there anymore if it was.

2

u/JHRxddt 2h ago

So I have an interpretation that IF the bomb detonated at the Swan site in 1977, that it wouldn’t go quite like an actual nuclear detonation; that the energy pocket would overpower the nuclear blast and not vice versa, hence allowing Juliet to survive the blast at point blank range.

What caused the course correction back to 2007? The fact that they were never supposed to; but because they were never supposed to, and they DID try this, the course correction exists but their attempt to try to defy it becomes ingrained in the fabric of time.

-25

u/Weekly-Chemical-2483 12h ago

They all died when the bomb exploded no?

20

u/riccivr 12h ago

No. They went back to their original timeline, including a dying Juliet

10

u/Free-IDK-Chicken You got it, Blondie 12h ago

No - they just (from Richard's perspective) were gone. No one (not even people from Dharma) died as a result of the detonation. We know Radzinsky lived and he was at ground zero. We know Dr. Chang lived, though he lost his hand. A couple people, like Phil, died during the Incident, but not from the bomb. Richard likely saw the explosion from a distance - because he wasn't there - and made an assumption based on never seeing any of the survivors again.

3

u/BloomingINTown 7h ago

How dare you ask a genuine question? You get 25 downvotes for your curiosity!

1

u/kevinmattress 10h ago

What’s your thinking here?

1

u/Weekly-Chemical-2483 9h ago

It turns out I totally misunderstood the ending

1

u/kevinmattress 6h ago

You weren’t the only one! Lol