This article is about the narrative technique. For an analysis of the season 6 afterlife, see Flash sideways world.

The flash sideways saw characters living out alternate scenarios.

Season 6 introduced a new narrative technique - the flash sideways. Like flashbacks and flash forwards, flash sideways intercut into episodes' main action a secondary storyline, which covered the centric characters at a different time. The series finale revealed the nature of the world the flash sideways portrayed: it showed the characters meeting after death. As such, the flash sideways are in a sense Flash-forwards.

Sound effectEdit

The flash-sideways transition sound effect is characterized by a broken, stuttering version of the normal flash-forward/flashback sound, although slightly higher-pitched, almost resembling the sound coming from an airplane engine. It also resembles the Season 5 time flash sound with hints of the Jughead detonation.

List of flash sideways episodesEdit

• "LA X, Parts 1 & 2" - Jack, Hurley, Jin & Sun, Locke, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid
• "What Kate Does" - Kate
• "The Substitute" - Locke
• "Lighthouse" - Jack
• "Sundown" - Sayid
• "Dr. Linus" - Ben
• "Recon" - Sawyer
• "The Package" - Jin & Sun
• "Happily Ever After" - Desmond
• "Everybody Loves Hugo" - Hurley
• "The Last Recruit" - Locke, Sawyer, Claire, Sayid, Jack, Jin & Sun
• "The Candidate" - Jack & Locke
• "What They Died For" - Jack, Desmond, Ben, Sawyer
• "The End" - Jack, Ben, Locke, Sawyer, Kate, Desmond, Hurley, Miles, Sayid, Jin & Sun, Claire

NotesEdit

In "Happily Ever After", Desmond Hume transitioned between the original timeline and the flash-sideways timeline with the absence of the flash-sideways sound effect, in similar fashion to the way in which his story transitioned between present and past in "The Constant" without the flashback/flash-forward sound effect. However, the sound effect was used at the end of the episode, when he transitioned back into the sideways timeline, indicating that this last flash was a normal flash-sideways, and not consciousness-travel, as the main body of the episode was.

See alsoEdit

• Flash sideways world
• Portal:Flash-Sideways Characters
• Timeline:Flash-sideways timeline