Finale Preview

Before the season kicked off, I made several lists of mysteries I predicted we would or would not get answers to before the end of the show. For starters, let's look at how we're doing on mysteries from my pre-season poll:

1) Who are Jacob and the Nemesis?

Pretty much answered, although I'd still like to know whether they or Mother have any ties to Egyptian mythology (or whether all the Egyptian stuff was just a hobby of Jacob's).

2) What is the Monster?

Again, pretty much answered and we'll certainly find out what the exact nature of the Monster is tomorrow night, i.e. Is he Smokey's soul or something Jacob released by throwing his brother into the Source.

3-tie) What are the Whispers?

Answered. Restless souls trapped on the Island, incapable of moving on.

3-tie) What is the Island?

Basically answered. It's certainly a prison for Smokey now, but we still need to know exactly what The Source is and why Mother was protecting it before Jacob came along.

5) What's in the Temple?

Answered. Too bad it was kinda lame. I am still curious as to whether the pool in the Temple bubbles up from The Source. If so, it seems The Source was corrupted with Jacob's death. Has it been restored now that Jack has taken over?

6) Why is Aaron important?

In the wake of the previous episode, this something I'm even more curious about. Since the end of last season, I thought Aaron had to be raised by Claire and Claire alone so that he would remain "good" and be able to replace Jacob. However, Jacob said he chose all the candidates because they were "flawed like him." Furthermore, he was raised as an innocent and railroaded into becoming Jacob against his will and I can't see him doing the same thing to another young, blond-haired lad.

So was the whole Richard Malkin thing simply a ruse by Jacob to get Claire on the plane. Did Aaron have a destiny on the Island before Kate took him away. This is one of those big questions that hasn't been addressed. I really hope we get an answer to tomorrow.

7) Why do pregnant women die on the Island?

This will be addressed tomorrow. It's one of those things Darlton has been incredibly evasive on, so you know it ties into the nature of the Island itself.

8-tie) Who are Adam and Eve?

Answered. Even if (to me) the answer was incredibly disappointing.

8-tie) What's Libby's backstory?

Unfortunately I think this is one of those things that's going to fall by the wayside, unless her Alt timeline counterpart reveals something in the finale. And the sad thing is how little we really know about her - we don't know why she was in Australia, why she gave Desmond the boat, who her husband was or why she was in Santa Rosa. And even sadder is the reason we don't know all of this is likely because Cynthia Watros decided to get go get herself a DUI and was written out of the show. :P

10-tie) Who are Ilana and Bram?

Answered. Again they were both kinda lame, although Ilana did have one really good scene with Ben before she went boom.

10-tie) Does everyone on Flight 815 have a specific destiny?

Answered. The people who survived certainly did. It does seem that the majority of them were candidates, brought to the Island by Jacob. And you have to imagine he manipulated them to get them all on Flight 815. Much easier to have to bring just one plane to the Island then have them all arrive separately. :)

12) Did the Juliet really change history by detonating the bomb?

Kinda answered. She certainly created the Alt, but it remains to be seen how the two timelines are connected and how it's all going to be resolved.

So out of the twelve listed here, we have five that have been fully answered, four more that we've gotten partial answers on and one that we've got nothing but almost certainly will be addressed tomorrow. The only two from this list that might fall by the wayside are Aaron (boo) and Libby (oh well). That's really not too shabby.

But what about my two lists of Minor Mysteries (some of these do overlap)? How did I do on these?

Mysteries That Will Be Answered:

1) Claire and Aaron - Probably not
2) The Whispers - Answered
3) Walt's importance - Probably will
4) The Black Rock - Answered
5) The Supply Drops - Likely not

Mysteries That Will Not Be Answered:

1) Ben, Locke and The Swan - Probably not
2) Kelvin, Radzinsky and The Sickness - Probably not
3) Henry Gale - Likely not
4) The Capsule Dump - Likely not
5) The Elizabeth - Answered

Unless we revisit (and get to see) a bit of the aftermath of The Incident, I think most of the DHARMA minutiae are going to fall by the wayside as well. I definitely think we'll get a reason why they kidnapped Walt - Ben is going to say something along the lines of "we were trying to get him to manipulate the Island's energies for us" to wrap that up. We could conceivably get the same sort of answer about Aaron as well, but part of me thinks Walt is more likely.

Regardless though, I'm really not that concerned. As long as they wrap everything up in a well-written, non-cheesy manner that does right about the characters, I'll be really happy. Lost has been a wonderful, imaginative, completely original trip for the past six years and I'm really happy I've been along for the ride.

Don't forget that tonight at 8pm there's a pop-up version of The Pilot on ABC! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some wings to prepare. :)

Comments, Predictions And The Penultimate Link Dump...

Been quite a week. I haven't had a chance to watch "Across The Sea" again, but I have read a good deal of opinions online, most of which were at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of liking or disliking it. I still fall into the 'dislike' camp, but not because I wanted more to be revealed (as many of my friends and many of the commenters in this thread were), but because I thought what we were told was kind of cheesy.

This interview with Darlton has been making the rounds because the interviewer asked them about some of the specific complaints people had with the episode and they got a bit testy. On the one hand, they're absolutely right in that there's no way they can please everyone with the finale (and no reason to think they should have to either). On the other, I do think that many of the problems that I had with the episode were self-inflicted and correctable. If you think a cave with a golden light might look cheesy - don't show it. Either that or come up with something else. And I do agree that this episode probably would have gone over better had it been shown earlier in the season rather than now.

But they're also stuck between a rock and hard place here. I had really high expectations of "Across The Sea" because the show has been one of the best things on TV for the past six years and I was hoping the end run would meet that standard. So if you're going to reveal the centerpiece of the Island's mythology, come up with something better than a glowing cave (or at least make it look better than it did on screen). And I also realize that once the show ends, The Source (and "Across The Sea" in general) could look much better in retrospect.

The watering down of Smokey's evil also bothered me, but this is a personal preference thing. For me, the villains often make the show or the series and throughout Lost, Smokey was one of the most compelling reasons to watch. All this season has been constructed around him, building him into a villain with a single, solitary purpose - to escape the Island and destroy whoever got in his way - and I thought that was terrific. But now we understand why he wants to escape and, well, now I completely understand and kinda sympathize with him.

Yeah, he's certainly more bitter and evil in the present day than he was in "Across The Sea," but he isn't the product of his own arrogance like Dr. Doom, isn't pure evil like Randall Flagg or completely insane like the Joker. No, he's the product of a crazy, manipulative Mother and an impulsive, irrational brother who didn't think before he acted. It doesn't forgive everything he's done in the present, but it make us understand why he's the way he is. And the fact the supposed good Island god is partially responsible for creating him makes their whole conflict a lot less - *ahem* - black and white. And that just doesn't sit right with me, given everything we've seen this season, and seems to go against one of the major themes of the show. I like my evil to be EVIL, dammit! ;)

But anyway, this episode doesn't change the fact that I still love the show and am greatly looking forward to tonight and Sunday. What's everyone making for the finale? I think it's going to be wings of some sort for myself, but I can't decide whether I want slow-cooked Thai Peanut Wings or some breaded, fried Hot Wings. Mmmm... wings.
---

The only other link I have to share other than the above Darlton interview (which you should read in full) is this letter from George Lucas to Darlton. I can't tell whether it was written in jest or not, but it is amusing nonetheless. :)

---

Tonight's episode, "What They Died For," sounds rather expository to me. You gotta figure the entire endgame will be revealed tonight - i.e. Jack's gotta learn what Desmond's task is on the Island and (hopefully) what the role of the Alt is in all this. And you have to imagine they're going to be going to The Source at some point. Desmond's probably the only one who can find it...

Fearless Predictions

Considering there are only two episodes left, I might as well go all out...

1) I'm going to guess that not only is Desmond the only one who can find The Source, he's the only one who can enter it and survive. And perhaps if Desmond enters The Source he can reverse whatever damage Jacob caused by flushing his brother's body down the cave...

2) I'm going to guess one of the three remaining candidates will die this episode: Sawyer. And he does so in spectacularly heroic fashion to save everyone else. Unfortunately we'll probably get a teary goodbye scene with Kate beforehand.

3) Smokey will send Claire after the remaining candidates and she'll succeed in mortally wounding Kate before the candidates are rescued by... Ben!

4) Alt Jack will achieve awareness this episode and realize the person he really needs to make everything right is the creator of the Alt Universe - his wife, Juliet!

5) Someone will rhetorically ask "what did they die for" during the episode and Hurley will respond by quoting "Wrath of Khan."

I am 100% certain these things shall come to pass. Enjoy the (second-to-last) show everyone! Review up tomorrow morning! :)

Few Observations From An "Ab Aeterno" Rewatch

Last Tuesday, in the absence of new "Lost," I watched the pop-up version of "Ab Aeterno" and came away with a couple things.

1) They told us straight-up that the remaining six candidates were exactly what they told us they were: Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Jin/Sun and Locke (with Locke obviously eliminated from contention now). No Kate, which might have been a production snafu on the lighthouse wheel, which also means Smokey was telling the truth about "not needing her," no Frank and no Ji-Yeon as well.

So I was totally wrong about Kate and it seems the writers have been playing it straight with us from the beginning on this point. In fact, it really does seem to me that this season pretty much all the answers have been fairly straightforward. We're heading toward an ending where one of the six candidates will become the new Jacob - and it seems it's going to be one of the expected ones all along (the only twist they can throw in there is if it's not Jack).

Part of me does wonder though, that if Smokey does finally figure out which of Jin/Sun is the actual candidate, if he'll immediately kill the other (or, at least, threaten to kill the other unless the candidate leaves with him).

2) Richard was the first of the Others - apparently everyone else Jacob brought to the Island before him had died (or been killed). Missed that the first time around. This also seemed to be the first time Smokey tried to kill Jacob too.

3) The Statue of Taweret was referred to as "protecting the Island." And since the Others really didn't start until 1867 with Richard, I wonder if the childbirth problems all stem from the statue being broken? Maybe the Others didn't even try to reproduce until Ben took the leadership mantel from Richard - after all, didn't Charles have Penny with an off-Island woman? And Eloise gave birth off-Island as well.

Maybe having kids on the Island was all Ben's idea in the first place - the Others simply hadn't even tried to have kids until then, being completely populated by Jacob from outside sources. Ben always did seem to want a "normal" life though, and may have encouraged them to try, especially after the Purge when they took over the Barracks. However, since the statue was broken and Taweret's protection was lost, Smokey was able to prevent any children (i.e. possible future candidates) from being born. Maybe the key to fixing the Island's childbirth issues is restoring the statue?

Just a few things muddling around in my head. Have a great Sunday - predictions will be up tomorrow. :)

Subtle Hint Or Writer/Fanboy Mindgames?

This has been noted elsewhere (via New York Magazine), though it was first pointed out to me by Matt over e-mail.

Could this be a subtle hint as to the identity of Adam and Eve? If it's really a hint, I like it. A lot. (Biggie)

Further Thoughts On "Happily" + Link Dump

I still haven't had a chance to rewatch "Happily Ever After," though I have read several other recaps and the Lostpedia transcript. While I still think the pocket universe holds pretty well (especially in that I really do think Smokey's manipulated the Alt in some way), I'm waffling on the Alt being flashbacks. While it's still possible, if everything we were seeing in the Alt was a flashback that ends up resulting in the time travelers getting back to the Island in 2007, it would take away a lot of the drama of the final six episodes. After all, we're now set up for some pretty exciting stuff in the Alt as Desmond sets out to contact all the Losties using the Flight 815 manifest. If the Alt is total flashback, then Desmond's quest loses all of its drama and suspense since we know he's going to be successful. But I'm still having trouble believing that the Alt is simply a parallel timeline from our present day one (and as Bigmouth points out there are a lot of inconsistencies with that scenario). So what are my biggest hangups with the Alt timeline theory:

1) Jack's physical evidence - His appendix scar and the cut on his neck in the plane. Both of these things the writers went out of their way to point out and both of them seem to suggest that Jack, at the very least, is the same physical Jack from our world that was somehow transported into this Alternate Universe. We haven't seen any evidence from any of the other Losties that this is the case, so it's possible that Jack is special in this regard. But regardless if this was a "simple" alternate timeline Jack these things certainly wouldn't have been pointed out.

2) The memories - Likewise the buried memories Daniel and Desmond have of our present day universe also suggest this isn't a simple AT. In a simple AT, none of these memories should exist at all.

3) Eloise - The Eloise of this Alt certainly seems to know exactly what's going on and may even be helping it along.

Taken all together, I just can't believe the Alt is a simple alternate timeline. But if it really is a pocket universe instead, when in time does that pocket universe exist and what effect does it have on the present day universe? It being in the past still makes the most sense, even if it does undercut the drama of the show. But here's another theory I'm been muddling:

Let's say the pocket universe was indeed created by Smokey when Juliet detonated the bomb and right now it exists in parallel with our present day universe. But the thing is, that universe is not set in stone. Let's say that Smokey's goal is to escape the Island and eliminate our present day timeline, replacing it with the pocket universe instead. But if all the Losties choose to do so, they can collapse the pocket universe on their own when they regain their memories. That's where Alt Desmond comes in. I think this idea is a bit more consistent with what we've seen so far and it keeps the suspense that flashbacks would lose.

Am I right? Probably not. But I feel a bit better about this theory, and isn't that what really matters? The answer is no. ;)

I also really liked this comment from American Hooch:

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet but, I'm going to predict that Desmond and Penny are Charles Widmore's father. Their son Charlie is actually Widmore before he time travels in some bizarre way. Goes with that Adam & Eve thing...

That's just brilliant. Granted, it would be ripping off the best episode of Futurama, but I like the idea a lot. And I do think that time travel will be a big factor into the ultimate resolution of the show.

Link Dump:

- If you've never played a game of Pokémon in your life, this will probably be lost on you, but trust me when I say that Pokémon + LOST = Hilarity. Nuzlocke Comics is based on a particular set of (difficult) rules for playing through a Pokémon game, but this guy also happens to be a big LOST fan as well.

Well worth reading and I think I'm going to do my own Nuzlocke Challenge at some point in the future.

- May 23rd, the finale night, will feature a five hour LOST extravaganza. Two hours of preview, the two hour show, then a one hour Jimmy Kimmel retrospective. Nice!

- Daniel Dae Kim calls the Lost finale "very satisfying."

- Emily Nussbaum's entertaining rant in New York Magazine set off a bit of a firestorm on some of the message boards. I love her reviews and I can understand some of her frustration, but I do take issue with this sentiment:

And yet, I'm bitter! Because all those great themes — about society, about human nature, about recovery after trauma — and all those great threads — the Others, Dharma, the childbirth mystery — feel to me simplified by the news that it's all an abstract experiment between super-frenemies in whether human beings are corruptible. To me, that's like folding an enormous, colorful, mysterious map into a tiny wad of chewing gum.

First of all, "Good vs. Evil" isn't the only theme on Lost. In fact, I think one can convincingly argue that "Fate vs. Free Will" is actually the more dominant theme. Locke believed he was destined for greatness to the point where he became nothing more than Smokey's puppet. I still think one of the best scenes from this season was from the season opener where Smokey tells Ben that John Locke's final thought was "I don't understand." Everybody has a choice. And I'm convinced there are going to be many hard choices before the season ends.

But even moreso, "Good vs. Evil" is a pretty darn powerful theme when 1) you have an excellent, competent villain who does horrific things and 2) the heroes are flawed and must overcome those flaws to triumph over the villain. Smokey is certainly one of the best TV villains I've ever seen and he's by far the best part of this season so far. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what our Losties are going to have to sacrifice in order to best him.

While I can certainly see how some people may not like the twists and turns the show has taken the last season or two, LOST has still consistently managed to adhere to these epic themes that have made it one of the best things on television.

Word Play

Tonight's episode is called "Recon," which according to the dictionary means:

re·con ¹ (rkn)

n.

The smallest genetic unit capable of recombination.

Huh. As a biologist (albeit not a geneticist), I've actually never heard recon used in that way before. But it also naturally means:

re·con ² (rkn)

n. Informal

Reconnaissance.

i.e., the definition most of us are familiar with meaning "to scout." But what if the title is actually a pun? Given we haven't had a Sawyer episode yet this season, the title could actually stand for "re-con," to con again. Sawyer's already pulled the Long Con on Kate and Locke once, perhaps tonight we'll get to see him do it again.

Enjoy the show! Review up tomorrow morning! :)

Link Dump 3/10/2010

This is more of a random thought post than a true link dump, but eh, what can you do. :)

- I'm sure y'all have heard about the Lost Promo Contest ABC is running for the finale. I might try fiddling around with it if I have the time. Anyone tried ABC's editing tool yet?

- We'll probably get an answer to this once Jin gets a sideways flash, but Dark UFO noticed Keamy was wearing a watch when Sayid shot him. Was Jin supposed to be delivering it to Keamy himself?

- An interesting point from Doc Jensen:

THE BEN/WIDMORE CONFLICT OVER ALEX
Shortly after Rousseau had finished off the rest of her fellow French scientists and given birth to Baby Alex, Chief Executive Other Widmore ordered Ben to ''exterminate'' both of them from the Island. He coldly dismissed baby Alex as an ''it,'' as if she were an animal that would just be a drain on Island resources that needed to be devoted elsewhere. Yep: definitely sounds like a guy that ain't about ''taking care of the kids.'' So Ben balked. He couldn't bring himself to murder. Ben clearly had developed a different vision for how the Others should be managing the Island and living their lives. Widmore dismissed Ben's ''idealism'' as sentimental and self-serving — about him needing to feel needed. But he didn't stop Ben from taking on the project of raising Alex alone. Ben's victory inspired him to dream bigger. And when he uncovered the truth about Widmore's off-Island slick willying, he staged his coup and forced him into exile. He also moved the nomadic Others out of the wild and into Dharmaville. But Ben's dream of settling down and playing house — modifying Others culture in such a way to service and fulfill his own desires and needs — was surely antithetical to the Others' true purpose, and was most likely what earned the Others' their baby-making curse from the Island/Jacob. Richard Alpert said as much when he encouraged Locke to make a play for Ben's job. ''Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems,'' Richard said. ''We're looking for someone to remind us that we're here for more important reasons.''

Emphasis mine. Really interesting idea behind the Island baby issues and kind of ironic that Ben spent so much time looking for answer to them when he might have been the cause all along. I also forgot to comment in my review on how weird it is how Ben refused to kill Alex because he didn't want to murder, but then turned around and Purged DHARMA just a few years later. Yeah, you can talk about the Island and the greater good there, but Ben's character (at least his on Island character) has always been murderous except in Alex's case.

- And one more thought on Ben and Richard - how much of Jacob's plan do you think they knew? Ilana seems to be the only one who knows about the candidates (I guess Dogen and Lennon did to before Sayid got to them), but Ben and Richard to me seem completely in the dark about all this. Doesn't that seem weird? Seems they'd have to know something about random people becoming the new Jacob, right?

- So we have nine episodes left before the big finale and the question is what centricity will they be? First off, of the "normal" main characters left we still haven't gotten episodes on Sawyer, Jin/Sun and Hurley, so you have to imagine each of them will get one, plus Desmond, who we've only seen a glimpse of this season (but I can't imagine him not getting an episode and the longer we go without seeing him, the more I think he's really, really important. That's four, and I imagine they'll all have Alt flashes (though Desmond's might be weird ala Flashes Before Your Eyes or The Constant).

But then we have Ilana and Richard, both of whom it would probably be more interesting to get a full flashback from rather than an Alt Flash, but let's say they both get an episode to themselves. That brings us to six. We could also conceivably get a Claire episode, though we did get quite a bit of her Alt story with Kate. Her Island story would probably be more interesting anyway though. Frank and Miles are also candidates (HA!) for episodes, as well as (I hope) Charles Widmore.

There's also the possibility that someone, like Jack and Locke, could get a second episode, but let's discount that for now given all our options. Here's my best guess (and I know I could probably look this up somewhere online, but no spoilers here, please):

6.08: Sawyer
6.09: Jin/Sun
6.10: Ilana
6.11: Claire
6.12: Frank
6.13: Charles Widmore
6.14: Hurley
6.15: Richard
6.16: Desmond

What then for the finale? How about Jacob and Smokey flashbacks where we learn 1) How Smokey orchestrated the loophole and 2) the history between these two on the Island. Now that would be cool. Guess we'll know in a little under three months! :)

Fearless Predictions

1) Tonight's Ben-centric episode will be the best of the season so far

2) Alt Locke will make another appearance in Ben's sideways flashes

3) We'll see Sawyer and Jin again

4) We'll find out who's coming to the Island

5) Smokey, Claire and Sayid will kill Kate and feast upon her heart

I feel very confident that all these things shall come to pass tonight.

Maybe.

Enjoy the show! Review up tomorrow! :)

TV Fest Musings

*minor spoiler alert*

In case you haven't seen it yet, there was some nice Lost info revealed at the Paley TV Fest over the weekend. The key dirt:

On the filming status of the series:

The Lost writers are in the process of breaking the series finale, which will be penned by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender. The penultimate episode will be written by producer/writers (and fellow panelists) Elizabeth Sarnoff, Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Meanwhile, on the island, Bender has just wrapped episode 14 and is currently shooting 15. After being bombarded with questions about the show for six years, Cuse said they do not plan on commenting on the series finale after it airs.

The answer is “yes” to the following:

Will Richard and Ilana exchange some words soon? Will we see another painting by Bender? Do some of the characters’ last names have significance, particularly Jack’s? Is Jack married to someone we’ve met before? Was Jacob telling the truth when he said someone was coming to the island? Will we learn more about Hurley and Libby’s connection? Will we see Vincent and Charlie again? Will we learn if Desmond was really on the plane?

(emphasis mine)

The answer is “no” to the following:

Will we get a conclusion to the story of Ben’s love, Annie? Do the purple circles in Bender’s mural mean anything? Did Juliet’s ex-husband get killed by a smoke bus? Will there be a DVD release of the show in chronological order?

The answer is “maybe” to the following:

Will the Hurley bird be explained? Will we see Walt again?

The answer is “no comment” to the following:

Will we learn why women can’t have babies on the island?

Final spoiler from Lindelof:

“Water.”

Some general thoughts on all of this:

First off, the fact we know Alt Jack's wife makes me think that it's Juliet even more. Again there aren't that many choices floating around out there since it wasn't anyone we saw on the plane (which definitely eliminates Kate and Cindy). Libby and Ana-Lucia are still possibilities since we didn't see them on the plane, though they were supposed to be there (and theoretically could have been).

And speaking of Libby, I am dying to see more of her, even if it's only in the Alt (BTW, did anyone else know her last name was Smith)? I imagine she might be rich, lucky Alt Hurley's significant other (pun intended). But more than her relationship with Hurley, I really want to know who hired her to give Desmond the Elizabeth - I really don't think their meeting in the coffee shop was coincidence or fate. I think probably Eloise or someone similar hired her to make sure that Desmond enters the race and ends up on the Island.

I figured Desmond's appearance on Alt Flight 815 was important, but I never thought about the possibility that Desmond was merely a figment of Jack's imagination. That would explain his sudden disappearance and it does kinda make sense, since we've been given the impression so far that Jack is the only person outside of the disappearing Desmond who seems to have any sort of connection to the present day timeline.

A little disappointed that Annie won't be appearing in the Alt at all, but not entirely surprised. Likewise it's no surprise they won't comment on the pregnancy issues, given what a big reveal that would be.

As for the final clue, I have no idea. Maybe Alt Jack will have to dive down to the sunken Island? Maybe Smokey's only real weakness is water from Jacob's spring that's now been polluted? Maybe there will be a drought on the Island and everyone will get really, really thirsty? I guess we'll see!

"Sundown" tomorrow! Review up Wednesday morning! :)

Oh, one more thing. This has been mentioned elsewhere, but I do like how the episodes this season have paralleled Season One:

Tabula Rasa ---> What Kate Does (Kate)
Walkabout ----> The Substitute (Locke)
White Rabbit ----> Lighthouse (Jack)
House of the Rising Sun ----> Sundown (Sun, ????)

I do know for a fact that this week is NOT a Sun episode, though I do still like the parallel with the episode title. Of course, that doesn't mean something significant won't happen to Sun in the episode, does it? :)

Thought For The Day

I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier, but the title of next week's episode, "Sundown," could be a play on words along the lines of "Lockdown." Uh-oh.

Bonus thought: If Alt Ben is a teacher in Alt L.A., then he and his father were probably never brought to the Island in the 70's to work for DHARMA. And since they both would have arrived on the Island pre-Incident, it seems to suggest the Island was destroyed much earlier than that.

Edit: Bonus, bonus thought: Jack suggests David is a Red Sox fan, but David has a Dodgers poster on the door to his room. Discuss.

Further Thoughts on "The Substitute"

The past couple days I've been thinking about just how big the reveals from last episode were, not just directly answering questions, but offering up plausible theories as to a lot of the other long-standing questions of the show. Take a look again at the questions I listed on my pre-season poll:

1) Who are Jacob and the Nemesis?
2) What is the Monster?
3-tie) What are the Whispers?
3-tie) What is the Island?
5) What's in the Temple?
6) Why is Aaron important?
7) Why do pregnant women die on the Island?
8-tie) Who are Adam and Eve?
8-tie) What's Libby's backstory?
10-tie) Who are Ilana and Bram?
10-tie) Does everyone on Flight 815 have a specific destiny?
12) Did the Juliet really change history by detonating the bomb?

Questions in bold have been pretty much directly answered. We now know Smokey and the Nemesis are one and the same, we know the Temple houses a healing spring and a whole lot of Others we've never seen before and Ilana and Bram were Jacob's bodyguards he summoned to the Island.

Questions in italics are ones we now have very plausible theories for. Let's take them one-by-one and go over some related questions too, given what we now know:

Mystery: What is the Island?

Corollary questions: What is the "magic box?" What special properties does the Island have? What did the Swan Station energy do and why did Smokey want it kept contained?

Future questions: What effect did the Island's destruction have on LA X?

As I stated in my review, to me the Island seems to be a prison for Smokey with Jacob as the warden. Now it may have some other significance in addition to that (like being a testing ground for the people Jacob brings there), but having its primary purpose be keeping Smokey from wreaking havoc upon the world makes a lot of sense.

Now the one caveat to this is that in LA X, the Island has sunk and there certainly didn't seem to be an apocalypse going on. Of course, Smokey is rather cunning - he'd probably just become an investment banker or something, but the world doesn't seem to have been totally destroyed. So what consequences would there be if Smokey ended up escaping and going "home?"

But even if the Island is a prison for Smokey, what gives it it's special healing properties and ability to move through time? Is it Jacob or something inherent to the Island itself (i.e. the magic box). And why exactly did Smokey want to keep the Swan station energy contained. He went out of his way to convince Eko to keep the button being pushed and later killed him in a rage after the Swan was destroyed. To me, this doesn't seem like part of his overall plan to kill Jacob, even if it did obviously all work out. I do hope we get an explanation for this in the end.

Mystery: Why is Aaron important?

Corollary questions: Why is Walt important? Does everyone on Flight 815 have a specific destiny? Why did Claire have to raise Aaron herself? What makes someone a "good person." Who hired Richard Malkin to convince Claire to keep Aaron?

Future questions: What makes you a candidate? What disqualifies you from being a candidate? Is this tied to the childbirth issues in any way?

It seems the logical answer to most of these questions is that Aaron, and just about everyone else, were candidates to replace Jacob at some point. That's why they were on the plane, that's their specific destiny - Jacob brought them all here, likely to test them. And the ones who were candidates are "good people," meaning they met whatever qualifications you needed to become the new Jacob. In the comments of my review, Stefanie commented on how Kate wasn't one of Jacob's six Number candidates. While this is kinda surprising given Kate's role in the show, there can only be six Number candidates total so someone has to be left out. Furthermore, I think the six Number candidates are merely the only candidates remaining. There were a lot of names crossed off that wall - I wouldn't be surprised to see an "Austen" crossed out somewhere. The significance of the Number candidates to me is that at the time of Jacob's death, these were the only real candidates left. And that, to me, points to Jack as the prime one left.

But perhaps Aaron was actually the candidate until Kate took him off the Island. That's why Claire had to raise him with her "goodness" - if she didn't, his name would be crossed off the wall (and it's worth pointing out that the "Littleton" crossed off the wall could have referred to Aaron, not Claire as I specualted in my review). And now it seems extremely likely that Jacob was the one who hired Richard Malkin to make sure Claire was on the plane. Part of me also wonders if Jacob was the one who saved Richard Malkin's daughter, perhaps as a way to get Eko on Flight 815.

Walt's candidacy was probably a "special" case, given his abilities. Even if Aaron was the leading candidate to become the new Jacob, perhaps Walt was tested due to his psychic abilities. When Ben and the Others found him to be uncontrollable, they went back to their original Aaron plan.

So what determines "goodness?" Most of the candidates were hardly good; Sayid's a torturer, Sawyer's a murderer, Jin was essentially a mafia goon. And Jack, Hurley and Locke all had their personal issues to deal with. If none of these things disqualifies you from being a candidate, what does? Is redemption the key, perhaps? Do qualified candidates have a desire to redeem themselves and are tested to see if they can? Children are probably exempt from this being innocents, thus Aaron being the perfect candidate as a newborn. The candidacy issue looks to be the biggest question of the season, and possibly of the show.

Mystery: Did Juliet really change history by detonating the bomb?

Corollary questions: Are the two timelines linked in any way? How did she know "it worked?"

Future questions: What's up with Desmond? Is he a candidate too?

Well, we know for certain Juliet did something when she detonated the bomb (and somehow she seemed to know she did something), but what significance to our present day Islanders does the Alt have? It certainly can exist on its own in a parallel universe, but will it affect the present day timeline at all? And what effect will Desmond have running around LA X? Does he have memories of the Island at all? There are a couple possibilities (some spoilers below):

1) The Dark Tower Alt Scenario:

In the Dark Tower universe, Roland the Gunslinger created an alternate timeline by saving Jake Chambers' life in the real world. This created a temporal paradox that was slowly driving him insane until he managed to merge the two timelines by drawing the Alt Jake into his world.

I do kind of wonder if perhaps something like this will have to happen. Will Alt Jack and some of the Others start to have memories of the current timeline? Does Desmond already have memories and will he try to get the Alts to set things right? The difficultly with this sort of plan is that the Island is already sunk in the Alt - be hard to change things without going back in time. But Desmond certainly seems like the biggest wildcard in the Alt to me, given that he wasn't originally even on Flight 815 and the way he seemed to disappear.

2) The Time Variance Authority Scenario:

Walt Simonson, while he was writing Thor, came up with an entity known as the Time Variance Authority (TVA for short), which was a cosmic bureaucracy responsible for all the alternate timelines in the Marvel Universe. Simonson later used the TVA while he was writing Fantastic Four where, thanks to a battle through time between Reed Richards and Dr. Doom, a number of alternate timelines were created. As a result, the TVA decided to destroy all the newly created Alts along with the Marvel Universe Prime timeline to clean things up and (heh) reduce paperwork. The FF managed to stop them in the end and the TVA kinda went away, but I did think this was a clever story.

Now while I don't see any sort of TVA appearing on the show, I do see a scenario where both timelines are not allowed to exist simultaneously. And if this is the case, I think someone (probably Jack) is going to have to choose which universe is saved and which is destroyed. And it may come down to something where the needs of the many are greater than the needs of the few or the one. And that one may be Jack himself.

2) The Course Correction Scenario:

The most likely of scenarios, to me, is one where Jack or someone is given the choice to go back in time and change history at a pivotal moment, preventing Smokey from exploiting the loophole. This may end up erasing the Alt and/or the present day timeline as well. If we're going to incorporate Adam and Eve into this scenario, it would have to be a moment some 40-50 years before Flight 815 crashed, maybe prevent the Jughead bomb from ever reaching the Island perhaps?

We know that Adam and Eve are going to be important to the ending of the show, so for that reason alone I think I favor this scenario at this point, although I do think the other two scenarios are kinda cooler. But it's still great that we're finally at a point where we can plausibly speculate on such things given the info we have.

Thoughts? Theories? Next week's episode is called "Lighthouse" and it's the 108th produced hour of the series. I'm sensing something big. :)

Update: Added a few more comments, edited a few typos too. Stupid work interfering with my blogging. :)

A Good Point

Paula Abdul Alhazred from the Totally Amazing LOST Blog of Awesomeness makes a very good point regarding the Sickness in the comments from my last review:

I think this episode sort of retroactively answered a lot of questions about the Sickness. Obviously it has something to do with the black smoke, and I would guess the DHARMA vaccine protected people from the negative effects of exposure to the island. (The vaccine was labeled with CR, and the C probably stood for Cerberus). Ethan must have been injecting Aaron with the serum in order to protect the fetus from the influence of the monster. I really like that just by answering one or two questions, we can extrapolate the answers to many other questions from previous seasons.

I like this theory a lot, especially since it does tie a lot of stuff together from the early seasons. And if Smokey is the one causing the Sickness, it also explains why none of the survivors ever got sick - the Monster, by-and-large, really never came into contact with most of them. Who has had prior exposure to the Monster before (first encounter)?

1) Locke (Walkabout)
2) Jack (Pilot, first seen in Exodus)
3) Kate (Pilot, first seen in Exodus)
4) Charlie (23rd Psalm)
5) Eko (23rd Psalm)

Hurley was part of the Exodus crew too, but didn't see the smoke then. Aside from that, Smokey really never contacted many of them. So the question now is, if DHARMA really did come up with a vaccine to the Sickness, how did Claire get infected since she was one of the very few who actually received the vaccine. Furthermore, how the heck does the vaccine work? Do most of the Others have anti-Monster antibodies in their blood?

This (along with the sonic fence and summoning portal under Ben's house in the Barracks) also suggests that DHARMA must have known a lot more about Smokey than we've seen on the show. Very cool.

Minor Mysteries, Part II

Now let's take a look at five minor mysteries that I don't think will be answered this season. In contrast to my previous list, these are more would have been nice to have some more detail type questions rather than mysteries that deal with the overarching mythology of the show - which, of course, is why they'll never get answered.

There were several other things I considered for this list, including the Hurley Bird (which I'm convinced was simply a writer's joke that spun mythologically out of control), Libby's backstory (which I do hope we'll get this season since Cynthia Watros is back), Bea Klugh (why was she so important that she committed suicide rather than be captured, especially since they still had Mikhail), "Good People" and the Lists (which I incorporated into Walt) and Amelia (who may or may not be Amelia Earhart).

Five Minor Mysteries That We'll Likely Never Get Answers To

1) Ben, Locke and The Swan

First presented in: Episode 2.14, One of Them

Big Question: What was Ben really trying to do in The Swan?
Underlying Questions: How much did Ben know about The Swan? Did he know about the Swan at all? Did he know what would happen if the button wasn't pushed? Was he just trying to kill John Locke?

This is one of those nagging things I just can't let go. We know Ben must have purposely let himself get captured in Danielle's net to get into the Swan (and why didn't Danielle recognize the man who stole her daughter away, eh), but what was his real motivation for doing so?

The producers have stated that until the survivors discovered the Swan, the Others were largely unaware of its existence. While this makes sense in terms of Kelvin and Desmond having gone undiscovered for so long there, it really doesn't make much sense in that 1) Ben worked for DHARMA for years 2) post-Purge he had access to everything and 3) you have to think he must have come across something regarding the Swan in all the years he spent occupying their stations afterward.

But if we assume Ben didn't know anything about the Swan, then his mission was likely to scout the station and figure out what it does. If he saw the Pearl orientation video first, however, he likely would have thought the button and the station were just red herrings and might have wanted to get captured just to mess with Jack and Locke and sow some discontent. This kinda fits too because it just doesn't seem to make sense that Ben would try and convince Locke to stop pushing the button while he was still a prisoner.

But all this speculation stands on the fact that Ben, who had complete and utter control and access to everything in DHARMA for nearly twenty years, had no idea that not only did DHARMA have another critical station on the Island, but that that station was still being restocked by supply planes and manned around the clock by a couple crazy DHARMA guys. This all just doesn't sit right with me, but I don't think the writers will want to touch it much.

2) Kelvin, Radzinsky and The Sickness

First presented in: Episode 2.23, Live Together, Die Alone

Big Question: What's the timeline for these two?
Underlying Questions: Why would Radzinsky make the Blast Door Map when he knew everything about DHARMA? Did Radzinsky really kill himself or did Kelvin kill him instead? Was the Sickness merely a DHARMA red herring or were there two sicknesses, one made up by DHARMA and one that possessed Danielle's men?

We really don't know much about what happened to DHARMA during two periods: post-Incident and post-Purge. During the former, we know DHARMA continued to function on the Island and finished the Swan station, keeping it manned at all times. And even after the Purge (or at least around the same time), DHARMA was still recruiting people to push the button since we know Kelvin joined in the early 90's after the first Iraq War. Desmond finally landed on the Island in 2001, three years before Flight 815 crashed. If Kelvin joined shortly after the Iraq War, he'd have been there for nearly a decade.

So when did Kelvin and Radzinsky end up together in the Swan and why make the Blast Door Map? Radzinsky certainly didn't need it - he knew everything about DHARMA. Was the map really done mostly by Kelvin? And did Radzinsky really commit suicide or did Kelvin blow him away? I could certainly see Radzinsky driving Kelvin to the edge of madness from being cooped up in the Swan for years.

Furthermore, we know Kelvin used the Sickness to keep Desmond in the station, make him afraid to go outside while he repaired the Elizabeth. This myth seems to have been perpetrated by DHARMA to scare people into staying in the Swan and pushing the button - that's why DHARMA produced the "vaccine" and why the inside of the Hatch door (and the door to the Arrow Station) had "QUARANTINE" stenciled on it.

But when Danielle first described the sickness to Sayid, she was describing something else entirely. One of her men was possessed and she killed him to save herself. Now this could have been anything - maybe Smokey took over his mind, maybe it was the Nemesis in a different body - rather than an actual disease. But even though the Lost Puzzle Clues state there was no sickness, what possessed Danielle's men? Love to get an answer to all these questions, but I don't think it's going to happen - too much detail to fit into the show itself.

3) The Real Henry Gale

First presented in: Episode 2.17, Lockdown

Big Question: Ballooning accident, or was he sent by Widmore?
Underlying Questions: Did Ben really kill him or did he just find his body?

I would have loved a Henry Gale episode for the show but, alas, it is simply not to be. We know he worked for Widmore and could have been sent by him directly or indirectly to find (or stumble across, ala Desmond) the Island again. But what really happened to him when he landed? We know he landed alive and survived for at least a short period of time. Did Smokey kill him and the Others just find his body or did Ben kill him outright, knowing he worked for Widmore? All last season I was praying the time travelers would get to witness Henry's balloon actually landing on the Island, but I don't think it's going to happen now.


4) The Capsule Dump

First presented in: Episode 2.23, Live Together, Die Alone

Big Question: A giant garbage pile in the middle of nowhere? Really?
Underlying Questions: Who were the real test subjects here?

This one really drives me bonkers. It seems clear that the Pearl was really just a ruse; the workers inside thought they were observing test subjects in the Swan when really they were the test subjects being observed by DHARMA. Obviously DHARMA didn't care about any of the reports they were sending, but why send them to an open valley where anyone could stumble across them? Just seems weird to me.

But furthermore, we really haven't gotten a concrete explanation to what was going on in the Pearl. I like to think of it more as a safety net for the Swan station. The Pearl workers weren't part of any real experiment, they were simply supposed to monitor the button pushers 24/7 to make sure it got pushed - backup button pushers, if you will. Presumably if anything went wrong in the Swan, they were supposed to alert someone higher up - probably the only report that came out of the Pearl that anyone cared about was the printout of times when the button was pushed.

Not that any of this matters now - the Swan is gone, the Flame is gone and most of the other stations have been abandoned. Unless we see some significant DHARMA history this season, we may never know for sure.


5) The Elizabeth

First presented in: Episode 2.23, Live Together, Die Alone

Big Question: Where is it now?
Underlying Questions: Will they end the show with it?

This is a simple one - where the heck is Desmond's boat? Since Ben and the Others captured it in "The Glass Ballerina" we haven't seen hide nor hair of the storied craft. A minor detail, but it has been nearly three seasons now. Also, part of me feels it would be neat if the show ended with Desmond and crew using it to escape the Island - has a Constant-like sentimentality to it for me.

So what's your most niggling unanswered question from the show? Do you think it will be answered by the end? The end starts tomorrow night! I can't wait! :)

Lost In Three Sentences...

Bigmouth has offered up the Three-Sentence Theory Challenge, that he snagged from someone on The Fuselage. The idea?

Can you express your theory of what's happening on Lost in three sentences or less? Aphorisms, metaphors, and analogies are welcome, run-on sentences are not.

Been thinking about this for a couple days. My answer:

1. Two gods play a game to decide the fate of all humans, using the passengers of Flight 815 (and the Others) as the pieces and the Island as the board.

2. Despite being manipulated by cosmic forces, everyone ultimately has the free will to change his or her own fate.

3. However, not only are there consequences for what one chooses to do, their heart (the culmination of everything they've done in life) will be weighed and judged in the end by the Smoke Monster.

It's a bit more vague than I usually like, but it's the best I can do. Any other takers? :)

Couple Theories...

Doc Jensen and Bigmouth have some interesting and very different takes on the finale. Here's a point from each that struck me, first up is Doc:

Last week, I speculated that in the new Lost timeline that will flow out of Juliet's detonation of Jughead, the characters that angelic Jacob visited and conspicuously touched during the flashbacks — definitely Sawyer, Kate, Sun, Jin, Jack, Locke, and Hurley — will retain their memories of the previous, now-deleted timeline. (Similar yet slightly different to what happened to Desmond after he was physically obliterated by the Swan's implosion — his consciousness migrated to the fateful week in which he broke up with Penny.)

I speculated on something like this after "The Variable" aired, only guessing that it was going to be Desmond alone that retained his memories rather than the whole group. I kinda like that idea better because it's less messy - if the entire time line changes, then when will all of Jacob's touchy-feely guys get their memories back? Will they have them from birth? Will they just suddenly remember (like Desmond did of Faraday's message)? Or will their minds be transported to their alternate time line's bodies ala Desmond in "Flashes Before Your Eyes?" If they do end up retaining memories, I think the latter is the most plausible way. Of course, when in the time line they end up is solely at the discretion of the writers.

But the big problem with changing the future in general is that it would also likely negate Jacob's death. If Flight 815 never crashes, there's no loophole for Jacob's Nemesis either (unless the Island is somehow immune to the time change). Why the heck would they even want to go back if they know Jacob is still alive and Jacob's Nemesis' motivation is thwarted? This fact alone makes me think Jack and crew caused the Incident rather than negated it. Plus, if "they're coming" means Jack and company are being transported back to 2007, then it seems likely time didn't change.

Bigmouth has the same sort of problem with this:

Nothing we've already seen on the show has changed as a result of detonation of the Jughead's fission trigger. Flight 815 crashed on the Island just as it always did -- there is no reboot yielding a grandfather paradox. If that's where the show were going, I believe we would have received some small but clear indication of its direction. Something like Cort's horn -- those of you familiar with the Stephen King's Dark Tower series will know what I mean. Instead, we got just the opposite in Miles's sardonic comment that Jack and Co. might be causing the Incident by trying to prevent it.

By that same token, it's equally wrong to say this was all simply a case of whatever happened, happened. I maintain that our Losties, like Desmond, changed what was supposed to happen. It is this altered timeline, in which they save the world, that we've witnessed thus far. Because neither the Incident nor activation of the Fail-Safe was supposed to happen, the general rule of course correction doesn't apply. Both events must thus be actively preserved. If anything changes, as Ms. Hawking said, every single one of us is dead.

In other words, the reason all this happened is because now they're supposed to be transported back to 2007 and save the world from Jacob's Nemesis. Yes, they caused the whole situation in the first place (likely because of Jacob's Nemesis' machinations behind the scenes), but because Jacob visited them all in the past, he set up a loophole of his own so they can make everything right again (and possibly get himself resurrected in Frank's body). Erasing the fact that Jacob gets killed is the biggest problem I have with the changing the future scenario.

And one last point to chew on - we know Desmond still "has a role to play," according to Eloise, and we know he's going to end up back on the Island at some point (in order to tragically break his promise to Penny - you know the writers wouldn't have set that plot point up for nothing). So if all the Incident Losties do end up back in 2007, how does Desmond get back to the Island? What motivation is there for him to go and what will he have to do when he gets there? I'm guessing that Desmond is so important that Jacob's Nemesis tries to kill him and his family, so Desmond goes back in order to protect Penny and Charlie and plays an instrumental role in the Nemesis' defeat.

That's my theory for the moment anyway. I'm sure it will change 27,000 times between now and next year. :)

Another Reason The Rival May Not Be Smokey...

Looking back over my review of "Dead is Dead," I came across this screenshot I had totally forgotten about (via Dark UFO):



If the Rival is really the Anubis pictured here, then Smokey is definitely something different all together. To me, it looks like Anubis is summoning Smokey here, which gives some credence to the thought Smokey might be one of his minions or servants. One could certainly take it the other way around, I suppose, so that Anubis is genuflecting to Smokey instead, but my feeling is that Anubis is in command in this panel. Just something else to think about.

Also, what does everyone want to call Jacob's significant other? Rival? Nemesis? Enemy? The Man in Black? I've been going back and forth between Rival and Nemesis to see which sounds better, but I can't decide. I've added a poll on the sidebar with the question. Starting next week I'll also have a series of polls on Season 5, for best episode, best scene, best quote, best revelation, etc... :)

Incident Tidbits And Second Viewing Thoughts

(This is essentially Part III of my Incident review. Click here for Part I and Part II)

I was going to go over some scenes and happenings in light of The Incident, but my outline is kinda long, so maybe I'll make it an off season series of posts instead. Em and I just watched the finale a second time and, upon a second viewing, I think it actually might be the best finale of the show. I do need to go back and watch "Exodus" again, but I think this may have even topped that. A couple things that struck me:

1) All the acting in this episode was spectacular. I mentioned Michael Emerson and Elizabeth Mitchell before, but Terry O'Quinn also deserves a mention for actually playing someone other than the character he's played for five years. It was a masterful, subtle performance and I wonder if he's going to play the Rival for the entire next season? Will Terry O'Quinn now become the main villain of the show? That would be pretty cool.

Even Jack, Kate and Sawyer deserve some props. I still disliked the scene between Jack and Sawyer, but Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway did their very best with what they were given. Evangeline Lilly too (who looked better in this episode than she has in a long time, I think). And that last scene between Sawyer and Juliet was even more heart wrenching on a second watch. If Juliet is truly dead, she certainly gave it her all at the end.

2) This is something I totally missed the other night - must have be distracted for a second or two: Seeing what was on the parchment in Jacob's cabin (click for biggie version, thanks to Dark UFO):



Yeah, looks like the statue is definitely Taweret. This, I think, might give a bit more credence to the idea that Jacob and his Rival are really Ra and Apep. And if that's the case, perhaps Smokey is really Taweret herself, since she's supposed to be the consort of Apep. That could explain why Smokey seemed to be helping him, especially in the scene with Ben and Alex.

3) Ilana, after returning from Jacob's cabin, said "He's not there. Someone else has been using it." I'm curious as to why she used the word "using" - it certainly implies that the Rival was impersonating Jacob there, rather than having been imprisoned. And that further implies that perhaps the ring of ash was protective rather than used for containment - in other words, the whole reason the Rival was able to co-opt the cabin was because the ring of ash was broken.

4) Jacob and touching. Linda and others have pointed out how Jacob seems to touch everyone of the Losties he visited. It can be debated as to whether he actually touches Jack and Sawyer when he hands them the pen and candy bar respectively, but Em was convinced some sort of contact was there. But I have a slightly alternate theory: What if it wasn't the touch that was important, what if it was the gift? What did he give everyone?

1) Kate - The lunchbox
2) Sawyer - The pen
3) Sun and Jin - His blessing
4) Sayid - His life
5) Jack - The candy bar
6) Hurley - Charlie's guitar

And you can also argue, he gave Locke his forgiveness for being the ultimate pawn in his demise (or perhaps his life - maybe Locke wouldn't have survived the fall without Jacob being there). Just something else to think about.

5) The Rival and the statue. I was a bit surprised the Rival needed Richard to tell him where Jacob was living. He had no idea all this time? Kinda odd.

6) Pierre Chang's arm. On a second look, it seems Pierre only got his hand pinched, not his entire arm. I need to go back and watch the Swan Orientation film again.

7) Frank as a candidate. This was mentioned somewhere else - I forget where - but is it possible that Frank might be a candidate for Jacob's next body? Perhaps Jacob will be reborn, much like Ra is every day, but he needs a new vessel who has to be a "good person." Maybe the reason Jacob (assuming it was actually Jacob that was giving Richard the lists over the years) was collecting good people, is because he knew this would happen and would need a new, uncorrupted vessel for his body. Perhaps that was why he had Ben put Walt in Room 23.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. And I love the idea that Frank could be the next Jacob. ^_^

Tidbits

* I meant to mention this in Part I of my review but I forgot. I watched the clip show before the finale that had a good deal of Darlton musings and they mentioned that the reason Jack, Hurley, Sayid and Kate were sent back in time was because they failed to replicate the conditions of Flight 815 adequately. In other words, it was a bit of an accident that they were sent back in time.

This also brings in question Kate's decision to leave Aaron behind. What if she had brought him along, or if Locke had asked Walt to come? Would that have been sufficient to prevent them from time shifting? And how does this fit in with the Rival's plan? I might muse on this in more detail later on.

* Anyone else notice the sub guys had their own DHARMA symbol? Cool.

* The book Jacob was reading when Locke fell was Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor. It has a white dove pierced by a black arrow on the cover. Nice.

* Sun and Jin had a very nice setting for their wedding.

* I just realized that the scene where we get to see Jack counting to five was the original scene he recounted to Kate in the Pilot. Seems he conveniently left out the fact his dad was the one who helped him hold it together, much the same way he did to Kate. Very cool.

* What the heck was Ilana doing in Russia?

* Ben lied to Locke when he said he was a Pieces - he's actually a Sagittarius.

* Quotes- lots of good stuff this episode. Could quote Ben's entire speech to Jacob.

"Do you know how much I want to kill you right now?"

"If Jack wants to blow up the Island... good for Jack."

"I'm this way because of Jacob."

"I don't know... but his Korean is excellent." - I can't tell you how much I loved this line.

"Let's get it started!" - When Radzinsky said this, I clapped my hands.

"I know John Locke. And if I were you, I wouldn't give up on him." - D'oh, Jack!

"I'm not going to kill Jacob, Ben. You are."

"Because we're retired."

We're together, that's all that matters in the end." - <3 Rose and Bernard

"So I lied. That's what I do."

"Someone else has been using it."

"I'm sorry this happened to you." - Notice Jacob didn't say to Locke "I'm sorry this had to happen to you" - seems to implicate his Rival.

"Looks like you found your loophoole."

Summary:

After a second viewing and musing on it for a few days, I think this may be the best season finale, simply because of how it changes the way we have to view both Locke and Ben (something I'll talk further about in future posts). The introduction of Jacob and his Rival is a game changer on par with anything we've seen on the show, and certainly presses if not exceeds Jack's initial flash forward for the top spot. I think when the show finally runs its course, if the show ends well, this episode may become as iconic as anything seen on the show. It's a 5.0, easily.

So what's up here for the hiatus. Certainly a revision of my Top Ten episodes list and some musing on how some of the central mysteries of the show have changed. Plus I'd like to create a checklist of all things we need answers to in the final season and see if the writers deliver. I'll try and make a substantial post at least once a week - hopefully I won't be quite as busy this year as I was the last. :)

Thoughts and Theories on "The Incident"

(For Part I of my review, click here. I've edited a few things since Thursday night, nothing content-wise, just some exhaustion fueled typos and grammar. :P)

The Incident gave us a lot to think about when dwelling on how the show is ultimately going to end. By showing us Jacob actively manipulating the lives of the Flight 815 survivors, we now know:

1) Jacob and/or his Rival have a vested interest in the fates of these characters.
2) Everyone really was on Flight 815 for a reason, though it may not be time loop purposes.
3) Daniel was right in that it does seem that our Losties have a choice in what they do.

Where does this lead us in terms of an overall plot to Lost? Well, how about an eternal conflict between two deities, one good, one evil. The good one thinks the best of mankind, that when they're given a choice they're going to do the right thing because they're ultimately "good people." The evil deity takes the opposing view - when given a choice humanity ultimately resorts to violence and corruption (like Ben did).

The good deity formulates a plan to test humanity to see if he's right. The evil deity, partly afraid of being wrong, partly simply hating the good deity and being... well, evil, decides to foil his plan by not only corrupting several of the characters, but also by exploiting one of them into killing Jacob. And with Jacob out of the way, he's now free to take over/destroy the world. Thus, the catastrophe Eloise Hawking predicted. The survivors of Flight 815 were all merely pawns in a giant game of chess - their "destinies, " so to speak, were all part of this grand experiment.

But Jacob knew his Nemesis would cheat and built in a loophole of his own. I'm guessing all the time travelers he visited in the past will be transported back to 2007, if they chose to detonate the bomb and they're the only ones who can defeat the evil one. Enter Season 6.

It's not perfect, but I think it captures the overall feel of the show and, if this sort of scenario is really what's going to happen in Season 6, I'd be pretty happy with that. I think the primary themes of the show are going to boil down to good vs. evil and free will vs. fate; can't get much better than that.

Ten Questions:

1) Can you change history?

In my pre-finale predictions, I said "they can't make this the cliffhanger, can they?" D'oh!

All signs, however, point to yes. Jacob repeatedly says throughout the episode that they have a choice - it's free will vs. fate and he seems to come down decidedly on the side of free will. Ben chose to stab Jacob, Juliet chose to detonate the bomb. Plus we got a flash at the end of the episode, likely not a natural flash.

Jacob’s view of humanity in the opening scene also seems to suggest they will eventually alter the time loop. This calls to attention the Dark Tower ending. Eventually Roland does remember to take his horn, offering hope that the loop could eventually be broken. Perhaps this series of events we’ve seen the past five seasons, ending with Jacob’s death, can be slightly altered to change the outcome. And perhaps Jacob planted the seeds of that when he visited them all in the past.

2) Did they just change history or merely keep it on its course?

Miles hit this one on the head.

Since we don’t know the original sequence of events of the Incident (we’ve never seen a film or written history of what happened) we really don’t know if the Incident was caused by the hydrogen bomb or whether what they did actually changed things.

When Jack went to throw the bomb down the well, the drill was already pulling itself into the pocket of electromagnetic energy – Pierre said there was no way he could stop it. Did the bomb actually change things or did it keep them on its course. Pierre still lost his arm, something that happened in the original Incident, suggesting everything up until that point was on the same path.

I’m thinking Miles was right, the bomb exploding was part of the original Incident. Now it may have actually had good consequences, preventing something even worse from happening (in fact, according to this article, it does seem like Daniel's plan to detonate the bomb on a pocket of electromagnetism wasn't as crazy as we originally thought), but it was something that was supposed to happen. If this is true, if they really want to change the future, they may have to go back in time again and stop themselves.

3) Who's coming?

Well, when Jacob said "they're coming" it could have meant one of two things: Ilana and the Others are coming or all the Losties are coming from 1977. I'm definitely thinking the latter. Also remember Christian (or whatever he was) promised Sun that if she went with Locke, she'd meet up with Jin again. Of course, if Christian was the Nemesis, he could have been lying, but still.

And who of our time travelers did Jacob see in the past? Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin and Sayid; that's the majority of them. I'm thinking whomever Jacob visited might have been spared the explosion and time traveled.

Juliet might be dead (Sayid too), but interestingly (and ominously) Jacob didn't visit her. Miles either, if he survived, he might be stuck there with his dad. Jacob seemed to have visited Locke for the express purpose of making sure he survived the fall.

This also makes one wonder why Jacob was even helping them in the first place if they're all part of a plan that would lead to his death? I think it's because he actually cares about them as people. When he said to John "I'm sorry this happened to you," I don't think he was talking about the fall itself, I think he was talking about John being the biggest pawn of them all.

4) Is Jacob’s Nemesis really the Smoke Monster?

Here’s the $100,000 question, folks. I’m of two minds here:

Evidence for:

A) Both Smokey and the Nemesis are able to impersonate dead people on the Island

B) Both Smokey and the Nemesis can read minds (Zombie Locke certainly had access to all of Locke’s memories)

C) Christian certainly seemed to be manipulating Locke in order to create the loophole

D) Christian was the one inhabiting Jacob’s old cabin

E) The dead people Hurley saw also tried to convince him to come back to the Island in accordance with the Nemesis’ plan

F) Smokey, as Alex, certainly told Ben to obey the Nemesis

G) To everyone but Locke, Smokey appeared as a big, evil-looking black cloud. Locke saw something white. If Smokey was really the Nemesis, you would think he’d want to get on the good side of his ultimate pawn.

Evidence against:

A) Every time a body comes back to life on the Island, the body disappears. Locke’s body did not, suggesting it might have been a different form of impersonation.

B) Smokey could be summoned by Ben and seemed to serve a protective function for the Island. The Nemesis doesn’t strike me as that type.

C) Smokey seems obsessed with confession, redemption and “judging.” The Nemesis doesn’t strike me as having that sort of motive in mind.

D) Smokey specifically told Eko to make sure Locke keeps pressing the button and was so enraged when he failed, he killed him.

E) Zombie Locke seemed genuinely surprised to me when Ben told him what Alex told him to do.

F) The fact that Locke saw something totally different than everyone else when he saw the Monster does suggest that there might be two “Monsters” on the Island: Smokey, and the Nemesis, who appeared to Locke as something totally different.

G) Christian seemed to want to help Sun, who really had no big part to play in the Season 5 endgame.

Weighing the two bodies of evidence, I think the writers certainly want to suggest that they’re one and the same, but that seems like too much of a cop-out to me. I’d like to think Smokey is actually not the Nemesis, but rather an independent third party who could possibly be aligned with him instead. I think the Nemesis was certainly impersonating Christian, who seemed to be just a wee bit too critical in spurring Locke forward on the Nemesis’ chessboard. Likewise I think the Nemesis impersonated all the dead people everyone saw off-Island (including Christian there). Smokey Alex was also very, very invested in having Ben obey Zombie Locke. Granted she could have been doing that in concert with the Nemesis, but Smokey Alex certainly suggests they’re one and the same.

But it’s just weird to me that an evil god who could rival Jacob could 1) be summoned 2) cares about whether people actually redeem themselves or not 3) cares about the button being pushed, a rather crucial part of the Nemesis’ plan. Without The Discharge, Charles Widmore never finds the Island, Jack never makes the phone call, the Island never disappears. It’s at complete odds with his plan.

I actually think Smokey and the Nemesis must have some similar abilities and perhaps Smokey is even a minion of the Nemesis (he certainly helped him when he impersonated Alex). But I think I’d be a bit disappointed if Smokey and the Nemesis turned out to be one and the same.

5) So who are Jacob, the Nemesis and Smokey really?

You have to think they’re three gods or three god-like beings from Egyptian mythology. Let’s go over a few possibilities for each

For Jacob:

Horus, Osiris, Ra

Horus is probably the most likely here, given that the symbol at the top of his tapestry is the Eye of Horus, but these three deities are almost interchangeable in Egyptian mythology - the eye is also called the Eye of Ra.

For his Nemesis:

Anubis, Set, Apep

If Jacob is Horus, his Nemesis is probably Set, his rival. Likewise, if Jacob is Osiris/Ra, the Nemesis is probably Anubis/Apep. There are good reasons for the other two pairs - Anubis and Osiris are the two major players in the weighing of the heart ceremony, whereby a person's heart is judged and weighed to see if it's worthy to pass unto the afterlife. This ceremony has a third player who wasn't a god - Ammit, the devourer of souls. If Smokey was a third party, this is who I think he'd be (as I speculated before).

The Ra and Apep tandem basically represents day and night. Every night Apep kills Ra, who's resurrected every morning. If this is the case, it just became nighttime on the Island.

Realistically, it doesn’t matter which gods Jacob and his Nemesis really are. They represent good and evil, light and dark. They have an eternal conflict and evil just won a round. That’s really all we need to know here. And, y’know, I really love the fact that Lost has gotten back to this basic theme. Science and faith has been turned on its head this season (and faith has been proven to be a total tool). But light and dark is something we saw throughout the first season: backgammon, Locke’s eyes in Claire’s dream, the white and black stones found on Adam and Eve (wonder if we’ll ever see anyone come across those stones next season), but it’s something I felt the show had gotten away from and it’s awesome to see it finally return to it’s roots, so to speak.

6) Assuming it was really the Nemesis inside Jacob’s cabin, what did the ring of ash do? Who left the note in the cabin?

You’d have to think it was a containment circle, made to keep him prisoner. Ilana focused on the ring of ash just a little too long when she saw it was broken. Who broke the ash ring? I’m guessing Hurley, when he stumbled across the cabin back in "The Beginning of the End."

The whole cabin thing in general confuses me. Why did Ilana show up at the cabin first rather than going straight to the statue? Jacob has certainly lived in the statue for a very long time – why not go there first? Secondly, assuming Jacob actually imprisoned the Nemesis there, who left the note behind? The Nemesis, telling them what he was about to do or Jacob afterwards, letting Ilana know where to find him and that his Nemesis had escaped?

Lastly, Richard certainly knew who Jacob was and what he really looked like. He was the one responsible for bringing Ben messages and lists from Jacob and, presumably, showed Ben where he really lived at some point. So why did Ben bring Locke to the cabin? Did he not know that the Nemesis was imprisoned there? Must be – he probably just took Locke to what he thought was Horace’s old cabin (or perhaps he knew it was Jacob’s old cabin and thought it was abandoned) and put on a show. Unfortunately he brought Locke right to the Nemesis instead.

There is one other possibility as well - that the ring of ash was a protective circle made to keep something out (like Smokey), but it seems like the containment circle is a much more likely possibility at this point.

7) What did Richard say to Ilana? What was written on Jacob’s tapestry?

Richard said "Ille qui nos omnes servabit," Latin for "He who shall protect/save us all."

Across the top of the tapestry is a quote from Homer's Odyssey that says, "may the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires." A second quote farther down, also in Greek says, "may the gods grant thee happiness."

Seems everything here is saying in big, bright, white letters "JACOB IS THE GOOD GUY!" :)

8) Are the Others the descendants of the Black Rock crew?

I think Jacob brought the Black Rock to the Island to populate it, making at least some of the Others direct descendants of the Black Rock crew. This theory has been tossed around for a while and now knowing that Jacob himself is responsible for bringing the ship to the Island (as opposed to it being a complete accident) seems to give this more credence.

Of course, that still doesn’t explain how it got to the middle of the jungle. Sure, it could have been dragged, but that’s so boring.

9) So what is Ricardus’ role?

Richard is Jacob’s “advisor” who has had immortality bestowed on him by his benevolent boss. Seems to me he’s got to be the equivalent of a high priest of whatever deity Jacob really is. Ricardus is Latin for Richard.

10) What is Frank a “candidate” for?

Methinks it’s probably not an elected office one really wants to run for.

Ilana thought he might be important so he brought him along. Is he simply a "good person" or does she think he might have a larger role to play in everything? I certainly hope so, I love Frank! This past season we've lost Charlotte, Daniel and Juliet. Plus, things probably don't bode well for Miles. We'd better not lose Frank too else I'll be pissed! :)

What worries me is that candidate sounds vaguely sacrificial, although if Ilana's working for Jacob, that's probably not the case.

Over the weekend, I’m going to re-watch the finale from beginning to end and go through some past scenes that take on new significance in light of the finale. Tidbits and quotes too. :)

Edit: Part III of my review is here.