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Come at the King, You Best Not Miss


"Lost: The Incident, Part 1" (S5/E16) Recap / Daniel Carlson

TV Reviews | May 18, 2009 | Comments (90)


[The season finale of “Lost” was a two-part episode aired in one stretch on ABC, so for the sake of slightly easier reading, the recap has been broken accordingly into two halves.]

“The Incident,” the two-part finale of the fifth and penultimate season of “Lost,” was a wonderful episode, full of strong character moments, solid action, major revelations, and an appropriate feeling of rounding third and heading for home. The season ended on another killer cliffhanger — I don’t know what I’m going to do for eight months — but for maybe the first time, it was a season-closer that focused more on motivations and answers than setting up new mysteries. There are only, what, 17 more hours of the show before everything goes dark for the last time, and as such, the series’ story lines are beginning to home in on a final destination. Still, the episode offered up amazing new mysteries, colored in backstories in a fresh way, and set the stage for what will be a riveting final season. All in all, it was just damn good television.

The episode — written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender — opens with a very important sequence in the past, and it’s a pretty long time ago: A blond man in a white tunic is working a spinning wheel and weaving the thread into a tapestry hanging on the wall. The room he’s in is old and stone-walled, with a small fire pit at its center. The design includes Greek letters that spell the phrase “May the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires,” from Homer’s Odyssey. The man walks outside to retrieve a homemade cone to catch fish from the ocean; he’s on the island. He grills up the fish and reclines against a rock to see a sailing ship not far from shore, and it’s pretty obvious the ship is the Black Rock. He’s then approached by a man with graying hair in a dark tunic, and they exchange stiff pleasantries. The older man says he’s there because of the ship, then infers that the younger man was the one who brought them to the island to prove the older man wrong. “They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt,” the older one says. “It always ends the same.” The younger one replies, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” The men exchange a cold, dull look, and the older one asks, “Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?” The younger one says he does, and the older man says that he’ll eventually succeed in finding a “loophole.” As he stands to leave, the older man delivers the episode’s first killer reveal when he says, “Nice talking to you, Jacob.” Jacob returns the false compliment, though he doesn’t address his companion by name. As the older man walks away, the camera pulls back and tilts up to reveal the four-toed statue in all its glory, closer than we’ve ever seen. Now that the profile can be seen, showing the head of a crocodile, it’s clear the statue is definitely of Taweret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth.

Flashback: A childhood Kate is with her friend, Tom Brennan — recognizable from his toy plane — in the parking lot of a convenience store on Iowa. She enlists him as a lookout, and they enter the store so she can steal a New Kids on the Block lunchbox. (Kate, like all girls of that era, was a sucker for rat-tails.) She almost gets away with it, but she’s stopped by the store owner, who snatches her bag and tells her to wait while he calls her parents and the cops. But before anyone can be called, Jacob appears, looking just as young as he did in the 1800s, and offers to pay the owner for the lunchbox. The owner totally caves and says that as long as it’s paid for, there’s no harm done, but that’s just the kind of willy-nilly flip-flopping that led to the thievery in the first place. Jacob passes Kate the lunchbox and leans down to have a friendly chat with her, and he seems warm and unassuming even though there’s an underlying air of calculation. He asks her if she’s going to steal again, and she shakes her head no. He gives her a playful boop on the nose, tells her to be good, and walks away. It’s an interesting scene because the lunch box would go on to become the time capsule Kate and Tom buried, but also because of how Kate and Jacob interacted: He physically touched her, and when he asked her a question about her actions, she lied. She would steal again. (Like when she stole Jack’s heart! SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

In 1977, Kate, Juliet, and Sawyer are still cuffed in the submarine as it prepares to head for the mainland. Kate tells Sawyer she got caught coming back to get him to help her stop Jack from blowing up a hydrogen bomb. Sawyer asks why Jack would want to do that, and Kate asks, “Does it matter?” Yes, Kate, you nutbag, it does. Kate says they have to break out and get back and stop him, but Sawyer tells her he was happy before the Oceanic Six showed back up, and now he just wants to drink the sedative, ride out the sub trip, and see what happens in the real world. “If Jack wants blow up the island,” he says, “then good for Jack.”

Back in the tunnels, Jack, Richard, and Eloise are shuffling their feet next to the bomb while Sayid flips through Daniel’s journal and realizes they don’t have to move Jughead in its entirety, just the plutonium core. Daniel even left instructions. Sayid gets set to start dismantling the bomb, but Richard tells him to wait, asking Eloise if a pregnant woman should really expose herself to potentially deadly radiation levels. (So she has indeed already conceived the man she just killed.) Sayid tells them that once they get the core out, they’ll only have about two hours until the incident Daniel predicted. This is a pleasingly tight turn of events for many reasons: It sets a timetable for the episode, which heightens the tension, but also once more plays out as so many of the episodes have in this season, covering no more than a couple hours per installment. The two-hour timeline means the 1977 events will play out in something approximating real time, too.

Over at the Swan site, Radzinsky douchily pulls up in a blue van and douches, “Who stopped the damn drill?” Dr. Chang, standing by the equipment, says, “I did,” adding that the drill went past 70 meters and experienced a 60-degree temperature spike. Radzinsky douchily rolls his eyes and douches that they’ve got a hose and water at the ready to keep the drill cool. Chang, not unreasonably, points out that they’ve just evacuated the island of nonessential personnel and are in the middle of an insurrection, so it might be prudent to delay construction. But Radzinsky doesn’t want to hear it, whining that he’s been working for six years on designing a station that can manipulate electromagnetism in new ways. “I came to this island to change the world Pierre,” he says. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.” He steps past Chang and slams the button on the side of the drill, causing the machinery to rumble to life.

In 2007 — I used to think it was 2008 because that’s when Ajira 316 took off, but a a clip show in April set these events in 2007; my apologies — Locke is leading Ben, Richard, Sun, and a group of Others on a cross-island pilgrimage to see Jacob. Sun asks Ben who Jacob is, and he explains that Jacob is “in charge of this island.” She’s confused, saying she thought Ben had told her Locke was running the show, but Ben says that Locke is the leader — “a title that I’ve discovered is incredibly temporary” — and that the leader always answers to Jacob. Sun asks what he’s like, and Ben replies with a wonderfully tired, forced tone, as if he’s growing weary of acting against his will: “I don’t know, Sun, I’ve never met him.” Meanwhile, Richard tells Locke that Ben had said he’d strangled Locke to death, and he wants to know how Locke is alive. Locke replies that Richard’s been around a lot longer and would know better than Locke how it happened, but Richard isn’t biting. “I’ve seen things on this island that I can barely describe,” Richard says, “but I have never seen someone come back to life.” Locke says he’d never seen anyone that didn’t age, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Richard says he’s the way he is because of Jacob, and guesses that Jacob is also the reason Locke isn’t in his coffin. “I agree with you completely,” Locke says, adding that that’s why he wants to thank Jacob for what he’s done. He goes on to say that once he’s done that, he and Richard will need to “deal with” the rest of the passengers from Ajira 316, and when Richard asks for clarification, Locke curtly says, “You know what I mean.” With that, he shoulders his pack and summons the group to get moving again.

Meanwhile, Ilana, Bram, and a couple others are piloting an outrigger back to the main island, carrying the giant silver cargo crate and an unconscious Frank Lapidus, whose shirt is still open to reveal a swath of silver shag to make Burt Reynolds jealous. They reach the shore and start unpacking, and Bram pissily asks why they even brought Frank in the first place. Ilana says they might need him, even though he didn’t know the answer to the question. “What, you think he’s a candidate?” Bram asks. Instead of responding, Ilana looks down at Frank and realizes he’s awake. Bram roughly drags Frank out of the boat and passes him a canteen, then helps the others get the crate to shore. Frank asks Ilana what’s in the box, and when Bram says that it’s her call whether to reveal it to Frank, she tells the other men to open the lid. They pop the top as Frank walks over, and he’s stunned by what’s inside. “Terrific,” he growls. Cuse and Lindelof don’t reveal what’s in there just yet — they need a narrative hook to push the episode along — but if it was on the plane, and disturbing enough to make Frank worry, there aren’t too many things it could be.

Flashback: A casket is carried by a line of mourners outside a church and loaded into a hearse as a young boy watches. Later, the boy sits on the steps of the church and tries to write in a notebook when his pen dries up. Jacob appears and offers him a new pen, saying the boy can keep it. He lets his hand linger a moment as he passes the pen, touching his hand to the boy’s, then says, “I’m very sorry about your mother and father, James.” And then he walks off. Taking the new pen, the young James Ford returns to writing the letter of revenge to Anthony Cooper, Locke’s father, that will drive his life for decades. His uncle Doug approaches and tells him they have to go to the cemetery, then asks to see what he’s writing. Examining the note, Doug tells James that his parents are gone, and there’s nothing he can do to change it. It’s unbelievably harsh and not at all what a kid would need to hear, but it’s being done out of purported narrative necessity, since the “What’s done is done” philosophy will affect everything from Sawyer’s reluctance to reach out for Kate when he sees her while skipping through time to his resignation to a larger fate once the incident approaches. Doug makes James promise not to finish the letter, and James says he won’t, and they head off. Again, Jacob made a specific effort to touch James, and the boy lied about what he would do with his life.

In 1977, Sawyer is getting his head around Kate’s explanation of Jack’s plan to nuke the Swan and “reset” everything. Sawyer says he’s sticking with his decision to leave. Mitch enters with a tray of sedatives, but when he approaches, Juliet grabs his head and slams it on the table, knocking him out cold. She pulls the gun and keys from his belt and undoes her cuffs, telling Sawyer that they’d decided together to leave the island, and now they’re going back. Moments later, they head to the bridge and hold the captain at gunpoint, removing his weapon. Sawyer tells him to surface the sub, and Juliet drives her gun into his throat to make her point. She tells him to proceed on course once he lets them go, and Sawyer shoots out the radio to keep him from talking to Horace later or vice versa. Turning back to the instruments, the captain begins to take the sub up to the surface.

Down in the tunnels, Jack grabs a knapsack from the supplies while Sayid extracts Jughead’s plutonium core. Richard checks the tools available and selects a sledgehammer, then saunters over to have a chat with Jack. He says that more than 20 years earlier, he was visited on the island by a man named John Locke who said he would one day lead the Others. Richard’s left the island three times to visit Locke, but the boy has never shown any special ability or aptitude. Jack, who hasn’t been able to hide the fact that he recognized the name, admits to knowing Locke, adding, “If I were you, I wouldn’t give up on him.”

Back in 2007, as the Others continue their march, Locke sidles up to Ben and asks why he hasn’t filled Richard in on Locke’s plan to kill Jacob. “I assumed you’d want to keep that a secret,” Ben says. Locke, grinning like a bastard, says, “When did that ever stop you?” Ben says he had a change of heart when Alex visited him after he saw the monster and told him to follow Locke’s every word. Locke turns to Ben and asks him again if he’ll really do whatever Locke says, and Ben — by now beyond humiliation — grits his teeth and says, “Yes.” Locke says that’s good news, since now Ben won’t need any additional convincing. Confused, Ben asks what he means, and Locke says, “I’m not gonna kill Jacob, Ben. You are.”

Flashback: Sayid and Nadia are in Los Angeles, talking about how they want to celebrate their anniversary. They come to a crosswalk and move onto the street, but Sayid is stopped by Jacob, who’s on the sidewalk. He’s holding a map and asks for help, placing his hand on Sayid’s shoulder as he asks for directions. Just then, Nadia stops in the crosswalk and turns back to Sayid, holding up the pair of sunglasses she’d been looking for, when she’s suddenly plowed over by an SUV. It’s a tragic, dramatic moment that gets to the heart of Sayid’s future pain, but I still laughed. The car comes out of nowhere! And she should have known better than to stand in the street like that. Sayid runs to her as the car speeds away, and she looks up at him sadly, whispering in Arabic, “Take me home. Take me home.” The set-up seems too coincidental for Jacob not to be involved in the hit and run, but for what purpose?

In 1977, Sayid wraps the plutonium core and secures it in the backpack and tells everyone to move out. Carrying a lantern and sledgehammer — you know, just stuff a dude needs — Richard leads them out into the tunnels, eventually stopping at a wall he tests by knocking. Telling the rest to stand back, he swings the sledge a few times, breaking through the stone to reveal the basement of a house in the Barracks. (Is this the house Ben will live in later, or did the Others eventually connect multiple houses to the Tunnels?) Jack volunteers to go first, but Eloise asserts her leadership and says she’ll take point and the others can follow. She steps past Richard and tells Sayid to wait for her signal, but before she can go in, Richard cracks her head with the butt of his gun and catches her unconscious body before it hits the ground. Jack asks what he’s doing, but Richard says, “I’m protecting our leader,” then raises the pistol to keep Jack at bay. So apparently Eloise was once the leader of the Hostiles. “She ordered me to help you; we helped you; now you’re on your own,” Richard says. This is another smart narrative move that also makes sense for the story, since keeping Eloise and Richard out of the rest of the 1977 arc will keep it less cluttered, but it’s also reasonable that Richard would do this and force Jack and Sayid to go forward alone.

Heading upstairs, Jack and Sayid find a deserted house. The alarms are still blaring, and outside, DHARMA people are running around like mad trying to organize the evacuation. Sayid spots a jumpsuit hanging near the door — it’s Horace’s — and says their best bet is to hide in plain sight and move through the Barracks as quickly and quietly as possible. They head out, passing security guards and armed men along the way, including Phil, who’s busy issuing orders. They make it to a more open area and are almost away clean when Roger Linus spots them and shouts, raising his rifle. He identifies Sayid as the one who shot young Ben, and Sayid tells him not to fire because he’s got a bomb, but Roger doesn’t care a bit about the massive detonation. He shoots Sayid (!!!) in the gut (!!!!!7!!), and Jack returns fire as Roger runs off. All hell pretty much breaks loose as Jack gets into a firefight while picking up Sayid and attempting to help him walk to cover, eventually collapsing against the rear of a house. Jack drops a few more DHARMA guys as a blue van comes speeding toward him, and he fires a couple times at that, as well. But it pulls up and the door slides open to reveal Jin, Miles, and Hurley at the wheel. Jack smiles like this is the most fun day of summer camp evar as he drags Sayid into the van, then shouts at Hurley to drive them out of there. Hurley peels out and heads into the jungle, the rear window blowing out from gunfire.

Meanwhile, Juliet, Sawyer, and Kate are paddling a life raft toward the shore as the sub goes back below the water. Sawyer and Kate have a slightly flirty moment where they bicker about which side of the island they’re approaching, as Juliet forlornly watches the sub disappear. Once they hit land, Kate thanks Juliet for backing up her escape plan on the sub, which doesn’t exactly thrill Juliet, but she takes it in stride. Sawyer admits he doesn’t know where they are, and then Vincent the dog runs out of the jungle toward them, barking happily. I had a fleeting moment of panic that they’d entered yet another time period, since it takes precise vector calculation to leave and return to the island, and maybe the sub had surfaced at the wrong moment and their return trip put them in 2004-2005, but nope. Sawyer asks Vincent where he’s been since the flaming arrow attack three years earlier, but he gets his answer a moment later when, at long last, Rose and Bernard finally reappear. Rose is standing there holding Vincent’s rope leash, and she calls for Bernard, who comes scampering over the small hill and down to the beach, brandishing a tall walking stick and sporting an awesome beard that’s somewhere between grizzled and Brillo bush. “They found us,” Rose says with an air of defeat. Bernard just shakes his head and chimes in with, “Son of a bitch.”

Out in the jungle, the van is still tearing like hell down a dirt path, and it’s a great, tense, frenetic scene. Jack examines Sayid’s wound as he lies on the floor of the van, while Hurley and Miles shout at each other about everything. Jack tells Hurley to head to the Swan construction site if he wants to save Sayid’s life; he even tells Jin that if they go there, he can probably get Jin back to his wife.

Not far away, Rose and Bernard are leading Juliet, Kate, and Sawyer through the trees, explaining that they’ve been living happily on their own for the past three years. Sawyer asks if they heard his cry during the attack to meet at the creek, and Bernard shoots back, “While flaming arrows rained down around us, killing everyone we knew? Oh sure, we heard you.” Bernard became a man in his three years in the woods, I guess. Rose and Bernard say they knew Sawyer had sent Jin looking for them after he joined DHARMA, but they stayed hidden because they’re retired and didn’t want to deal with it. Showing off the hut they’ve built, Bernard says people try their whole lives to get a vacation home near the ocean, so they’re happy. Even the news that Jack has a bomb doesn’t faze them; “It’s always something with you people,” Rose says. It’s a funny little moment that punctures the drama, albeit briefly, letting the main characters know that there are other worlds than the one they’re wrapped up in. And yet, Rose and Bernard are acting pretty dumb, too. Threatened with imminent death by H-bomb, Bernard says, “So we die. We just care about being together.” You know what’s a good way to stay together, Bernie? BEING ALIVE. He might as well have said, “My wife and I have achieved simple bliss and discovered a deeper love than we ever knew possible. Shoot us in the head.” Makes no sense. But the point of the exchange is actually to let Juliet smile and look at Sawyer, and see that he’s casting a sidelong glance at Kate. Juliet’s sad realization that he really does still care for Kate is a killer. Rose points the way to the Barracks, and Sawyer and Kate take their leave, but Bernard offers Juliet some tea before she leaves. There are light tears in her eyes, and Bernard sees she’s upset about something big, but she just tells him, “Maybe another time.” Then she leaves. When she spoke, her hand trailed to her stomach, though whether it was out of heartbreak or something else — something that rhymes with blegnant — remains to be seen.

Up in 2007, Ilana and Bram are leading their crew plus Frank through the jungle. Frank tells Bram he wishes he’d never seen what was in the trunk, and Bram says they have to show it to “somebody” so that person can “know what they’re up against,” and further that it’s a “hell of a lot scarier than what’s in this box.” The writers are being purposely vague about the contents of the crate, and it’s fun. Bram reassures Frank that he and Ilana are “the good guys,” but Frank says, “In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.” It’s a cute enough line, but misleading: The real meat of the series has been that there are no good guys or bad guys, just a bunch of people acting in their own self-interest. Everyone would say they’re the good guys. No one really is. Ilana calls a halt as they reach their destination: Jacob’s Teleportational Ghost Cabin, sitting in the woods, encircled by a line of ash, and even creepy in the broad daylight. Bram shows Ilana a place in the circle where the ash is broken, showing maybe a foot of earth before the circle continues again. She tells them to wait, steps over the line, and gingerly approaches the house.

Flashback: A dingy hospital somewhere. Ilana is in a bed, her face bandaged except for her mouth and right eye. A nurse approaches and speaks what sounds like Russian, giving Ilana a drink through a straw and telling her she has a visitor, her first. The nurse leaves as Jacob appears, drawing up a chair and also speaking Russian, telling Ilana he’s sorry he didn’t come sooner. She responds in the same language that she’s happy to see him, though she looks more beaten and worried than anything. Switching to English, Jacob says, “I’m here because I need your help. Can you do that?” She nods and says yes, but she doesn’t look jazzed about it.

Back up in 2007, Ilana enters the rotted out cabin, which looks even dirtier than before: Torn curtains, leaves everywhere, broken wood. The framed painting of the dog sits on its side, leaning against the wall. Ilana spots a long knife — the same one Jacob used to cut and clean his fish at the beginning of the episode — stuck into a wall, holding a scrap of cloth. Taking it down, she exits the cabin, telling Bram that “he isn’t there,” he’s been gone for a while, and “someone else” has been using the house. She orders the others to torch the cabin, ignoring Frank’s reasonable question about whether the fire might wind up, you know, sweeping through the jungle. As the flames begin to grow, Ilana hands Bram the cloth from inside the cabin, which depicts the giant statue on the island’s shore. “I guess we know where we’re going,” he says. He and the other men grab the crate by its bamboo handles and set off once more.

Flashback: Jacob is sitting on a bench in front of what looks like a large office building, reading Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge, a collection of short stories. There’s the sound of breaking glass, and then a man falls to earth a few yards behind Jacob. As people rush over and shout for help, Jacob calmly inserts his bookmark and walks over to the man, who is (naturally) John Locke, just pushed out a window by his abusive father. Jacob touches Locke’s shoulder, rousing the man to consciousness (bringing him back to life?), then tells him not to worry and that everything will be okay. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” Jacob says, the same sentiment he’s been peddling in one form or another to everyone he’s visited. Locke watches him walk away.

In 2007, Locke is at the head of the group when they reach the old beach camp first built by the survivors of Oceanic 815. Locke tells everyone they’ll be at Jacob’s by nightfall, so they should take this time to rest up. “Considering what I have planned for you, you’re gonna need it.” No one seems to think this is weird or even a little ominous, but that’s probably because they’re Others and have seen and done some weird stuff. Locke walks over to Ben, who’s sitting watching the water, and asks how things are going. “I was enjoying some alone time,” he says. It’s a funny line, but also another reminder of how much has changed since Ben first appeared as Henry Gale. He used to be in control of everything; now he’s a defeated pawn for John Locke. Locke even points to the ruined door to the Swan station behind them, talking about how they first met in the hatch. Locke wants to know if he can ask Ben something, but Ben fires back, “I’m a Pisces.” This guy is on point! Two for two inside a minute! Undeterred, Locke asks what happened when Ben first took him to meet Jacob. Ben swallows his pride for the thousandth time and says he knows Locke is already aware Ben was talking to an empty chair, pretending someone was there. But he adds he was just as surprised as Locke was “when things started flying around the room.” Ben says he made it up because he was embarrassed about never having seen Jacob, and he didn’t want Locke to know. “So yes, I lied,” Ben says. “That’s what I do.” Frustrated and tired, Ben asks Locke why he has to be the one to kill Jacob, and Locke lays it out for him: Ben spent years serving the island and still got cancer; he witnessed his own daughter’s murder; as a reward for his sacrifice, he was banished; and he did it all in the name of a man he’d never seen. “So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob?” With that, Locke walks away, but it’s clear his words had the desired effect on Ben, whose anguish is hardening into resolve. This is also an important exchange because it does more to highlight the changes in Locke than any other, the changes he’s clearly been demonstrating since he led Ben to visit the monster. Locke was the man of faith to Jack’s man of science, but he’s now asking Ben to question his faith and reassess his ideas about morality, servitude, and desire; in other words, he’s pushing Ben into some thorny theodicy issues he’d previously ignored or countered. A little ways down the beach, Sun walks through the wrecked camp and finds the small crib Locke built for Claire in the first season, and Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring is still caught in the folds of the blanket. (Poor guy.)

Flashback: Sun and Jin are getting married. They exchange heartfelt vows — he had to write his down out of nervousness — and he tells her they’ll never be apart. Later on, standing in the receiving line, Jacob walks up to wish them well. He places a hand on each of their shoulders and tells them their love is a special thing, and that they should never take it for granted. He gives a small bow and walks away, and though Jin and Sun both say they didn’t know him, Jin admits that “his Korean is excellent.”

Back in 1977, Hurley is still driving hell for leather through the woods, telling Jack they’re only five minutes from the Swan site. Sayid looks up at him with a doomed grin, saying, “You can’t stop the bleeding.” Jin hands Jack fresh dressings for Sayid’s wound, while Miles wants to know what exactly the point is of blowing up the station. Sayid says he can rig the bomb to detonate on impact, but they’ll need to be there at the moment of the incident “or all this will be for nothing.” Just then, Hurley slams on the brakes, and Jack asks, “Why the hell are we stopping?” Hurley points and says, “That’s why.” Rising up, Jack looks out to see Juliet, Sawyer, and Kate standing in the road, armed. As is so often the case, the survival of the survivors is going to come down to a Jack vs. Sawyer grudge match.

And that’s Part 1. It’s a solid installment and wonderful set-up for the second half, wherein major answers are given and greater mysteries revealed. I’ll save any major theorizing for that recap; for now, know that, if nothing else, Ben Linus is not one to be ignored or manipulated.

Daniel Carlson is the managing editor of Pajiba and a TV critic for The Hollywood Reporter. You can visit his blog, Slowly Going Bald.


Pajiba Love 05/18/09 | 2009 Upfronts - Fox's 2009/2010 Schedule



Comments

I love LOST...it's my crack. That being said, I was kind of disappointed in the finale. Anyone else feel me on this?

Posted by: Ceej at May 18, 2009 2:05 PM

squee! i've been waiting for this! (literally, checking every hour to see if it's up....it's the only thing that motivates me on a monday) thank you daniel!! yay!

Posted by: gem at May 18, 2009 2:17 PM

I still have to read the entire thing, but just wanted to point out Taweret has a hippo's head, not a crocodile's head. Sobek's the one who has a crocodile's head.

Posted by: Thijs at May 18, 2009 2:20 PM

Omar would be proud of the article title.

Posted by: Jonathan Grubbs at May 18, 2009 2:22 PM

I love LOST like any red-blooded American, but I don't really understand the purpose of these recaps. There's no information besides exactly what happened in the episode in the exact order that it was presented. There's hardly any review, theorizing, speculation, or insight anywhere. Is the point of this to prove that you watched the episode a few times on abc.com?

Bring back the Beatles quotes. That was the only good part.

Posted by: mc at May 18, 2009 2:26 PM

Ceej, I do not feel you. The season finale blew my mind. And "I'm a Pisces" was the funniest line of the episode. I had to pause... the totally legal broadcast I was watching.

Re: the first scene, though I've seen it discussed as a reference to a Biblical dialogue between God and Satan, it reminded me of nothing more than classical vs. Modern philosophy. Jacob's nemesis was an ancient Greek, believing history is a circle, growing, dying, and being born again. Jacob himself was a Hegelian, what with the history as progress, thesis/antithesis thing. Anyone feel me?

Posted by: jkate at May 18, 2009 2:28 PM

I thought (along with many others) the statue was Sobek.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 2:29 PM

Loved the episode and love these recaps. I'm usually pretty open minded to all viewpoints on a topic, but I really wish that the negative people would just keep their mouths shut when it comes to Lost. If you didn't like the show (or the recap), then go away. You're not going to change anyone's mind around these parts. It drove me crazy going online last Thursday to read different angles of the finale only to get a bunch of columnists talking about why this episode validated how much they already hated Lost. Get over the fact that you don't have the attention span for the show and go sulk in your own corners.

With that little rant out of the way, I will now read this recap, and the ensuing comments, that I have been looking forward to since 11:02 last Wednesday.

Posted by: katy at May 18, 2009 2:36 PM

Sobek? Taweret?

I thought it was the Gorn from Star Trek. :- )

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 18, 2009 2:39 PM

@ mc: There's no information besides exactly what happened in the episode in the exact order that it was presented. That IS the point of a "recap". It's actually the very definition of a recap.

I like reading them because Mr. Carlson may well have caught a detail that I missed, like on a bathroom break (or more likely an ice cream break). Then, in the comment threads, there is the theorizing, the speculation, the insight, etc. Lots of the commenters here have some great knowledge about ideas represented in the eps that others of us may not know about. For instance, I studied Greek and Roman mythology long long ago, but never really Egyptian. And, of course, nobody is forcing you to read them if you don't enjoy them.

I don't have time to read this now, sadly, but I can't wait to get home. I can tell you what I'll be doing for the next 8 months, though: pacing my way through the first five seasons on DVD in preparation for the final. Woo!

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 18, 2009 2:39 PM

Ceej, much as I found the episode riveting I was bothered by a lot of it, namely:

1) Juliet changing her mind several times to the point where she became unlikable, and made Sawyer seem like an idiot for going along with her.

2) Jack's plan--blowing up the Island to change the future so they never crashed--is so poorly thought out (as Miles points out, maybe blowing up the Swan was what caused the Incident) that it boggles the mind, and yet the whole gang are willing to shoot a bunch of innocent people in order to do it.

3) When did Jack become so proficient with firearms? Sayid, Sawyer, Kate, even Miles (who presumably had training during 3 years as a security guard) I could buy, but I don't remember Jack becoming a crack shot. At least they didn't have Hurley jumping through obstacles and popping targets.

4) Unless Ben has something deep up his sleeve--which he may, depending on how Season 6 plays out--it seems out of character for him to be so easily manipulated by Bizarro Locke.

It just seemed forced; like the writers were trying to say "we need to get to point B, screw it, just have the characters do this".

Posted by: Bd at May 18, 2009 2:48 PM

Ceej, this finale was probably the worst of the five, but it was still very good. Perhaps I let my expectations get a little too high after the last two outrageously good finales.

Now to read the recap.

Posted by: ed newman at May 18, 2009 2:52 PM

mc, the definition of "recap." Look it up.

Posted by: Captain Cliche at May 18, 2009 2:53 PM

She would steal again. (Like when she stole Jack’s heart!

HAHAHA! I just choked on a nacho. I said the exact same thing during the episode except I said Sawyer's heart. And when I just read it, I heard it in Jason Segel's voice from Forgetting Sarah Marshall when he's telling her that his dick doesn't want to be around her anymore. You deserve a round of applause for these recaps, Dan. They have been the highlights of my Mondays and I have had many inappropriate bursts of laughter in the middle of class because of them.

Posted by: jM at May 18, 2009 3:03 PM

Yeah, Miles just confirmed his awesomeness for me by pointing out the obvious. Maybe whatever happened, happened. But they don't necessarily know what happened. History is written by the victors, and also, sometimes, by the uninformed. It's also worth noting that history is rarely written by physicists.

Posted by: jkate at May 18, 2009 3:06 PM

Very good points bd, those things bothered me as well. The firefight was just ridiculous. I was wondering when Jack had his Rambo training. And Kate did the whole flip-flop thing too.

But even with its faults, I loved the whole two hours. I'm so curious as to what Jacob's visits were all about. He obviously chose the Losties, but for what? The redemption of humankind? To save himself from BSG (Black Shirt Guy, not Battlestar Galactica)? Were all the Losties destined to die prematurely, and Jacob is trying to save their souls?

Speaking of which, I'm still trying to figure out the whole BSG has taken over Locke's body, and why thing. If he just needed a dead guy, he didn't need Locke. Maybe he needed to be in the body of the Leader of the Others to get into Jacob's foothouse?

And of course, the discussion will continue into Part II, but I'm certain the white screen indicated another time flash and not the bomb blowing everything to smithereens (nor causing the un-crash).

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 3:06 PM

I feel you Ceej. Not only is it my least favorite finale for Lost, it was one of my least favorite episodes and that is saying something considering it was the death episode for my beloved Juliet Burke.

Posted by: DemonWaterPolo at May 18, 2009 3:13 PM

Oh! And I came back to say that Kolby pointed out to me at some point that the fish Jacob is eating in the beginning of the ep is a red herring. HA!

And also that it's actually Sobek in the statue, but Thijs beat me to that.

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 18, 2009 3:14 PM

From the episode summary on the official Lost portion of the ABC website. "And as the camera pulls back, we see what we've been waiting to see since we first glimpsed that four-toed foot over three years ago... the towering, majestic statue of the Egyptian goddess Taweret." She is the god of pregnancy of and childbirth.

Posted by: Rachel at May 18, 2009 3:20 PM

I thought this episode was awesome. My only quibble was with Rose and Bernard. It's all fine and dandy that they've managed to create some form of "retirement paradise", but their attitude was so unbelievably selfish. Sure, Rose is cancer-free and *they* are together, but there are a whole lot of other people involved - a whole bunch of them dead now. Presumably restting things via Jack's plan would bring those characters back to life and everyone would go on their merry way. And I do understand that the main characters wouldn't be going back to much of a life, but maybe that would be better than the mental torture they've been living with for the past 3 years.

Posted by: elsie at May 18, 2009 3:21 PM

Here's a theory about the statue from Lostpedia:

The four-toed statue was the Ancient Egyptian goddess, Taweret who was a patron of childbirth and a protector of women and children. She was also believed to guard the path to the underworld. Although it is unknown when this statue was destroyed, its destruction led to the inability for women to give birth on the island. Furthermore, its destruction led to the inability of the dead, like Christian and Claire, to move on and forced them to wander the island.

Posted by: Rachel at May 18, 2009 3:22 PM

Cindy>> I'm not sure how you could be certain of the nature of the white flash. I'm not sure what the explanation is, and I don't expect that a nuclear blast killed all our main characters in that moment, but why would another time flash occur at that moment?

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 18, 2009 3:22 PM

Well color me ignorant Rachel. Thanks for the correct info. Sorry Daniel!

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 3:22 PM

I just wanted to point out that I, for one, love these recaps. Right now I am currently without cable and have to watch the eps online. Believe me, I miss a whole bunch of the really fine details. I read these recaps to see what I missed, as well as to read the ensuing discussion. There are certain people that typically contribute to these threads that just make my jaw drop with their knowledge and insight.

Posted by: elsie at May 18, 2009 3:25 PM

The owner totally caves and says that as long as it’s paid for, there’s no harm done, but that’s just the kind of willy-nilly flip-flopping that led to the thievery in the first place.

I think this is more Jacob "pushing" the store owner a la Firestarter than a mere flip-flop.

they don’t have to move Jughead in its entirety, just the plutonium core

And so the mysteries of how it got underground in the first place and why it wasn't buried in concrete remain unanswered.

Richard cracks her head with the butt of his gun and catches her unconscious body before it hits the ground.

You want to protect the pregnant lady, so you give her a concussion. Nice thinking Richard.

Showing off the hut they’ve built...>>The framed painting of the dog sits on its side

This hut didn't become "Jacob's" cabin did it? It looked different but I wasn't sure.

some tea before she leaves

Hee


And I'll save the rest of my questions and theories for the second half recap. Continued great work Dan.

Posted by: ed newman at May 18, 2009 3:27 PM

What do you guys think regarding Miles' theory that htye actually caused the incident? Do you think they changed the past? If they DID succeed in changing things, wouldn't the entire second storyline of Locke, Richard, and Ben in 2007 be moot?

Posted by: Rachel at May 18, 2009 3:28 PM

This season has been awesome. I really do not understand people's complaining. I also thought the finale was great. It answered A LOT of questions, deepened the mythology of the show, and laid the groundwork for the final season. This show is a ride, a slow reveal, and if people don't have the patience to wait for the payoff, please leave. You're harshing my mellow.

Posted by: adam at May 18, 2009 3:36 PM

Rachel, that's likely what happened--no one could possibly know what a hydrogen blast would do to some supernatural electromagnetic field (and why Jack being so sure of himself as to what it would do was so strange--if he had something more to go on besides Daniel's brief crazed ranting before he himself go shot by his Mom, it'd be easier to accept) and it very well might have been the "incident".

However, how this would change the 2007 storyline is hard to say--since it's not clear what changing the past in 1977 would do to the characters in 2007. Maybe those changes explain why the Dharma camp in '07 looked bombed out, or why certain people on Ajira were "raptured" off the plane.

Good points above about Rose and Bernard--while their reaction was amusing ("oh, it's always something with you crazy soap opera kids!") it also didn't make sense that they'd accept a nuclear explosion with such indifference.

Here's hoping season six fixes these inconsistencies, by showing Jack going through Green Beret training before going back to the island, and Sawyer spending years sniffing enough glue that he goes along with every changing whim that Juliet has, Rose and Bernard cultivating a potent form of peyote that makes them indifferent to life and death, and there being an in flight movie on the Ajira flight that explains convincingly why a nuclear explosion on a mysterious electromagnetic field will fix everything up and back to normal.

Posted by: Bd at May 18, 2009 3:43 PM

But.. but... Tawaret has a hippo face, not a crocodile, and also a cloven hoof! Not four toes! (OK, some versions have the four toes.)

BUT! Also! that is most definitely an ankh that the statue is holding, exactly like the one Sobek holds. Some versions of Tawaret (who makes more sense as a fertility god) have a much larger ankh, but most of the ones I found do not. Ack!

Also, Sobek later became considered a fertility god as well, and "Sobek's ambiguous nature led some Egyptians to believe that he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself,". Granted, this is from Wikipedia, so I've gotta take it with block of salt, but still! That makes sense too! DAMN YOU AND YOUR AMBIGUOUS STATUES, LOST!

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 18, 2009 3:54 PM

I really don't know how I will wait until 2010 to find out what happens, sigh.

I really love the recaps and can't wait to read part 2.

Posted by: Alli at May 18, 2009 3:56 PM

LOVED the finale, LOVED it. I prefer Sobek to Tawaret, also. Not sure why ABC would confirm it as the latter.

I have no idea where this is going.


Also, this cracked me up a bit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5sI3_X9zPo

Posted by: Flippy at May 18, 2009 3:57 PM

Wow! you're really fired up about the statue Anna von B. All I know is what ABC tells me...which is not much.

Posted by: Rachel at May 18, 2009 4:00 PM

I got the feeling that with Nadia's death it was more of a Jacob saving Sayid thing, rather than a Jacob killing Nadia thing.

Jack's biggest reason for going with his gut is because he just knows it's his destiny. He's a Colbert hero right now, thinking with his gut rather than his head. At least he's not thinking with his wiener anymore.

As a big Locke fan, I'm starting to have my doubts about his version of destiny. I think Jack is going to have a hard lesson about this right quick at the beginning of next season.

Posted by: katy at May 18, 2009 4:08 PM

Great review, and amazing season finale. I always love reading these. Although, are we going to have to wait until next Monday for The Incident Part 2 recap? I really don't think I can wait that long.

[Not to worry; it'll be up tomorrow. —Dan]

Posted by: zach at May 18, 2009 4:30 PM

Cindy>> I'm not sure how you could be certain of the nature of the white flash.

I guess I'm certain in my own mind - that's what I mean. In Live Together, Die Alone, the massive buildup of electromagnetic energy sucked metal objects in toward the hatch similarly to what we saw before Juliet detonates the bomb. I think the bomb combined with the energy is in fact "The Incident" - and that history will generally continue to be fulfilled before our eyes, so to speak. Do we really think that the bomb detonation reset history and undid everything? My answer is "no". Do we think that the bomb blew up the island and that's the end of everything? Again, my answer is "no". The only thing that makes sense in my mind - and that will allow the show to go on - is a time flash. And since the flashes have thus far been represented by white light, it makes sense to me.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 4:44 PM

Thank you Dan. My worries are gone. Now I just need to find a way to hold out until January for the next season. So what was the significance of the fish at the very beginning. I have seen a lot of people calling that a red herring, but a red herring for what?

Posted by: zach at May 18, 2009 4:46 PM

Is anybody else pissed to know that Radzinsky survives? Every time that douche is onscreen I pray for someone to shoot him, knowing that it won't happen until he does it himself...in 20 freaking years!

Posted by: cmr at May 18, 2009 5:13 PM

Cindy>> I think the bomb went off, and that's the white flash. However, some sort of electromagnetic alchemy occurred that contained the blast so that the island was damaged but not destroyed, and history was preserved. If our heroes were spirited away to another time, which seems likely given the public statement of "no more time travel" in season six and the need to put all the players in the same time period to make an interesting story, how and why that happened remains to be seen. Could it be that combination of the explosion and the strange magnetism created a time warp? Or could it be as arbitrary as the Island sucking them (Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Jack, Jin and whomever else is vital) up and spitting them back out where and when they "need" to be, as what happened to them on the Ajira flight? The latter seems more likely to me.

I guess we're on the same page. Yes, there's a time-jump at that moment in my estimation, but it occurs because they need to be rescued from the explosion and should appear dead to outside observers (e.g., Richard). So, I guess I think the white-flash plays a dual role. Otherwise, what's the narrative use of Juliet's dying effort aside from trying to trick us (which I wouldn't put past them)?

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 18, 2009 5:17 PM

Zach, it is a literal red herring. As in, that is the kind of fish. The pun is just extra fun!

Posted by: FunWithFish at May 18, 2009 5:20 PM

You know why I think the 'incident' was the bomb itself?

The problems women have having babies in the future. The Dharma people seemed just fine with their babies, but in Ben's time they're not. Could be radiation or something. Eloise probably had Miles off the Island, but it seems to me that it would take something big to affect pregnant mothers, and maybe the after-effects of the bomb are it.

Posted by: figgy at May 18, 2009 5:27 PM

And I really thought that the 'explanation' for Jack's decision to BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF A POPULATED ISLAND for that slagbag Kate was completely ridiculous. Really, you gigantic douchebag? You're gonna blow up an Island with NO proof but some crazy's half-assed explanations that it's going to change anything? Because you want a second chance with a manipulative, fickle hag? Really?

And here I thought I couldn't hate Kate anymore.

Posted by: figgy at May 18, 2009 5:32 PM

figgy -

I had always assumed that the baby issue stemmed from Ben's own tortured psyche at having killed his mother in childbirth and his connection to the Island...that in effect Ben was keeping women on the Island from being able to safely birth children (w/out his knowledge, of course).

But with the new info about the statue I guess I'm wrong about that too.

Posted by: cmr at May 18, 2009 5:34 PM

zach - I think they meant that the fish he ate was literally a red herring aka a kipper. The writers were probably trying to be cute.

I look forward to part 2, Dan!

Posted by: Melissa at May 18, 2009 5:48 PM

FYI the statue - I'm pretty sure it's Sobek, not Tawaret.

Posted by: Ginger at May 18, 2009 5:59 PM

I think the red herring represented how everything that we've been watching (ie: the bomb, the past, 'Locke' going around leading The Others) has been a red herring to distract us from the BIG PICTURE:

Jacob is all-important here, and they're gonna try to kill him.

But that was some mighty loophole Black Shirt went through. Am still trying to make sense of that.

Posted by: figgy at May 18, 2009 6:14 PM

Revised: Yes, there's probably a time-jump at that moment...

They've left it pretty much open to anything.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 18, 2009 7:20 PM

I for one was SO GLAD to see Rose and Bernard! I was really worried about them! My only beef with them is, how the heck did they manage to live on their own in the jungle for 3 years, and not get discovered by the Hostiles?

I think that Smokey helped carry Jughead down to the tunnels.

Damn Juliet and her red shirt. Cried like a baby.

Posted by: Norwego at May 18, 2009 7:22 PM

The beginning scene made me think that the island was just place that Jacob and some other entity played out an eternal war, perhaps one of ideas like jkate said, a la The Shining. Which would really just make the Losties pawns in a larger game.

Posted by: kelsy at May 18, 2009 7:22 PM

The fish appeared to be an Onaga, a snapper, not a herring, FWIW.

Because I've always despised the characters of Jack and Kate, I've never been a true Lostie, but I thought the episode was damn good storytelling. I especially liked Zombie Locke. I don't watch network TV expecting masterpieces.

Posted by: John at May 18, 2009 7:25 PM

Wow! you're really fired up about the statue Anna von B
Posted by: Rachel at May 18, 2009 4:00 PM

I know! Like it makes a difference... I won't know what it means anyway. heh.

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 18, 2009 7:27 PM

I'd need to look at it again, but that statue really did look somewhat species-ambiguous. It could have been a humanoid-crocodile or a humanoid-hippo as far as I could guess.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at May 18, 2009 7:32 PM

Yeah Darth, I think we're generally on the same page. I think to bring the story to an audience-fulfilling conclusion, we have to get all the main players back in the same time-line. I do wonder if they'll shoot right back to the same time as Sun, Ben and the rest, or a little bit into the future where they maybe have to figure out how to reconvene. Or maybe Desmond will play a role in reuniting them. It will seem too easy if they flash right back to the exact year of the other group, unless we get a course-correction explanation, or someone (Ellie?) has a hand in directing them to the right time.

I do realize the producers said they're done with time travel with Season 5, so I think they did this last flash right at the end.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 8:01 PM

Does anyone else suppose the blast from the bomb could have shook the island so that the statue fell apart? I think that both the bomb and the idea of the statue representing fertility being destroyed are the combination that causes the inability to carry babies conceived on island to term. A little bit of realism and a little bit of magic, so to speak.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 8:05 PM

And I really thought that the 'explanation' for Jack's decision to BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF A POPULATED ISLAND for that slagbag Kate was completely ridiculous.

Amen. I don't even think Matthew Fox believed it by the way he played that scene.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 8:08 PM

I also enjoyed seeing Rose & Bernard again, and I didn't really mind their indifference to their fates. I mean, we are talking about a couple who has survived jumping through time on their lonesomes without Daniel Farraday to explain to us, the audience them what the hell is going on. I can accept that they've made their peace with death after all they've survived.

I am dissatisfied, however, with Sun this season. She was such a badass last year! Now she just wanders around and abandons her kid and whatnot. I guess she did clock Ben with that oar that one time.

Overall, I thought that this was a weak finale and I'm glad next year's season will be the end of Lost. YEAH I SAID IT.

Posted by: The Wandering Parakeet at May 18, 2009 8:51 PM

Yeah, I definitely didn't buy that.

So maybe this has been thrown out before, but I have a theory as to why Sun didn't go back in time with the others: could it be that she had her mind focused on Jin --her 'constant'--and so stayed in the present, where she thought he was?

Does that make sense? I see no other reason other than the writers wanting to drag out the drama (as to make the eventual reunion a bigger deal) by not having them together for so long?

Posted by: figgy at May 18, 2009 8:55 PM

This is my first LOST post. I've been reluctant because this show loves to fuck with its viewers, and that may or may not turn out to be a bad thing.

Two things. The statue, whether Tawaret(no, Lostpedia is incorrect) or Sobek, the description of Sobek more closely approximates who Jacob will be retconned/revealed to be. I am somewhat with the avatar theories, but not with the idea that Smokey and MIB/black Jacob are one and the same. I don't think Richard is avatar for the Island, nor do I think Jacob is anyone besides Jacob. I did very much like this finale, and really look forward to the 1977ers jumping up to 2007 in the first episode next season. Hopefully the van lands on Kate, and we'll have a dance number of Lollipop gang dimensions. All this show needs is little people.

Second, though I have never commented on these recaps, they are great, Dan Carlson. Big ups. Talking about this stuff to strangers is just bizarre and doing so with friends makes me self-conscious about where the deep end is in relation to me. IMDB boards are only decent for about four hours after the episodes, so I like having DC's recaps to collect sensible observations over what we watched.

Posted by: Jackseppelin at May 18, 2009 9:26 PM

Every time I saw Radzinsky screaming his head off about drilling I just cackled with glee. Enjoy pushing the button for the next 20 years, motherfucker! You reap what you sow and Namaste and such.

Frankly, the twistier and more obtuse the show gets, the more I am convinced it has been manufactured from specifications from my brain. I don't need it to give me a bunch of silly answers next season. The less information the better. Really, I think I could watch Jacob weave and fish for an hour each week.

Zombie Locke! The perfect setup for the LOST Season 7: The Zombie Season we have been promised...

Posted by: Clarence Boddicker at May 18, 2009 9:45 PM

Hopefully the van lands on Kate, and we'll have a dance number of Lollipop gang dimensions. All this show needs is little people.

That cracked me up AND made me cheer. 50 points to jackseppelin!

Posted by: figgy at May 18, 2009 9:49 PM

figgy, I understand, but I'm not sure I agree.

I think that Sun was never there (Dharma times), in this apparent course correction version of events. I think Oceanic 815 was never supposed to happen. Sun was on Oceanic because at that moment in time she was with Jin.

OK, I know how this works in my head, but I'm not sure I've explained it well?

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 9:58 PM

I'd love to hear any thoughts on why Locke was the loophole for BSG. The only thing I can think is that he had to come to kill Jacob in the body of the Others' leader, because aside from Richard, only the Others' leader could get in to see Jacob. But that seems flimsy.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 10:03 PM

I'm certain the white screen indicated another time flash and not the bomb blowing everything to smithereens (nor causing the un-crash).

So with Cindy on this one. It wouldn't make sense, story-wise, for the bomb to have actually been detonated. I believe it was another time-flash. There isn't enough time left in the series for the Losties to remain separated for much longer, so I'm pretty sure they're all going to jump to 2007. I believe the '77 Losties are the "they" Jacob was referring to with his last words.

-the statue has to be Sobek. Tawaret is misleading, and I can understand why folks would go with her, what with all the fertility problems associated with the island. But a god who judges you at your death, like Sobek, and who is asssociated so much with Anubis (the other god we've seen in hieroglyphs on the island), makes so much more sense to me.

-I don't think it was me who said the fish Jacob caught was a red herring. I don't think there even is such a fish. It was definitely a snapper.

Posted by: Kolby at May 18, 2009 10:08 PM

Cindy - I think he just needed to find a body, but it had to be someone who was willing. Locke was more than willing to give himself to the island, always convinced he was special and unique. He did everything BSG needed him to do to allow him (BSG) to possess his body and use it for his own gain. Think about it - it couldn't be Christian or anyone else. Locke was trusted, and since 1954 had been planting the seeds that would lead Richard and the Others to trust him and allow him to get so close to them, and to Jacob.

Posted by: Kolby at May 18, 2009 10:11 PM

Oh, and hey, fellow Radzinsky haters - never fear, he'll get what's coming to him. Remember? He blows his brains out in the hatch after pushing the button one too many times!

Posted by: Kolby at May 18, 2009 10:13 PM

I believe the '77 Losties are the "they" Jacob was referring to with his last words.

Agreed.

I like your thoughts on Locke, Kolby. I wonder if it also had to be one of Jacob's chosen people.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 10:29 PM

Sorry, Kolbs, I thought you said you had read that on one of the other Lost threads you were reading, or something.

So I threw this out elsewhere and so far nobody's agreed with me, but I'm gonna throw it out here too: I think that the Locke who is currently watching Ben murder Jacob could be an alterna-timeline Locke; that is, BSG is Locke, and he has two timelines, the one where he's nice guy Locke who gives his evil fake dad a kidney, and one where he's a bad guy who talks Ben into killing Jacob. I don't think that BSG can be using Locke's body, because at the same time, Locke's body is in the box that Ilana and her crew are carrying around. Plus, NewLocke appears corporeal, so how could the body be both lifeless in the box and walking around with somebody else's soul (or smoke) in it? Am I the only one who thinks that could work, and could be the loophole they were referring to? Maybe if everybody here disagrees with me, I'll be able to let it go. (Except for Kolby and figgy, 'cause you already disagreed with me. So it doesn't count if you do again.)

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 18, 2009 10:34 PM

I think your idea is way cool Anna, but I don't think it's what is happening. That said, with all the shit we've seen, I suppose it's as plausible as anything.

I don't think BSG is using Locke's body, but rather his image. Now whether that is in a similar fashion as when Smokey appears as a dead person, I don't know. After all, somewhere on the island are the real bodies of images Smokey has used.

I do think there has to be something special about Locke that makes him the loophole. And in that regard, it's pretty cool because Locke always wanted to be special.

Damn, I'm going to miss him.

Posted by: Cindy at May 18, 2009 10:48 PM

I was very tired when I watched the episode and maybe I missed something super obvious that would contradict this, but I took "the loophole" as *BSG* couldn't kill Jacob. He wasn't allowed to (or whatever). So he didn't. He found a way to make someone else kill him.

Posted by: Lainey at May 18, 2009 10:58 PM

Sorry, I just re-read what I wrote and it seems really incomplete and simplistic. What I meant was, I don't think "the loophole" was BSG inhabiting Locke's body, but "the loophole" was getting around the rule that BSG couldn't directly kill Jacob. In my brain, it doesn't seem like inhabiting a body would be that big of a deal for a god/immortal/whatever, since everyone seems to be a pawn in the giant game between these two, but finding a way around the rules would be the challenge.

ARRRRRGGH, I can't articulate this at all. In my head, it makes perfect freaking sense, but I can't find a way to say it that doesn't sound like I need remedial writing course. I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll try this again tomorrow.

Posted by: Lainey at May 19, 2009 12:05 AM

Yeah that's what I got from it too--the loophole was getting the 'leader' to kill him. But why go through aaaaall that trouble? When did he start moving things?

Cindy: I...don't get it.

Posted by: figgy at May 19, 2009 12:32 AM

Oh gosh, make one LOST comment and it's hard to know when to stop. Okay, I doubt that the loophole is that it had to be the Leader of the others. So long as the mystery around Ilana survives, or why Richard seemingly has little (or maybe, all the) power, I can't say that theorizing does much for us. My idea from just the finale, however, is that black Jacob(BSG) needed someone to want to kill Jacob. The fact that Ben always serves himself if what makes him unappealing to Jacob's particular brand of immortal curiosity and malleable to black Jacob(BSG's) needs. Whether he knew about Smokey's judgment over Ben or not is an important piece of the puzzle, but as yet, inconclusive.

My real conundrum is deciding what is going to happen to Richard Alpert if indeed he is the way he is because of Jacob. This, in addition to there being a whole season remaining, makes me wonder if Jacob won't be dead, but that comes from nothing other than my personal hallucinations. Especially is Alpert is working for Jacob, why wouldn't Jacob tell him there is a black shapeshifting version of himself on the Island? If he's the same as Jacob or black Jacob (e.g. the Island avatar) why wouldn't he know that already?

Posted by: Jackseppelin at May 19, 2009 1:15 AM

Lainey, I think I understand what you are saying. BSG can't kill Jacob, so neither can BSG disguised as Locke. So Ben is the Loophole. BSG uses Ben to do what he cant. The only way he can convince Ben to kill Jacob is to take the form of someone who can tear Ben down and humiliate him. That person is Locke.Is that what you are getting at, or am I way off?

Also, I do believe that BSG is the smoke monster. The smoke monster has (I believe) taken the form of Mr. Eko's brother, Boone, Horace,Ben's Daughter and presumably Christian Shepard. It seems that the smoke monster takes the form of people to emotionally convince people to do things. Therefore, it seems that the smoke monster has taken the form of Locke(seeing as he really is dead), and convinced Ben to kill Jacob. Jacob says something along the lines of "You found your loophole." So the smoke monster has to be Locke, right? Does any of that make sense?

Posted by: zach at May 19, 2009 2:07 AM

This episode was unbelievably disappointing. I can't believe it was Lost. I checked my watch at 10:46 and realized that it was almost over and most of the finale (the FINALE!) was dedicated to recycled moments in the Losties' lives. Did I really have to see Jack count to 5 in operation or see Sawyer write his letter? No. I wanted something new.

What happened to the creativity with this show??

I'm not sure how I feel about the only new development in 2 hours - Jacob and BSG. On one hand the whole thing is intriguing and kina cool, but on the other if Locke is really dead and what we thought was Locke is actually BSG, than all those years of developing the best character on Lost has been betrayed for a plot twist. Ugh.

Posted by: kayla at May 19, 2009 7:34 AM

"we need to get to point B, screw it, just have the characters do this"

Exactly, bd.

I feel that way about the whole season.

The whole finale (and some of the entire season. see: Jeremy Bentham) just felt lazy and unimaginative. I'm so disappointed. None of the characters felt like who they are. It just seemed like they needed stuff to happen and so they just made it happen in the blandest way possible. "Hey Jacob needs to be introduced! Let's just throw him into scenes that the audience is ALREADY familiar with!"

"Hey that bomb needs to explode! Let's create a little conflict and then get rid of it right away so that it can happen!"

Blah.

Posted by: kayla at May 19, 2009 7:41 AM

figgy, I'll try again.

Let's say that certain people were always supposed to have been on island: Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Jin, Sayid and Hurley. They were always part of Dharma. The Ajira flight was a course correction, in that they never should have left the island. Sun was not a part of that group, so when she came back on the Ajira flight, she wasn't flashed to the same time with them.

Lainey (I've missed you around here!), before Ben told BSG-Locke about his promise to SmokeyAlex to do anything Locke wanted, BSG-Locke was going in to see Jacob himself. He didn't plan to have Ben kill Jacob, so I don't think he had to have someone else do it (unless you count him being in Locke's image/body as being "someone else"). Or have I completely misunderstood what you were saying?

Posted by: Cindy at May 19, 2009 9:42 AM

We need to completely forego calling the man who took Ben to Jacob by the name Locke, because we know that wasn't Locke. I am personally convinced that it was Cerverus, the Smoke Monster. Think about it: it has 'posed' as people before, even in corporeal form; the SM became Alex in order to convince Ben to follow 'Locke' no matter what, and during that scene 'Locke' conveniently wandered away; everyone keeps identifying him by his black shirt (BSG), which could be his human clothing equivalent to the smoke cloud; he does seem to judge people and their motives (i.e. the statement about the newcomers on the Black Rock), which seems to be one of the major functions of the SM.

I agree with whoever suggested that Nadia's death was more of a Jacob-saving-Sayid than Jacob-killing-Nadia.

We saw Jacob visit Ilana off the Island and ask for her help, and then she shows up, looking for him, theoretically to protect him. I think when Jacob said, "They're coming", he meant 'his people', the Ajira 316ers. I'm betting that he kicked Jacob's body in the fire so that he can exit AS JACOB to fool the Ajira folks, who he obviously intends to kill. I'm just not sure what will happen to Ben... he is too creepy awesome to just throw in a fire.

I just know I want to see more of Jacob visiting Losties pre-Island - or at least, off-Island, as was the case for Sayid.

Posted by: Patty O'Green at May 19, 2009 10:07 AM

Don't know if anyone else noticed it, but Jacob made skin/skin contact with certain people, and skin/clothes contact with others. That's all for now!

Posted by: Stew at May 19, 2009 11:02 AM

Yes, zach! Thank you! That's what I was trying to get out.

Hiya, Cindy, thanks, I've missed being around here. Stupid work expecting me to actually work. What kind of nonsense is that?

About what you said about NotLocke planning to kill Jacob without Ben's help until he heard about the incident with the smoke monster/NotAlex - we don't actually know that NotLock was going to kill Jacob without someone else's help. He rallied the troops and brought them and Ben along on his quest to see Jacob. It's possible he intended to use one or more of those people to carry out the killing until he found out the fantastic new rule that Ben had to do whatever NotLocke told him to do. Because seriously, why would he need to take EVERYONE across the island to kill Jacob if he could just do it himself while he was inhabiting Locke's body. I think he needed someone else to do it so he could get around the technicality of not being able to kill Jacob himself.

Also, addressing the Smokey/BSG/NotLocke are the same entity theory - I don't think it can be all the same entity or else NotLocke (assuming he's being possessed/inhabited by BSG or Smokey) would have known about NotAlex's threat to Ben.

Good GODTOPUS, does any of this make sense or am I unbelievably dumb?

Posted by: Lainey at May 19, 2009 11:17 AM

I don't even know anymore. I have to watch this episode again and make pseudo-Mr. watch it with me. He's very good at all this. Me kind of dumb.

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 19, 2009 11:39 AM

Lainey, I agree that BSG is not the smoke monster. The whole Locke finding out that Ben had to do anything he says doesn't jibe well with him also being the smoke monster. There is also the fact that over the course of the whole series the smoke monster has been referred to the Island security system and has killed several people, most notably Eko for a failure to "repent". How does that correlate with the NotLocke character or the BSG?

I also think there could be a closer relationship between NotLocke and Locke than seems to be the general outlook here. NotLocke specifically told Sun that he was Locke, and I don't think that was a complete lie. He obviously knows Locke's past and has his memories. It might be a sort of consciousness merge that we are talking about.

Posted by: ed newman at May 19, 2009 12:17 PM

All work... as they say Lainey! Must make time for fun.

You make plenty of sense and I get where you're coming from, but I'm still not sure I agree. I can't really disagree, though I can be disagreeable.

Next up, I'm definitely not in the BSG = Smokey camp. I think there is a possibility that there is a relation between the gods (if indeed Jacob and BSG are gods) and Smokey. Maybe Jacob and/or BSG can control any way they like, including Smokey? Or maybe Smokey's just a dangerous pet, like the Munsters' Spot?

Posted by: Cindy at May 19, 2009 1:07 PM

I still believe that nonLocke/BSG is the smoke monster, and the scene with nonAlex is more convincing to me. As soon as nonLocke walks away, the smoke monster shows up. That's a little to convenient. So nonLocke acting surprised that Ben has to follow his orders may have just been a part of his greater plan. We can't be sure there is a connection between Locke and nonLocke. If the smoke monster and has taken the form of other dead people, he has also had their memories (nonChristian Sheppard, and Mr. Eko's nonbrother both have spoken about the past.) And as for Eko not repenting, what if the smoke monster/BSG was trying to use Eko as the Loophole or in some other fashin. What if repenting was the smoke monsters way of getting Eko to join him. When Eko refused, the smoke monster killed him(That may be a big stretch, and I don't know if it makes sense.)

Also, I think transporting everyone across the Island was for Richards sake, to sell the whole "New leader taking charge" (That might be a stretch, but if Nonlocke was able to convince the rest of the others to go find Jacob, Richard would have a harder time objecting).

Hopefully all of this makes sense, I may be completely wrong, but I just have a feeling that there is some big connection between BSG and the smoke monster.

Posted by: zach at May 19, 2009 1:22 PM

"Hey Jacob needs to be introduced! Let's just throw him into scenes that the audience is ALREADY familiar with!"

The reason why we're familiar with those scenes is beacuse they were of important, life-altering moments in the history of the people involved. The whole point of rehashing the scenes with Jacob in them is to drive home the idea that Jacob was there with the Losties at pivotal moments in their lives. He was there, influencing them and helping them.

Posted by: Kolby at May 19, 2009 1:42 PM

Smokey is part of the Island, another character, as far as I'm concerned. In the hierarchy of power, the Island is the only character more powerful than Jacob and black Jacob/BSG/notLocke. The humans are at the bottom, but perhaps candidates are them that Richard Alpert, BSG and Jacob either sought out(all the flashbacks) or elected once they've seen what they can do (Sayid, Locke. It is impossible to say where Richard Alpert fits on this totem. Whether the Island nominates "the candidates," or if "Candidates" even carries this significance. I have a small itch that candidate means a potential shapeshifter trying to get Jacob. If that was the case, Ilana sure was being rather dullard about trying to let Ben know.

I wouldn't worry about Locke scurrying away in the temple Alex scene at Ben's judgment. Either the BSG or the Island has manifested two corporeal bodies at once before (Christian and Claire), and there is no reason to believe he couldn't be two ghosties at once. I am not even certain that Smokey was Alex at this point. She showed up after the smoke cleared. BSG's need for supremacy seems inconsistent with Smokey's watchdog status. NotLocke was almost certainly aware of notAlex's threat to Ben, but I don't think that makes notAlex and Smokey the same entity.

Up until this episode, I thought that Jacob was an avatar for the Island and that Smokey was working for Jacob. I still am with the idea that Jacob is none other than Jacob. I chock all those apparitions and poltergeists up to either the 'magic' of the island, the Island itself, or BSG. Who knows though, I doubt Jacob was a one-off. Like I said before, what happens to Richard in the very next episode (which could be nothing) will help steer what I think of all of the higher entities on the Island.

Posted by: Jackseppelin at May 19, 2009 1:51 PM

Was the Oceanic crash supposed to be BSG's loophole? If Jacob can bring the Black Rock surely BSG can bring Oceanic 815. Was Christian Sheppard BSG's original (dead) target and Jack supposed to be the guy who is manipulated to kill Jacob instead of Ben? But Jack leaves the island ("Jack, you're not supposed to leave!") before BSG can maneuver it so he moves to plan B (Locke and Ben)?

Posted by: ed newman at May 19, 2009 2:28 PM

Interesting, ed newman.

I just looked up Biblical Jacob a little. He had a twin brother (Esau, who was a hunter to Jacob's philosopher), and at some point moved his entire family, including youngest son Benjamin (whose mother died in childbirth) to Egypt.

*sigh* Now I have to become a Bible scholar, too?! Why do Cuse and Lindelof want me to do all this *work*!? Don't they understand how lazy I am?

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at May 19, 2009 2:46 PM

I feel the same way Anna! With all these meaningful names, books, songs etc being referenced by the show, its a full-time job to keep up!

ed newman: I love it! I think that's a cool idea.

Posted by: Rachel at May 19, 2009 3:34 PM

more thoughts re: ed newman's loophole theory.

"Christian" helped Locke turn the wheel to leave the island and bring the others back, right? Maybe that was BSG all "well crap, Jack left and I can't manipulate anyone ELSE in this body so he needs to come back." Then Locke died and BSG was all "perfect! BEN! Come here my precious!"

Posted by: Rachel at May 19, 2009 3:39 PM

question: how can the mysterious foot statue be within a few hours walk of the beach camp?

Wasn't it on the other side of the island? The island seems to get smaller each week

Posted by: Tarquin at May 19, 2009 8:09 PM

Tarquin - we know that time on the island moves differently than it does in the rest of the world. Daniel's experiment from season four proved this. This is why it changes from day to night so quickly, and why torrential downpours can erupt in the middle of a sunny day. Who know how long it actually takes to cross the island - it may take far less time to walk a mile than it might under "normal" circumstances. I don't know if this even makes sense.

Posted by: Kolby at May 20, 2009 10:05 AM








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