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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread.

It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off.

With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost, should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry.

Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season enders or reveal as jaw-dropping a game-changer as, say, the finales of Season One or Three, but with "The Incident" we did finally get to see just what tapestry Team Darlton have been building toward.

So what did I think of the season finale? Put on your Dharma jumpsuit, take a swig of your sedative-laced OJ, sneak a peek inside the box, and let's discuss "The Incident."

Beginnings and Endings. I absolutely loved the season finale's opening which showed the enigmatic Jacob working on a tapestry depicting some Egyptian hieroglyphs before he catches a fish and shares it with a Stranger (given Jacob's Biblical name, let's call him "Esau") as they watch a ship in the distance heading towards the island. The ship, of course, is the Black Rock, although I'm still not sure just how it got onto the middle of the island from its perch on the ocean. Here, Jacob and Esau seem to be the literal embodiments of Good and Evil. Jacob believes in the innate goodness of man, in his right to choose, and of free will. Esau, on the other hand, believes that men are corrupt and inherently bad and that these latest visitors to the island will bring with them sin and war.

Together then, Jacob and Esau represent the two sides of mankind and of the universe itself: the Creator and the Destroyer. We see that Jacob is the Creator and this is shown via his actual handiwork, standing at the loom. Esau, on the other hand, is the Trickster, the destructive nature of the universe to tear down, to destroy, to murder... even if it's indirectly. Thanks to some fundamental laws on the island, Esau can't murder Jacob, but it's not for want of trying. However, in order to achieve this end, he must discover a loophole, a means of destroying the seemingly immortal Jacob.

And seemingly he does, though it takes him several hundred years to do so. It's still not clear how Richard Alpert fits into the picture here with Jacob and Esau, ageless as he is but it's likely that several of the island's strictest rules were created to avoid such a loophole that Esau, in his trickery, would look to take advantage of. Only the Leader could receive messages from Jacob, typically passed along by spiritual adviser Richard Alpert. And only the Leader could be received into Jacob's presence to obtain his instructions. (Aside: very interesting to me that it was Eloise Hawking, not Widmore, who was the Leader of the Others in 1977.)

Which is how Esau eventually manages to enact his vengeance on Jacob. If their Biblical names hold true, Esau's rage stems from the fact that he feels that Jacob has stolen his birthright. In this case, it would be the island itself. Jacob seems to be a largely benevolent presence on the island and has a seemingly unerring belief in what is Right but allows the denizens of the island to make their own choices. As Esau can't directly take action against Jacob (he would have stabbed him himself ages ago if he could have), he would have to persuade someone else to do so, to work on their faith and ego and vanity and force them to pick up that knife.

Time travel is a funny thing, particularly when you are diving around in the past. We tend to accept the world of time travelers at face value, as if they know the outcome of all possible actions. Richard Alpert, because he had run into John Locke at several points in the past, accepts the word of the seemingly resurrected Locke, who takes him and Benjamin Linus to the scene of the beechcraft in the jungle, where Locke is bleeding to death after being shot by Ethan. It is "Locke"--whom we later learn is Esau (more on that in a bit)--who tells Richard that he needs to give instructions to Locke: he will need to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island and he will have to die.

Of course, it's the perfect long con from a malevolent force that thrives on trickery and subterfuge: "Locke" has to know what he's talking about, thanks to the twisty logic of time travel, and in giving the real John Locke these instructions, Richard Alpert has unwittingly sealed Jacob's fate, giving Esau a form to use and allowing him to maneuver the pieces into position. This cosmic game of chess has been played for quite some time and with Esau's assumption of Locke's form, Esau finally moves Jacob into checkmate.

The Box. So what was in the box that Ilana and Bram were so hellbent on lugging all over the island, from Jacob's cabin--which they burn to the ground--to the foot of the Statue (again, more on that in a second)? It turns out that they discovered something very interesting in the cargo hold of Ajira Flight 316: the corpse of the real John Locke. It's a staggering reveal which has lasting implications for the series. Richard Alpert mentioned that he had seen many things on the island but he had never seen anyone come back to life... because Locke hadn't been resurrected. We assumed because his corpse was on the plane and he was seen on the beach that it was him but that was an erronious assumption. It's only fitting that the first shot we see of the "resurrected" Locke is him cloaked in black. Locke is dead and it would seem that dead really does mean dead on this series. The reveal of him within the box is clearly meant to echo the reveal in the Season Four finale, in which we learn that it's Locke who is in the coffin. By substituting a steel cargo box for a coffin, Team Darlton have been shouting at us all along to realize just what was inside.

Locke. So is this the end of John Locke? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say no. I don't know that we'll see Terry O'Quinn channeling Esau for the remainder of the series but O'Quinn gives us a hell of a performance as the calculating Esau. I'd be really quite sad if the corpse is the last we see of the "real" John Locke and that his story ended under quite such tragic circumstances: he believes he is fulfilling his destiny, the one the island set out for him, by killing himself. That it's Ben who would kill both Locke and Jacob has to be significant; Ben and Locke seem to be avatars of Esau and Jacob, playing over the same story time and time again. He's pushed by his ego and rage in both cases to murder but I believe that both will be resurrected in either physical or spiritual terms. After all, Christian Shepherd--another Christ figure in this story--seemingly achieved life after death on the island. So why not Locke as well?

The Monster. Esau's long con was completely brilliant. After all, it's he who says that they have to summon the smoke monster at The Temple... and Ben's run-in with the monster leads to a face-to-face confrontation with Ben's dead daughter Alex. Or at least the monster in the guise of Alex. And it's "Alex" who tells Ben that he has to follow all of "Locke's" instructions without question, forcing him into a pattern of blind faith that leads to Jacob's murder.

That the smoke monster is aware of Esau's ruse makes me wonder if the smoke monster and Esau haven't been in league together this entire time. After all, one side is light (Jacob) and one is dark (Esau). Locke saw something in the jungle in Season One, the heart of the island, which he said was beautiful. I now believe that this "something" was in fact aligned with Jacob, rather than Esau's smoke monster. The smoke monster, with its Temple-based connections to Anubis, clearly belong on the dark side with Esau and he was able to masterfully manipulate Ben using the monster, which can impersonate the dead as we've seen with Yemi, Alex, etc.

The Statue. Last night's episode also gave us a closer look at the face of the island's four-toed statue and it is clearly NOT Anubis, the jackal-headed god who is the subject of the statue. Instead, the face on the massive statue appeared to be more akin to a crocodile than that of Anubis' jackal. If it is a crocodile, the obvious subject is therefore Sobek, the ancient Egyptian deity linked to the creation of the world. Given the previous discussion about Jacob being the Creator, it's a fitting visage for the statue, which appears to be where Jacob lives. And given Jacob's methods (the passing along of lists, instructions, and indirect assistance), it also fits given the mythological M.O. of Sobek himself, who often only was indirectly involved in situations rather than an active participant. Sobek has also at times been linked to the Egyptian sun god Ra. It's not the first time a sun god has been named on the series; the omnipresent Apollo chocolate bar is named for the Roman sun god...

What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue. We finally learned the answer to Ilana's riddle about what lies in the shadow of the statue. After Frank failed to have the correct answer and was knocked unconscious as a result, I began to wonder about just what answer Ilana wanted to receive. I didn't think that it would be Jughead or anything so concrete. Instead, the answer is the Latin phrase Ile qui nos omnes servabit, which translates to something along the lines of He who will save us all. The implication being that the "He" in that phrase is Jacob, who is connected to the statue, a benevolent and powerful deity who is pushing the pieces around the board.

Ilana. We see Jacob appear to Ilana in flashback as she lies in hospital, badly injured (from what exactly?), and he asks her for help. It's clear that the two have met before and Ilana is loyal to Jacob's cause... but just who are Ilana and Bram? How are they connected to the island? Are they former hostiles? Immortals like Jacob? We know that Jacob knew about Ajira Flight 316 (as it was he who instructed Hurley to get aboard the flight) and it was very likely Jacob who constructed Ilana's cover story in order to engineer Sayid's appearance on the plane. So are they followers of Jacob/Sobek? A cult that is designed to worship and protect him? It's interesting to me that the answer to the riddle was in Latin and that she referred to Richard Alpert by his Latin name, "Ricardus." Given that we know that the Others are all taught Latin, it stands to reason that Ilana's team are some sort of offshoot of the island natives, still loyal to Jacob off the island. But why burn the cabin to the ground? Hmmm....

Jacob. As for Jacob himself, it now appears that he crossed paths very intentionally with several members of Oceanic Flight 815, appearing to them at various points in their lives, often at critical moments that defined their characters. He turns up at the hospital, after Jack botches a spinal surgery and severs a nerve sac in the body of a young girl he and Christian were operating on. Afterward, he rails at Christian for humiliating him in front of his surgical team... and then receives the Apollo (aha!) bar he sought to purchase from Jacob himself. We see Kate as a young girl, with her friend Tom Brennan (who later is shot as Kate flees authorities) attempt to steal a New Kids on the Block lunchbox; Jacob prevents the store owner from calling the police and gives the lunchbox to Kate. Jacob also appears at Sun and Jin's wedding, giving them his blessing, and is seen (reading Flannery O'Connor's ''Everything That Rises Must Converge'') when Locke is pushed out of the window by Anthony Cooper. There, he touches Locke's shoulder and causes him to open his eyes, possibly even bringing him back to life. (That's what it seemed to me, anyway.) Jacob asks Sayid for directions in Los Angeles, mere seconds before Nadia is run over in the street by a hit-and-run driver.

He also appears to James Ford as a child at his parents' funeral as he attempts to write the letter to Anthony Cooper (a.k.a. Sawyer); he gives James a pen to continue writing the letter. And Jacob makes contact with Hurley after he is released from jail, waiting for himself outside in a taxi. It's the only time where Jacob's connection to the island is made clear to the person in question and he tells Hurley that returning to the island is his choice. He gives him a mysterious guitar case... the contents of which are still a mystery, as is why Hurley would need to bring this object back to the island. He also makes Hurley see that the ghostly visitations aren't a curse, but perhaps a blessing.

So what we have here is that Jacob went to great lengths to connect with these particular people and in all of the cases, he very noticeably touches them in some way, perhaps marking them or protecting them. His hand touches Jack's, his fingers graze James; he taps Kate on the nose; he touches Jin and Sun's shoulders; he softly grabs Locke's shoulder and he touches both Sayid and Hurley's shoulders as well. The fact that he makes physical contact is significant. After all, it's these people who remain alive on the island throughout everything that happens. I also believe that they are Jacob's chosen people, those who will rise up to stop Esau's plan, and he has marked them for this purpose. It's them that Jacob refers to when he tells Esau, "They are coming." (Which leads me to believe that Jack and the others will find themselves in 2007 on the island after The Incident.)

So what is the loophole by which Jacob can be killed then? By someone's hand other than Esau's? Or is it that Jacob has to allow himself to die? He offers Ben a choice, that he can either do what Esau has told him or he can leave. Yet when Ben rails against Jacob, revealing his hurt and anger for not being one of Jacob's chosen ones, never being allowed in his presence, and asking "What about me?" Jacob's reply, "What about you?" leads directly to Ben stabbing him savagely. Does Jacob willingly sacrifice himself as he knows that it is the right thing to do? Has he in fact somehow tricked Esau all along into believing that his physical death will be the end of him? Does he die for everyone's sins?

The Incident. I was glad to see that Miles was once again the voice of reason and (caustic) sanity on this week's episode. As Jack believes that they can use the bomb to somehow cancel out The Incident and thus prevent the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Miles believes that their actions may in fact cause the very thing they are seeking to prevent. Sure enough, Miles is right: by attempting to detonate Jughead's core inside the energy pocket, Jack and the others actually bring about The Incident itself.

The Incident isn't just the rupture of the electromagnetic pocket of energy, it's the combination of this energy with the hydrogen bomb, unleashing a wave of energy that leads to the Swan computer protocol and, yes, ends up causing the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. The past can't be altered but their presence there actually causes things to occur just as they always had. Jack and the others had always been in 1977 and had always caused The Incident itself. Just as Miles being there led to Pierre Cheng losing his arm (crushed when the electromagnetic pocket began pulling things in) and walking away with his life.

Juliet. I was completely heartbroken when Juliet got pulled into the pit by the electromagnetic energy. And while I assumed something awful was going to happen to Juliet (thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell's casting in ABC drama pilot V), I still didn't expect to get quite so choked up as Sawyer and Kate attempted to pull her out of the pit. Juliet has been a particular favorite of mine and it was brutal to watch Sawyer and Kate attempt to rescue her, even as she knew that she would have to let go. Sawyer and Juliet's relationship was always going to be doomed by tragedy, whether that would be the return of Kate, their decision to get off of the sub, or her letting go in order to save Sawyer's life.

But Juliet didn't die. Still alive at the bottom of the pit and in agony, she finds herself laying right next to the undetonated Jughead core. Knowing what she must do, she makes the ultimate sacrifice, picking up a stone and bludgeoning the core until it detonates, causing The Incident. And then everything burns to white. So is Juliet dead? Sadly, it does look that way, unless she's somehow pulled out of the time stream before she is incinerated by the blast. The fact that Jacob didn't appear to her in her flashback this week (which depicted her and sister Rachel as children learning that their parents were divorcing and discovering that love isn't forever) makes me believe that, sadly, this might be the very last we see of Juliet. Which makes me very sad indeed.

Bernard and Rose. Just a quick aside to say thank you to Team Darlton for giving us a glimpse at a very happy Bernard and Rose (not to mention Vincent) who have taken to living off of the land and staying out of the island dramas that have ensnared the others. The speech Bernard gave about just wanting to be with Rose, even in death, was absolutely poignant and profound. And it deeply saddened Juliet, who knew that she wouldn't be with Sawyer forever.

Sawyer. I think we've all been waiting for a nasty smackdown between Sawyer and Jack for five years and this episode didn't disappoint. It was a brutal, ugly, and vicious battle between the two rivals with Kate hovering between them the whole time. In a single stroke, Jack has torn down the life Sawyer has built over the last three years, a life that includes Juliet. And by coming back, by looking to erase the past, Jack has essentially spit on his memories. And, yes, I literally cheered out loud when Sawyer kicked Jack in the groin.

Jack. I think Jack wanted to escape the hardship and pain of the last few years, whether that meant somehow magically resetting their lives so that the plane landed in Los Angeles or obliterating all of them. That Jack would be acting on blind faith alone is at strong contrast with his character in the first few seasons. Did Locke's letter make him believe? Did he just want a second chance with Kate? Did he refuse to believe that what's done is done?

But life doesn't give us blank slates. We are the sum conclusion to all of our experiences, the good and ill that we've done in our lives, the choices we've made and those made for us.

So will the castaways find themselves back aboard Oceanic Flight 815? Or will they open their eyes and discover that they're on the island in 2007, about to face their toughest situation yet? Will Juliet and Sayid survive? What did you think of the season finale? And just what do you think the final season of Lost will hold for the castaways? Discuss.

The sixth and final season of Lost will premiere in 2010.

Comments

Unknown said…
Absolutely love your thoughts here. You've picked up on a few minor details that really help explain the overall picture (ex: I would have never thought about the Apollo chocolate bar!)

Caught one typo: In your paragraph about when Jacob meets Sayid, it's Nadia that is hit by the car, not Ilana. Great work overall though!
Jace Lacob said…
Thanks, Vanessa! (And already fixed the Ilana-Nadia bit before you finished reading!)
rockauteur said…
Loved the episode but thought the ending was a bit too Sopranos for me, especially considering we won't get to see what happens until January - too long of a wait! I would have rather the writers dangled one other ominous scene after that to give us some sort of glimpse into what's next.

Miles didn't get touched by Jacob at all - will he remain in the past able to connect with his father? Or will both he AND his father transport to 2007? Would be pretty interesting to have Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle in the future/present. Candle is really the first time in the show where the dad isn't the bastard his kid thinks he is.

What side is Widmore on? Jacob's or Esau's? I'm thinking since Ilana and Bram are with Jacob that Widmore must be with Esau - Widmore was watching for Locke to exit in the desert and was part of compelling Locke to get back to the island. Very interesting it was Esau - and not Locke - who told Richard to tell Locke that he must die to come back to the island. A trickster indeed.

Loved seeing Bernard and Rose again - are they the Adam and Eve skeletons from the caves? If so, why did they leave their nice cabin (which kind of reminded me of the faux Jacob's cabin) for the caves? Was Esau the one living in the cabin that Locke and Ben saw? Which side is the dead Christian on?

I kind of want to see more 1977 action - namely, where did Amy go and how does Ethan eventually come to be with The Others? When does Ben get returned to Dharmaville? And how do they end up building the Hatch despite the electromagnetic pulse? Does The Jughead temporarily turn off that energy allowing them to build the hatch? Or is the hatch no more following in the incident? I'm still thinking the Swan station gets built and everything happens just as it did.... but I'll guess we will have to wait until 2010 to see!
Nicola said…
I dont think Christian Shepherd actually achieved "life after death." I believe it's been Smokey/Esau the whole time -- conning Locke the whole time (and Ben). Afterall it was Christian Shepherd who also told Locke he had to die...and once dead, Smokey/Esau could take the form of his body and kill Jacob.
Blaxo said…
I don't think we've seen the last of 1977... Plus we still need to see Hanso and the DeGroots! We need Faraday's chapter in Ann Arbor! I think the castaway will wake up from the jughead... still in 1977.
wooster182 said…
I thought at first that the bomb was as Miles predicted: they helped cause the incident. But once we found that Juliet was alive and that the bomb had not detonated, I don't see how they could have set off the incident at all.

While reading your analysis, it made me realize that Juliet's act of detonating the bomb is very similar to Desmond's putting the key in the matter in the hatch. Desmond survived then. I have hope that Juliet will as well.

Also, I now assume that "Christian Shepherd" is actually Esau. We have never seen his actual body. It could be the same situation as John. And if this is the case, then what is going on with Claire?

And if Jacob lives in the statue, why was he in the cabin? And where does Esau live? In the temple?
Bella Spruce said…
Rockauteur -

Good points about Widmore's role in getting Locke/Esau back to the island and about Rose and Bernard possibly being Adam and Eve (which would be cool).

And Jace, great review! In a way, I think I enjoyed reading your post more than watching the actual episode, which was good but not as dramatic as I'd hoped.

I really enjoyed the beginning and seeing Jacob for the first time but now he's already dead. Kind of a bummer since he's such a huge entity in the story. Hopefully, he''ll be back in some way.

And I hope that Locke (the real Locke) isn't gone forever. It would be really depressing if his story ended by him dying and someone else taking over his body. John Locke has been my favorite character on the show and I would hate for his story to be over.
rockauteur said…
I think Locke's story is over, unfortunately.

I really hope they don't reset the story, that would be the real bummer.
Heatherette said…
wooster182 -

I also wondered what the significance of the cabin was if Jacob lived in the statue. Seems odd.
Odd too that Jacob appeared to be in the cabin rocking chair when Locke/Esau and Ben find him.

If Esau was Christian Shepherd, why did he not try to kill Jacob then? He could have appeared to Jack and gotten him to kill Jacob. Why did he need to become Locke? Still not clear on that whole storyline.

As for Juliet setting off the bomb, I still think that could have caused The Incident. Juliet could have always been meant to have fallen down the mine where she would detonate the bomb.
I don't think they'll reset the story. I think the Lost writers are much smarter than that and have more respect for the audience.

As for Locke, I do worry that his story is over and that he will now just be Esau which I'm not really happy about!
Jace Lacob said…
Rockauteur,

I don't think they will reset things. There wouldn't be a series if the plane landed safely and they would have essentially erased five seasons of storylines. They've said several times that what happened, happened and what's done is done. I don't think Darlton would go back on that now and alter the flow of the show.

I think the castaways will wake up in 2007 on the island. Whether Juliet will live or die will depend on if ABC picks up V to series and if Elizabeth Mitchell is available or not. Which is half-why I wonder if that's why they made the end so frustratingly ambiguous.
Mazza said…
@Jace: I agree. No way will the plane land and none of this happens. They def wake up in 2007 tho I wonder if Juliet and Sayid will survive. Sayid could prob make it if Jack gives him medical attention but Juliet is prob a goner like you said if ABC goes with V.

@rockauteur: Didn't even think of Adam and Eve but they definitely could be Rose and Bernard, esp. if they stayed in 1977. But why the black and white stones?

@wooster182: I don't think Christian is Esau. I think he's on Jacob's side with Claire & he left the clue for Ilana to find on the wall of the cabin.
Anonymous said…
I don't think Juliet's fate has anything to do with what happens with V. They obviously told Elizabeth Mitchell months ago that she was getting killed off. That's why she went ahead and booked another show. If V doesn't get picked up it will mean she's more available to come back for a flashback or as a ghost, but Juliet is dead no matter what happens with V.
Harleypeyton said…
A fun and at time mindbending episode -- loved that opening -- but as is usually the case these days, like most shows, there were some truly illogical character moves, moves that we're meant to forgive if they lead to a satisfying pay-off.

Two come to mind.

Jack's Crazy Plan to blow sh*t up and get them all safe and sound to Los Angeles as originally intended has always seem a little thin, and never more so than when he explained his rationale to Sawyer. He's doing this so he can have a second chance with Kate!! Sawyer, rightly, mentions that she's just around the next bush, and not in the handcuffs she'll be wearing in LA. (Thank you, Sawyer.) But Jack, quite seriously, tells him that the cuffs are no problem. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. At which point I sorta yelled at the screen, if you truly believe the latter mantra, WHY BLOW UP THE ISLAND for a second chance?

Juliet's false turn is similarly loopy. This is a strong and logical woman, one guided by her intellect. She believes Jack's Crazy Plan is crazy. She forces Sawyer to return to stop him. But then, out of nowhere, she changes her mind and much to poor Sawyer's befuddlement, decides the Crazy Plan is just all right with her. And why? Because the only way for her to avoid getting her heart broken is to never meet Sawyer in the first place. And why does she come to this nutty remove? Because Sawyer LOOKED AT KATE.

Gack. That's not one, but two emotional motives that simply do not track. But yes, however illogical or poorly conceived, they did lead to one of the more dramatic and lacerating moments in the show's history: Sawyer's doomed attempt to save the woman he loves.

So there's that.
Anonymous said…
Jack has become a total ass. I jumped with joy when Sawyer finally kicked him in the balls. I've wanted to do that since they crashed.
ticknart said…
I think that the Lost crew sees time travel like Douglas Adams, "There is no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end." Sayid, Jack, and Kate turned Ben from the timid kid to the calculating manipulator and Juliette caused The Incident that crashes 815 and, probably, makes it so women can't carry their children to term.

I found myself wondering about the smoke monster/Alex thing last night. Is it on the side of Esau, or was it talking about the real John Locke? I'm still not sure. It didn't kill Locke after dragging him through the jungle and it seemed reverential to Mr. Eko, so is it on the side of "evil"? Is it on the side of "good"? Or is it simply on the side of the island?

I'm not convinced that Ben did what the smoke monster/Alex actually wanted him to do.

On Jacob meeting the key players: I thought it was interesting that Hurley was the only one he met with after Hurley was on the island. Why didn't Jacob and Hurley meet before 815 like the others? Was Hurley and unexpected element? A happy coincidence? Or an unknown variable that became important?

On other sites, but not here, at least as I'm writing, people seem confused about the flash to white at the end instead of the usual black. It has represented time travel this season. That led me to think, like Jace, that the "They're coming." means those in the past were pushed to 2007. (Although I'd hate to see the reaction of Rose and Bernard if they're moved forward, too.)

All in all, I thought it was an excellent episode. Sure, it didn't end in a game changing way, but rather than keep our interest high it seemed to be driving us deep into the final season's narrative.

2010 has never seemed farther away.
dannyho said…
Very good review Jace! Shed some light on the themes of this episode (and perhaps even the entire series) that I felt but couldn't express through words. Highly insightful.

I think it's interesting that we are getting a full understanding not just of why this crash happened in season 1, but rather, the entire story of this world that the writers have created. Based on what we saw last night, It's apparent that Jacob led the members of the Black Rock to the island to have them as his people, to bring them to paradise. Before them, there was no one, thus, these are how The Others came to be (and which makes sense being that early in the series, we learned that Whitmore's family were the owners of the Black Rock). So the story of Lost doesn't just begin with the survivors, it begins at the dawn of time.

I'm fine with accepting that the show doesn't have to answer every single question that we've had throughout these five years. I'm fine understanding that this is the destinies of those who fly Oceanic 815, and that might be all the closure we get. What I'm not fine with is those last minutes where Juliet sets off the bomb. I think it would have been much better to show us a quick flash of what happened after the Incident. But perhaps that's really because I'm anxious to see where this story goes. Can't wait for 2010!
Jace Lacob said…
Ticknart,

Excellent points but I would just correct one thing that you said: Sayid, along with Hurley, is visited after the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. The scene we witness is Nadia's death at the hands (or vehicle) of an unknown driver and it's what puts Sayid in Ben's line of vision once more.
ticknart said…
Jace,

You're right. I was so fixated on that damn guitar case that I blanked Sayid's time frame out.

Still, why visit those two after they got off the island, but not before like he did with the others?
Bo Warburton said…
I am new to this blog-thread and enjoy it very much. Regarding the prime movers, in the OT, although he is the child of the promise, interestingly it is Jacob who is the trickster of the pair. To take it a step further, could it be that Richard is Jacob's angel and they are assembling 12 children to carry forward his promise? Will 12 make it into 2007?
ted23 said…
I was let down by the finale. Could have been amazing thrill ride but the fade to white was a dull and predictable ending. Why not give us a tease even if short to season 6? Especially as Jace said that there's no way the show will reset itself. We all know the white flash means time travel so why not show us SOMETHING?
Mrs. James Ford said…
I liked the episode until about the last half hour. One of my biggest problems was that while Sayid is bleeding out Jack and Sawyer decide to take a little walk for a 5 minute talk?? Even when Jack finally leaves with the bomb, it's only Jin who is taking care of Sayid in the van. Everyone else is just standing around not one bit worried about Sayid.

Question about the cabin. Could it be that Esau was holding Jacob prisoner there? Thus, the ash around the cabin...
Anonymous said…
hmmm ... didn't think about that when jacob said "they're coming" that it referred to jack and the others. thanks jace for mentioning that. like most commentators already, i think they're going to wake up on the island in 2007. similar to how desmond was zipped back in time when he turned the key, i think everyone will end up in the future when juliet detonated the bomb. i hope that juliet will still somehow be alive. she's always been sort of a stone cold person (but with good intentions) so it was definitely heart breaking in the scene between her and sawyer.
El said…
as long as you believe the time stream never changed, we know dr. chang will stay in 1977 because he's in the orientation video where he mentions the incident.
i kind of thought maybe this Esau/Locke guy was the Alex that Richard saw, "Locke" conveniently disappeared to get rope or something during that whole segment and conveniently reappeared right after Alex disappeared. I also don't really believe we've seen the last of 1977, i don't know, seems like a copout, they just get blasted into the future? although i guess the just got crashed into the past anyway. sad we didn't get to see claire or charlie at all. also, did anyone mention Sayid, do we think he's going to die? he's got a big old bullet hole in him even if they do blast forward.
Anonymous said…
What about Frank Lapidus being considered as the "replacement"? I thought that was interesting.
CL said…
I've been rooting for Jack ever since day one. He's just the character that I've always been able to relate to. Since the start of this season, though, it's like Jack has been replaced by his evil/stupid twin. Jack has never, EVER taken things on blind faith. He's just never been able to make that leap - it's his fatal flaw. To find him so ready and willing to do something so big with so little reasoning behind it... Well, that's just not Jack. He seems to have replaced John Locke. It's John's fatal flaw to take things on blind faith without questioning them. Sorry team Darlton - I just don't buy it.

I think the smoke monster is definitely aligned with Esau and vice-versa.

And another thing - I don't think Christian is Esau. As it would be in Esau's favor to have Jack, Kate, and the others die, right? Remember - Christian was there on the freighter with Michael, making sure that the others were safely away before the big explosion. Would Esau really do that? Well...I suppose he could have. But why? To make sure Sayid stayed alive long enough to shoot young Ben, and thereby giving Esau the tool of a man he needed in adult Ben...? Oh, my head hurts.
ohjohnny said…
I just wandered in here via Twitter, I think, and wanted to let you know this write-up was better than the actual show. I want to watch your show instead of the show I watched last night.
Ilovetoeat said…
Wow, greatest blog ever. I'm glad I found it via the Chicago newspaper. Thanks, and now my head spins for 8 months!!
HKL said…
I found this blog just some episodes ago, and now I love reading it after every episode. It helps so much, and I am impressed by all the details you see and remember.

I also want to share some thoughts I had when reading this post and the comments. The image of Jacob and Esau playing a game of chess with the characters fits really well I think. I believe that from the finale we have learned that no one is ever being resurrected on the Island. I believe everytime someone has reappeared after death it was actually Esau taking the form of that person. After all, what we have learned in the finale is that Esau is very well capable of taking Locke's form. Therefore it seems likely to me that Christian, Claire and even Smokey are nothing but Esau himself.

I dont remember everything clearly, but didnt we see some drawing in the temple with Smokey and the Figure from the statue standing face to face? Could this be an image of Esau vs. Jacob?

It seems Esau has been interacting with the characters on the island much more actively than Jacob has. But I am sure that it will turn out in the final season that Jacob was very well prepared to Esau's move on him. Looking forward to watching, and to read you again.
Anonymous said…
This is an amazing site Jace. You are very insightful- good work!

here's my question (and maybe its minor):
why did richard tell sun that he saw jin and the rest of the crew were dead (saying that he saw it happen)?
breliedtke said…
To the previous poster who mentioned that Jacob in the OT is the trickster: that is what is keeping me from thinking Jacob is all good. I mean, biblically, Jacob ends up a godly man but his name alone means "deceiver." Obviously, our Esau character on last night's episode is a deceiver, but I suppose Jacob is, too. I think the first few lines of the episode are very poignant. Esau is upset with Jacob for bringing people to the island for the pleasure of seeing them try to survive. Jacob seems callous about whether or not they do survive - "it only ends once; everything else is progress." What?
Love the tie in with the Black Rock. It seems that the original hostiles are all from this shipwreck. How cool. But, this whole good vs. evil, creator vs. destroyer situation is really making it seem like the creation of the world and God vs. Satan. I am really just not sure who is who yet.
wooster182 said…
Esau would need the Oceanic Six to stay alive for two reasons:

1. They had to end up in the real world so that John would have motivation to leave the island to find them and die.

2. Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid had to go back to 1976 in order for Ben to be shot, be saved, and become an Other. Without that moment, he would have never had the opportunity to kill Jacob 36 years later.

These could be motivations for Esau as Christian to make sure that the Oceanic Six stayed alive.

As for Christian not motivating the others to kill Jacob instead, he needed someone who could become The Others's leader so that he could get an audience with Jacob. He also needed to be put in a position to find someone that would kill Jacob. Only someone with blind faith and love in the island could become a leader--John. Jack would never have had the faith or devotion to get that close until perhaps this season. Also, John was able to manipulate Ben like no one else could in order to get him to kill Ben.

The missing scene from the pilot is of Christian telling the dog that Jack had a lot of work to do. So far, I don't see how Jack has done anything but help put the pieces where they needed to be: Ben, John, everyone.

As for Elizabeth Mitchell, she could have found the guest spot on V because she knew the final season of Lost was coming up. After they film it, they ALL will need to find work. Because it starts in January, maybe the filming schedule is such that she can guest on V, star on Lost, and then star on V once her time on Lost is over and if V gets picked up.

A girl can dream anyway...
Jace Lacob said…
wooster182,

Unfortunately, having read the pilot script for V a while back, it's clear that Mitchell is the lead (http://www.televisionaryblog.com/2009/03/channel-surfing-elizabeth-mitchell-alan.html) in V. While she shot the pilot already, the series would likely shoot this summer/fall if it's picked up... But maybe it won't be picked up and Mitchell will be available to reprise her role as Juliet on Lost.
Bo Warburton said…
To breliedtke - thanks for reminding me about the "it only ends once" comment - this eschatology definitely echoes Judeo-Christian themes. I read somewhere that the Hebrews introduced the very idea of history to civilization, in the sense that we are going somewhere. Of course, Team Dalton could be having a little joke with us about the series coming to an end. (Should we be having this conversation on Twitter? I am bowarburton and I will look for Jace!)
Unknown said…
Epic beyond belief. I'm still wrapping my head around it all! I'll be re-reading your review of this last episode numerous times this summer for sure in hopes of figuring more things out!
It's been a great season Jace.
Anonymous said…
I think Richard Alpert is the lengendary Roman Centurian that pierced the side of Christ with a spear in the cross, and he was cursed to walk the earth for eternity. I heard about this legend a long time ago, and it fits with Richard being immortal and Ilana calling him Ricardus, a latin name
James said…
I don't Christian is Esau, firstly we never found Christian's dead body unlike the body we've just seen of Locke. Perhaps Jacob brought him back to life and I doubt that if he is actually Esau he would want Claire following him around the whole time nor even care about her. Christian never got to spend time with Claire now is his chance. Christian is working for Jacob.
Anonymous said…
Did anyone think about Sayid possibly being the skeleton found in the van? Afterall, he did grab the jumpsuit with the name "Horace" on it.
Jace Lacob said…
Anonymous,

The skeleton in the van didn't say "Horace," it said "Roger" and "Workman," and belonged to Ben's father Roger Linus, whom he gassed in the Dharma van during The Purge. The Horace skeleton was uncovered by Locke in the mass grave, where it was thrown in following The Purge, which occurred in 1992... and not 1977.

(FYI, please, can everyone please follow instructions above and NOT use "anonymous" comments? It's really quite confusing for conversation flow.)
gmr2048 said…
@Mazza Bernard/Rose, Adam/Eve, "But why the black and white stones?"

Could it be as simple as Bernard was a white man and Rose a black woman? Were they giving the future Losties a clue as to whom the skeletons belonged?
Gregory said…
Nice job with the timely reviews!

Let's accept the rule that dead is dead, but also the rule that it is possible to communicate with dead people. I would then like to postulate that there is a difference between manifestations of Easu which can interacted with the world ... didn't Alex grab Ben in the temple tunnels? and visitations of spirits ... Christian couldn't help Locke up to turn the wheel.

I would also like to speculate on the importance of Hurley to the final season with his ability to communicate with spirits and the unknown contents of his guitar case. Also, I am remembering an episode where Hurley found the cabin to everybody's surprise. (Did he kick the hole in the ash ring?)
wooster182 said…
I now think that Esau actually *is* the smoke monster, not working with the smoke monster. We know he can take the form of the dead, as the smoke monster has done. "John" was outside of the temple when Ben summoned the smoke monster, so Ben would have no way of knowing whether Esau shapeshifted from John to the smoke monster to Alex. This could also explain why "Alex" told Ben to follow Locke. This could also be why the smoke monster did not kill Locke when it had the chance several seasons ago.

It also seems that that part of the temple was designed to worship the smoke monster. We still haven't seen the rest of the temple, which I have a feeling is glorious. Perhaps both Jacob and Esau are worshipped on the island. I'm still not convinced that either of them is 100% good or evil. Jacob doesn't seem completely benevolent.

Jace, I'd be extremely disappointed to see Juliet go. The last episode made me an endgame J/S fan. But I saw the cast list for V was Alan Tudyk and Morena Baccarin and that lessened the pain quite a bit. She would definitely be among good company.
breliedtke said…
Could someone please remind me where/when we saw the black and white stones? I have no memory of this. Thanks.
Jace Lacob said…
Breliedtke,

The castaways discovered the bodies of a man and a woman (nicknamed Adam and Eve) in a cave in the very beginning of Season One. They discovered pouches with white and black rocks on the decaying skeletons. The significance of the stones and the bodies remain mysteries to this day.
fannie227 said…
My first thought about the guitar case was that it was Charlie's. I'm not sure I can back that up with logic, but for the same reason Jack put Christian's shoes on Locke's corpse to wear back to the island, maybe something representative of someone who died needed to make its way back too?
Unknown said…
I feel that the reference to the loophole at the end of the episode was too obvious. Time and again the LOST writers have given us clues that intentionally lead us astray. To wit, the episodes when the Losties learned of the "crashed" flight 815 found in the ocean, when Desmond sailed in every direction but kept ending up back at the island, and Mikhail had said "I've already died once today". A definite false path to a "the island is actually purgatory" reveal. I would wager that the two Lockes combined with Jacob mentioning the loophole are red herrings meant to throw us into a deity-shapeshifter-take-the-form-of-dead-persons mindset. Otherwise it begs the question, if "Esau" is so powerful and influential, why has it taken him this long to convince a leader to murder Jacob? Also, if "Esau" and Smokey are in league or are the same entity, why was "Locke" surprised to learn that Ben was instructed to follow his commands? He could have been faking his ignorance, but then why not instead just say he knew about Ben's forced allegiance because the island already told him about it? There are just too many holes. I don't think we have been given nearly enough clues to formulate an all-encompassing theory as to the real nature of the island and its inhabitants, but I do think the writers want us to believe we have. Still, it's fun to speculate.
James said…
Hah, Chris when you mentioned red herring I instantly thought of the fish Jacob caught at the start of the epicsode. Perhaps that particular fish was put there for a reason.
Great write up.

I noticed this tho. If it's Esau as Locke who says they have to summon the smoke monster at the Temple, and then the smoke monster tells Ben to follow Evil Locke's every word, couldn't the smoke monster and Evil Locke be the same thing? We never see or hear from Evil Locke that whole time when Ben is down there, and then the smoke monster disappears, and then Locke is suddenly at the top. I just think it's possible that the smoke monster and Evil Locke are the same thing.
Steve said…
FYI: Per ABC's official recap of the show the statue is Tawaret, the god of fertility and motherhood, not Sobek.
Pharaoh said…
Just some thoughts....

in an earlier series claire complains that she has not felt her baby kick, then a stranger touches her stomkach and she feels a kick, was Jacob reviving Aaron before he was even born?

Also it seems that when Jacob appears to the survivors in the flashbacks, death is involved:
- Sawyers parents
- Nadia
- Jacks patient (almost)
- Claire/Aaron (as above)
- Locke
Maybe Jacob has the power of life and death, but can only give a life if he takes one.

Maybe the loophole was that only the leader could kill Jacob, which was why Esau never got anyone else to do it.

The symbol that the statue is holding, and that is seen on Amy's late husbands necklace, is an Ankh and is a symbol of immortality.

I think that the smoke monster is Esau an d can posess corpse - Locke, Alex , Christian.

What is Frank a replacement for, the new Jacob as Jacob new he was going to die so thought fit to seek out a replacement.

Again this is just speculation.
thinkingman said…
Tawaret vs. Sobek
Yep, that's what it says Steve. Good point. Tawaret was a hippo, but it sure looks like a croc to me... plus Sobek is the righter of wrongs with respect to the gods, which seems to me exactly what the island does (refer to Locke's transformation). Sobek also became a god of fertility. So who knows?? I, for one, am done theorizing!
David said…
Hi, I havent read all above but its good thoughts!

My thing I have been thinking about is that Esau has adopted Christian Shepherd's form at one point, and it appears that there is a significance of Aaron (his grandson) being the only childbirth on the island; which has been suggested as Aaron being an embodiment of Jacob?

Anyway I just get the feeling that this bloodline has a central role in 'the convergance of everything that rises' i.e. between Jacob and Esau and the ending of this repeating cycle.

Thats my half baked idea :D
jeffsl said…
Great episode and great write-up. The part I'm having trouble rationalizing is how the '77 crew will suddenly end up in 2007.

Why? Because we've seen 2007, and they weren't there. The bomb was detonated 30 years prior (but we were lulled into feeling like these parallel story lines were occurring simultaneously because of the editing). Everything that happened to the 2007 people subsequent to Jack et al vanishing from Ajira 316 occurred in a world where an atom bomb was detonated at the site of the Swan decades prior.

And yet, we still see the remains of a base camp on the beach in 2007, so does that mean that the bomb didn't prevent 815's crash?

It makes my head hurt, but I can't wait to find out how it all gets resolved.
Jace Lacob said…
Jeffgoblue,

The bomb didn't prevent the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 at all. In fact, it was part of what caused the Incident and started a chain of events that in fact led right to Flight 815 crashing on the island.

The castaways aren't in 2007 yet. What is happening to them is unfolding in a linear fashion even as they move through various timeframes. We haven't seen them in 2007 yet because they haven't yet moved into this timeframe... but they will, as evidenced by Jacob's dialogue that "they're coming."

The bomb may have happened 30 years earlier but for Jack, Kate, etc. only a matter of seconds have passed. The release of electromagnetic energy, coupled with the detonation of the hydrogen bomb, will propel them to 2007, as I explained in the post.
Unknown said…
Just a couple quick points:

I really liked the episode. I will admit, the end was a little predictable. Ten minutes into I thought to myself "The end of the very last scene will be the incident and nothing more."

I really like how Jace gave the name Esau to the unnamed "antagonist." I think that was very insightful and it got me thinking about a few other things. Of course in the opening scene Esau is wearing black while Jacob is wearing white. This also makes a parallel to the beginning of the series where Locke holds up the backgammon pieces to Walt. This seems to solidify the argument that this is the story of the battle of good and evil or as Locke says, "Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark."

Finally, just along the lines of characters dying off. I was very sad to see Juliet go. I feel as if her character was cheated by this episode in a very similar way to the way Charlie Pace was cheated. Every time a major character has died off the flashbacks of that episode revolved around them, save Juliet and Charlie. In both cases I thought they wouldn't die because the flashbacks did not revolve around them. In the world of the show, I feel that it just isn't right. They should have been given the proper send off.
Dean said…
OK, Juliet did not die. I also thought the bomb went off at the end but it did not. The white flash is a white flash of time travel not the white hot heat of a nuclear bomb. The reason Juliet changed her mind about setting off the bomb was because something or someone changed it. Setting off the bomb somehow made a time travel incident occur. That's why they had to get off the sub and meet at the drill site. They all had to be there to get kicked back to thier own time line.

So they were NOT always in 1977.

If the bomb had really gone off it would have created a bowl shaped crater many many feet in diameter and many feet deep. No evidence of that is on the island.

And V has nothing to do with Elizabeth Mitchel returning or not. Lost is already in the can. It has been for at least a year. They rapped up filming many months ago. I was soooo hoping that they would just give up this next January crap and just show the remaining episodes now and get it over with.

If Widmore was born on the island as a decendent of the Black Rock people from the ship then how does he go back to running a multi billion dollar business that he apparently left before returning from the island ? And it is clear that all of the Others are aware of the rest of the world and what is going on so there is more here than meets the eye.

I think Jacob and his friend are from another planet and maybe they are here to decide the fate of our planet. I also won't assume that Jacob is good. Maybe his friend wants him dead because he deserves it. It could also be like on Babylon Five where the two most powerful races in the Galaxy battled each other every thousand years and the other races were just cought in the middle and neither race was "good".
Anonymous said…
@dean What on earth are you talking about? Lost has a whole season left and HASN'T FILMED ANY OF IT YET. They won't even start shooting until July and haven't even written the last season yet. Get a clue.
jeffsl said…
Sorry, Dean, but I'm completely not buying this "bomb didn't go off" stuff and that it was a time-flash instead. The donkey wheel was back on its axis, there had been no time-flashes for three years, and you're telling me that a time-flash randomly happens right at the moment that Juliet is beating on a nuclear bomb?

No way. The writers of Lost take a lot of liberties with reality, but they don't take their viewers as fools. Besides, it's convoluted and just plain bad storytelling.

Now what we might see is that the bomb triggered some kind of time flash/rift and knocked the island off its time axis. If that were the case, Juliet would definitely be dead, but maybe not the others.

But the bomb went off. There's no reasonable/logical way to argue around that.
Dean said…
OK, then explain season 4 episode 13 where Ben and Locke are in the Orchid Station and in the orientation film it is explained that the island has negatively charged exotic matter that effects both space and time. They are warned not to leave large amounts of inorganic matter around in the chamber. Well a large amount of inorganic matter ( inluding the mass of the bomb ) went down the hole in the last episode. As an aside did anyone notice that the hole is MUCH larger than could be drilled by that small rig. I mean even an oil hole is not big enough for several people to fit side by side in. Anyway they shifted a bunny a few seconds ahead in time. So why can't the exotic matter have shifted them all ahead in time to 2007 ? The answer is it can. And did.
jeffsl said…
Dean,

Well, as for the hole being so big -- that was for the audience's benefit, so that we could have Juliet and all that stuff fall down there. I agree in real-life, the hole wouldn't be that large.

Interesting point about the Orchid bunny and exotic matter. (I just re-watched that video last night!) But I just don't think that the writers would have Juliet bang on an impact-sensitive nuclear device, only to have a fortuitously-timed time flash generated via an obscure process barely touched upon over a year ago. Like I said, it's convoluted and rather bad storytelling.

I'll eat a heaping plate of crow if I'm wrong. Either way, I just wish we didn't have to wait until January to find out.

Note the recap on the official site:

At the bottom of the drill shaft, Juliet lies in a shallow pool of water. She is critically hurt but somehow still alive. She looks around and sees the unexploded nuclear bomb off to the side. She drags herself over to it, inch by painful inch, and picks up a rock. She gathers herself and starts pounding on the nose of the cylinder. BAM! BAM! Using everything she's got -- she hits it one more time and -- WAAA-BOOM! The cavern flashes white, the noise of the explosion washes away as the screen washes out --

BOOM.See you next year.
Unknown said…
Dean and jeffgoblue,

I am going to speculate that Juliet is in fact dead and that the white flash was the result of an explosion.

However, I think it is reasonable to speculate that it was a time flash. If this is the case, it wouldn't have to be a coincidence. Why couldn't the time flash have been the result of this pocket of energy being released?... When Desmond turned the key a while back there was some sort of explosion that seemed to destroy everything but him. We don't know what exactly happened when he turned the key other than that. Maybe Juliet and Desmond essentially did the same thing. Or maybe not. Who knows? There might just be one single pocket of energy with multiple "access points," one of which being the location of the orchid and another being the location of the swan. I don't know. I'm not suggesting that's what I think. The point is we don't know yet. I personally like to think of these described pockets of energy to be sort of like "the engine" of Laputa of Swift. Obviously this island doesn't levitate like Laputa, that would be ridiculous. ...But then again so is time travel. ...At least it is as far as we know.


That begs another question for me... What is a pocket of energy anyway?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4317374.html?nav=RSS20

According to that article, "if just part of the conventional detonator were to be set off—say by a stray bullet, or possibly a rock, the high explosive might be set off, but a nuclear explosion would probably not occur."
Dean said…
According to that article, "if just part of the conventional detonator were to be set off—say by a stray bullet, or possibly a rock, the high explosive might be set off, but a nuclear explosion would probably not occur."

That's exactly right. A hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb is actually two bombs in one. It has a fission atomic bomb 'primary' ( a conventional atomic bomb ) that is used to produce enough radioactivity or "energy" by detonating, that it sets off the hydrogen ( fusion ) bomb secondary.

The primary is set off by high explosives formed into a very precise sphere which then compacts a metal alloy also formed into a very precise sphere which then compacts the plutonium pit, which then goes critical and explodes.

It was the primary that Syied removed.

How Syied, who was a torturer, would know how to dismantle and "hack" a thermonuclear bomb ( of which there are many designs )is beyond me. Not to mention that they may have all been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation not only from the leaking hydrogen bomb itself but from carying around the primary. But in the movies and on TV they tend to skip those little facts.

I think the bomb either went it's own way in time or it will end up on the island in 2007. I think the official story from the official site is just leading people to the obvious but wrong conclusion.

But as you said we will have to wait a long time to find out. And it could be longer if they have another writers strike or something again next year.
Dean said…
It's amazing how people don't follow the technology. People keep saying that they set off a hydrogen bomb. Here is an example:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Richard_Alpert

No they didn't.

Even if you don't know anything about hydrogen bombs it's painfully obvious that they did not set off the original hydrogen bomb since they removed a part of it and supposedly set that off. The rest of it is still in the cave.
Matthew said…
I'm not sure if anyone noticed this, I was getting anxious to say something, but Richard Alperts initials are R.A. And, you mentioned the Egyptian Sun God, Ra. So, I think there might be some sort of connection Just throwing that out there.

~Matthew
Don said…
So what about Ben?When I first watched Ben ask Jacob, "What about me?!" And Jacob replied, "What about you?" What I "heard" was, "What about you - you insignificant, worthless piece of crap?" (And I thought, "OMG! Harsh!!!"). Upon reflection, I believe that's what Ben "heard" too, and it broke his heart. And that was the deciding factor in the choice he made.

However, interestingly, the second time I watched it was very different. I "heard" Jacob say, "What about you? Now is your time. This is your choice. Show me who you really are, Ben." (What we do reflects who we are.)

We filter everything we see and hear through our own experiences. Ben's filter is full of emotional baggage and insecurities (much from his relationship with his father), and, of course, the lies of Esau-Locke and his smoky accomplice.

Ben hated being told that he had to be patient about meeting Jacob. But had he met Jacob earlier, he never would have killed him. Jacob knew of Esau's plan, and he chose not to thwart it through Ben.*

So Ben had to wait. And when he finally got his chance to meet Jacob, he blew it big time.


* Jacob does have an end game. He will thwart Esau's plan.
"They're coming..."


(It's Wednesday, and I'm having severe "Lost" withdrawal symptoms...)
Dean said…
Don,

That was great insight. I also believe that Jacob will thwart his plan. He had to have known everything Esau was doing otherwise why would he have bothered to go through the trouble of visiting all of the people who crashed on the island.

Maybe that wasn't Jacob who was stabbed. Maybe it was a clone or someone he made to look like him. They made a point of showing red blood come out of him. I think that's significant.

So the question is how did he know everything Esau was doing ? Does he have more 'power' than Esau ? Are they two different parts of the same being ? Like when Kirk got split into evil Kirk and nice Kirk going through the transporter in Star Trek ?

Could the whole island be nothing more than a machine and the Others are just there to do maintenance on it ? Maybe the island is the spaceship Jacob came to Earth on. Maybe the island is a machine and is controlled by a computer and it's the computer that is projecting Jacob and his friend.

What's in the guitar case ? My guess is a guitar. It will be needed to play certain notes to open some door somewhere on the island.
jeffsl said…
Lot's of great stuff here. It's truly a credit to the creators of the show for making such thought-provoking entertainment.

As far as the H-bomb terminology distinction goes, it's a fairly trivial point. The writers clearly knew the difference; the use if the fissile trigger as its own explosive device is a plot point. People in the real world mistake H-bomb for A-bomb all the time, so it's not unusual for the characters to do so. Besides, taking time to explain the difference between a fissile and fusion nuclear device doesn't advance the story.I've seen the Richard Alpert = R.A. = Ra thing before. Intriguing. Seeing him make the ship in a bottle hints that he came to the island on the Blackrock. But Ilana referring to him by the Latin name Richardus hints that perhaps he is originally from imperial-era Rome. Regardless, he said that Jacob made him the way that way.

I, too, needed a second look at Ben and Jacob's exchange. I took it the same way Ben did the first time. Upon reflection, Jacob was not taunting, but was, in fact, very sad. He knew what was coming, and did nothing to stop it.

The whole thing's quite amazing when you think about it. We all thought it was about this battle between Ben and Widmore; it turns out that there have been Bens and Widmores down through the centuries, all part of a much larger war.

White-clad Free Will and black-clad Fate move their pieces on the backgammon board. Free Will is fixated on proving Fate wrong -- that it can end differently, that people can exercise their free will and follow a different path. Fate believes that the end result of the newest group will be the same as all of the previous ones.

Against all odds, Juliet found herself clinging to life deep underground. She knew that she would die. But rather than just lay there and accept her fate, in the ultimate act of free will she chose to use every last bit of energy she possessed to smash on that bomb, even as her senses were fading and the darkness was gathering around her. It was her choice (and the choices of her friends that brought it there) that ensured that this time would be different, that it wouldn't end the same as all the others.

This is why I believe the bomb went off -- because of the choices made by the Losties exercising their free will, rather than the more random fate of a time flash. Maybe the bomb triggered a time-flash. Whatever. All I know that thanks to free will, Fate had better watch out.

They're coming.
Dean said…
One other thing that we keep forgetting ( myself included ) is that Juliet is an Other. She wasn't always, but once changed into one you can never go back. Richard himself said that when they gave the dying Ben to him. They do something to you that cannot be ondone. Maybe biomechanical engineering.

That means that no matter how she acts or behaves her loyalty will ALWAYS be with the Others in the end.

And she was sent by Ben to be a spy. Is she still spying ?

I think her character has a MUCH bigger role to play in the story.
Steve said…
i love everyone and their theories. I think everyone is looking way to hard into this.

The bomb going off caused the original incident. Who knows what happens when you set off a bomb next to a pocket of the most insane magnetism known to man. Thats the beauty of it they can make up what ever they want. I'm sure it caused a time travel vortex that will put the gang around the swan in 2007.

Esau being the smoke monster is a very interesting theory and i think it's right. When ben pulled the turd out of the water to bring the monster he never came and he showed up when locke walked away so i think it's safe to say that it was him.

Esau aka smoke Monster has been taking the form of all the bodies that have died on the island. He was definitely Christian Shepherd and i think thats why Richard made the 70's Dahrma people give him the body so that it could be properly disposed of before the Esau could take it's form.

I think in the end we are going to realize that we have been watching a game of backgammon between to powerful entities hell bent on proving the the other wrong.

I'm going to be sad to see it end but i can't wait for everything to be revealed.
Dean said…
I have a major portion of the story figured out ! If you go back and watch the show from the first four episodes now that we have seen the last episode it's obvious that Locke's body was infiltrated by Esau since before the plane crash. Locke was a total loser and his mind was easily manipulated. Somehow Esau found a way to infiltate a human and share the body. He had Locke bring the knives on the plane so that he would have a knife with him to give to Ben to kill Jacob with. The one part of his plan that he had no control over was whether Locke would survive the plane crash. That was luck. When John awakens on the beach Esau tries to move his foot and it works and it's like "Yes!, I made it ! My plan is going to work !"

Esau is the smoke monsters master. It started searching for him the moment the plane crashed. When John is out hunting for the wild bores it's Esau who is in control until he gets knocked out and for a moment the real John is in control. Then Esau takes control again and goes after the bore. Then the smoke monster seeks him out and it's like "Master, I am here."

I haven't figured out if Christain is a ghost or a recreation but he is not Esau or under Esau's control. He could be under Jacobs control.

One other thing. Vincent the dog has been dead since the plane crashed. The dog is a recreation or something like Christian is.It's always watching. Like it knows about Locke and Esau.
breliedtke said…
I was re-watching some episodes today and I stumbled upon something interesting. In episode 409 "The Shape of Things to Come" Ben, having just left the island after turning the wheel and magically appearing in Tunisia in 2005, visits Widmore late at night at his penthouse in London. Widmore is surprised by the visit and asks Ben if he is going to kill him. Ben says to Widmore something like, you know that I can't do that. Ah ha! That was the same thing Esau said to Jacob. This is the same episode in which Keamy kills Alex and Ben says that "they" have changed the rules and then he summons the smoke monster to kill the mercenaries. The rules. Made me start to think of the island as a game of Risk, which they were also playing in this episode. We know by now that there are several sides to this game and that everyone is fighting for control/possession of the island. And, apparently, there are some rules of conduct to which the different sides have been adhering for many, many years.

I found it very delightful when Hurley, while entranced in this game of Risk, gets angry with either Locke or Sawyer for giving up control of Australia. Hurley says, "Australia is the key to the game." Maybe it is also the key to the show. I dunno. But fascinating episode to re-watch if you have an hour.
Steve said…
I'm not buying your theory Dan. Rose had cancer and it left. John was a great guy who always got shit on and when he came to the island he got his mojo and his legs back.
I like the idea of the dog since there is picture of a dog in the cabin there could be something there.
The fact is we don't know half of what the producers know and even when we do it won't make complete sense.
"everyone answers to someone" that line always made me think who does Jacob answer to?
Next season will have a TON of old flashbacks with Jacob and Esau which will be awesome.
And just think we are only 8 months away.
Dean said…
"John was a great guy who always got shit on and when he came to the island he got his mojo and his legs back."

Well, I don't think John had much of a choice with his life now that breliedtke made me watch episode 409 again which got me watching the episode Cabin Fever again. In that episode Richard is testing John with the items. There is a picture John made of the Smoke Monster. John picks the sand, the compass and then the knife. The test was to see if John had been taken over by Esau and when he chose the knife Richard knew that he had been taken over.

How else could John know about the Smoke Monster ? He couldn't, but Esau did not only because Esau is from the island but is also the smoke monsters master.

I think Richard only found out that Esau may be in John when John went back in time because at that point Esau figured that it was to late to stop him or something so he told Richard to check him out in the future.

But it was not to late. I have a feeling now that Ben may have known all along also. He may have been playing dumb like the expert at playing dumb that he is. Even playing dumb when he put the knife into Jacob.
Dean said…
Here is another thing. Despite what the romantics out there say, Adam and Eve are not Rose and Bernard. They are either the Degroots or are the mother and father ( or some relative )of Esau and Jacob. They were the first.

It was John who called them Adam and Eve. He knew who they were because John is really Esau. They had a black and white stone on them. Rose and Bernard would not have cared less about black and white stones.

When you look at things from the perspective of John being Esau 70% of things line up.
Dean said…
When Locke and Hurley and Ben are looking for the cabin Ben says to Locke

"Fate is a fickle Bitch"

which means yeah your body was chosen by Esau but we know about it and are going to change the plan.

When Locke is in the cabin he asks Christain

"Do you know why I'm here?"

Christain replies

"Yeah, do you?"

Christain knows that Esau is in Lockes body to kill Jacob but Esau is not in charge of the body at that time, John is, so John doesn't know that Christain means Yeah, I know you are looking to kill Jacob.

Christain could be Jacob in Christians form.
Steve said…
I did forget about John drawing the smoke monster when he was a kid. But i still don't buy that he has in any conscious way been Esau.
Remember John told Richard to tell himself that he was going to have to die. Drawing the Smoke Monster and picking the knife were subconscious choices not made by John.
The longer Locke was on the island the more he started becoming like Esau. It wasn't until he died that Esau could completely take over.
Don't forget that the John on the island really isn't even John. Locke's body was in a crate.
It's fun to speculate but there are soooo many layers of contradicting theories your head will explode.
The show is all about Destiny anyway right so if everyone is meant to do something then the ending will be inevitable.

So quick question? Do you think that Esau was confined in the Cabin? I can't figure out if he was a prisoner in the Cabin and Hurley breaking the ash ring let him out. Any thoughts?
Dean said…
I don't know if anyone was confined in the cabin. The whole cabin thing doesn't even make any sense. It also seems to move through time and space. But then the whole island is about moving through time and space.

This I can say though. Esau and Jacob have two different life styles. Jacob is the carefree artist who weaves his own cloth and lives on the beach. Esau is the scientist who lives in his Temple\labratory studying the earth and all that is on it. He created the smoke monster.

I still don't understand why Jacob would live in a foot with no roof that allows the rain it. And whats with the constantly burning fire ? Is there a force field surrounding the foot ? I still think both Esau and Jacob are not from this planet. Maybe they are adventurers who got stuck here or can leave but haven't yet. And whats the big connection with Egypt. I wish people would stop connecting ancient Egypt with aliens from other worlds. The ancient Egyptions were a lot smarter than we give them credit for and YES they did design and build the pyramids all by themselves with no help from alien astro nuts.
Steve said…
What if it was Jacob that was trapped in the Cabin and Esau was the one running the island and causing all the fighting and pain.
Maybe Jacobs original home was the statue and Esau destroyed it and trapped Jacob in the Cabin until Hurley broke the ash and set him free. That's why Alana went to the cabin first and found the cloth with the statue on it telling her where to go next.
If this is the case then i think that Jacob has been playing Esau the whole time making sure that Esau thought he was winning but the Gang from 1977 are going to prove that Jacob was right and people are good.
"If it only ends once then everything else is just progress"
breliedtke said…
Dean, that is so funny - I went from watching "The Shape of Things to Come" to watching "Cabin Fever," too. I, too, was struck by the drawing little John made of the smoke monster. I had forgotten that. I don't want to believe that Locke has always been Esau. It seems unlikely to me. No other explanation, just don't think that is the way it is.

In "Cabin Fever" John sees Horace chopping down trees for the cabin he is building as a romantic getaway for him and Amy. How did it turn into Jacob's cabin? Does any of this relate to how little Ethan becomes an Other?

Interesting observation: when Locke pulls Horace's dead body out of the mass grave to find the map to the cabin, Horace's name tag on his jumpsuit says "mathematician." Hmm. . . wasn't he head of security? If he is a mathematician maybe he understands the island's complexities and has much more to do with the island than just being a Dharma big-wig. Thoughts?
Jace Lacob said…
breliedtke,

Horace was the Dharma Initiative's leader on the island and a mathematician, not the head of security (a position filled by Amy's late husband and then Jim LaFleur, a.k.a. Sawyer).
Dean said…
I'm still working on the cabin. I just can't see Esau going "Hey Jacob, why don't you come over to this cabin for dinner ?" and then he traps him in it with some stupid ash. I mean if Jacob can't overcome ash then what good is he ? And besides the whole island was formed from volcanic lava and ash. If ash was Jacob's cryptonite then that island is not the place for him.
Dean said…
OK what do you think of this ?

When Claire returned from being taken by Ethen it was not Claire but a recreation. It was brand new that's why it had no memories. Claire is dead.

That would explain why she just walked off with Christain and was with him in the cabin and has not been seen since.
Dean said…
Ha !

When Jacob and Esau are talking on the beach you think the entire conversation is about the ship but it's not.

The first part is. Esau asks Jacob how they found the island. Jacob replies "You will have to ask them when they get here." Esau then has a pained look on his face. Why ? Because he knows it's a smart ass answer. He knows that for some reason he can't ask them directly.

The second part of the conversation is when Esau says to Jacob "You are still trying to prove me wrong arent you ?"

Then Esau says "They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."

Jacob replies " It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, PAUSES AND LOOKS UP AT THE SKY, is just progress."

What he means by it only ends once is the end of the planet or maybe the whole galaxy. Before the end anything that happens is progress. Which means as far as life can get before the end is progress.

So beings are coming from space but have not arrived yet. In the mean time they are trying to pick and chose which humans are special enough to, take your pick, clone, save, take off the planet/galaxy before it's destroyed, test.

This would explain why it's constantly mentioned that a war is coming.

Maybe these beings have been in war for a long time and everything that gets in there way is destroyed.

Maybe Esau and Jacob are on two different sides of the war and Esau wants to kill Jacob because during the war Jacobs side did something bad to Esaus side.

Could it be like the Star Trek episode with the guys who were half black and half white but one was white on the opposite side and in the end their home planet was destroyed ?

It also fits with what Jacob says after being stabbed. He says "They are coming."

I think the show will end with the beings arriving from space. That will be the start of the next series.
Dean said…
I know it's not but wouldn't it be funny if Lost turned out to be nothing but a giant prequal for V !
Dean said…
In the next scene after Jacob and Esau are talking on the beach look at what the little friend of Kate's is playing with. It's the little airplane that she stole out of the safety deposit box.
Eric said…
They are not aliens. No way would Darlton go there at this point on the show.
Dean said…
Sorry about all the posts but I have to add one more thing.

There is one more nail in the coffin that Juliet is an Other and is completely loyal to them. When Juliet amd James and Kate are on the sub and Juliet hears that the nuke is going to go off and kill off the Others and possibly destroy the whole island she immediatley kicks into gear and summons super strength and hand to hand combat knowledge and takes out the guard. You think she wants to stop the bomb because she is altruistic like Kate ( and being a woman cares more about humans then men do ) but she could care less about the humans. It's the Others and the island she cares about. Whatever they go through to become an Other ( and I still think it could be bio engineering ) it infuses them with super strength when they need it and also with knowledge of how to fight. This was also shown with Ethan. At times he seemed to have super strength and SEAL like combat knowledge.

"BUT !", you are going to say. "Why does she change her mind later ?" She changes her mind because there is another communications channel that the Others can use when they are on the island. It's something built into them that only they can pick up. Something on the communications channel told her that what she thought at first about instinctively needing to protect the Others and the island was wrong this time and she should let Jack's plan proceed.

Where did I get this idea about the secret communications channel. In the early episode where Locke and Shannons's brother were looking for Vincent and John was blowing the dog whistle Shannon's brother says "I can't hear anything. I don't think that's working." John/Esau replies "You can't always hear everything. The sooner you learn that the better."
Steve said…
Dean i love your creativity but i really can't see aliens landing and a war breaking out with beings from another planet.

The others are the crew from the Black Rock and their off spring. It wasn't until the Statue was destroyed that women stopped being able to give birth.

If you this is the case then Richard was on the Black Rock and was anointed as a protector of the island and given eternal life.

I see if being more about religion and God then aliens in the end.
breliedtke said…
Does anyone have any idea what the words/symbols on Jacob's tapestry mean? I saw Greek but the ABC recap says there are also Egyptian symbols. It is hard to see. I had to replay that section a few times. Whatever it is I am sure it is interesting.
Dean said…
Steve,

Even if the Others did originate from the Black Rock ( and I don't know where you are getting that from )it doesn't mean that they were not changed through some mechanism like bio engineering. If there was not some science ( or in your case religious hocus pocus ) going on with them then Richard would not have said Ben could never go back to what he was. Plus Widmore said to Ben "I know what you are boy". What used in that way to me means a thing. And if Ben is not an Other than no one is. Of course Widmore should also be an Other and also be a thing if my theory is correct. Plus you can't be correct that ALL of the Others are from the Black Rock because we know for a fact that they have gotten some of them from the outside world.

Another thing I have a theory on is that if an Other is away from the island for too long they start getting withdrawl symptoms. The withdrawl makes them start drinking. Like Widmore did when Ben asked him when he started keeping a bottle next to his bed and Widmore says "When the nightmares started.". Could this be what happened to Jack's father ? Could Jack's father have once been an Other ? Could Jack have been changed into an Other when he was captured by the Others ? He certainly had withdrawl when he was away from the island for too long and did start drinking.

Breliedtke,

I found a decryption of the tapestry somewhere. I beleive it was from one of the links right below the comments here.

If I remember correctly one of the sayings on the tapestry was something like:

MAY GOD GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
Unknown said…
I hope it's not the case, but there are a few interesting coincidences. I remember watching V as a kid and remember that the visitors turn out to be reptilian, like the statue on Lost.

I also notice that Scott Wolf is one of the actors in the new V, and was on Party of 5 along with Matthew Fox.

Seems a bit thin, but who knows. I just hope the new V is better than the original, I can't believe they would bother bringing that thing back.
Dean said…
Is it also a coincidence that V is on ABC like LOST and Elizebeth Mitchell is in it and it will most likely start right after LOST ends ?
Dean said…
The Smoke Monster reminds me of the ID monster in the movie Forbidden Planet. That monster was also invisible except when they hit it with ray guns. I think they both made the same exact sound too. The ID monster came from a power source deep in the planet. The Smoke Monster also has to have a pretty good power source.
Steve said…
I can only hope that your wrong i would hate for this amazing series to end with space ships and lizard people.

There is definitely some super natural stuff going on but i hope they make it a divine power not an alien one.
Wes said…
I don't think that they will have Jacob & Esau be aliens. Nor does any of it have anything to do with V which comes from a different studio and different EXPs than LOST. Nice theorizing but WAY off the mark, IMHO.
Unknown said…
I have to say that I agree with Steve and Wes on this one. This show is more about the battle of good and evil and/or the inner conflict of fate and free will.

If it turns out to be about bio-engineering and aliens I think I will feel like I have wasted my time watching it.

This show draws on so many sources of inspiration. There are countless references to literature, religion, and culture. Not to mention that everything that is significant is a combination of references that might not seem to go together otherwise. I think that is probably the coolest part of this show.

For example:

-The statue is clearly an Egyptian god. But it has Roman Sandals on and in holding Roman symbols. It would never exist like that in real life. I suspect that is significant in some way.

-Also, There are many references to the Judeo-Christian, (i.e. Jacob and the gift of free will, and Jacob accepting his death for a greater purpose), while simultaneously that is completely intertwined with the yin-yang of Confucianism and Taoism. The dark and light stones of Adam and Eve. The dark and light of backgammon. the Ba gua of the DHARMA logo. Even Jacob and Esau were dressed opposingly... light and dark.

I am also sure that there are far more references that are significantly deeper than I am even aware. I am not a symboligist on par with Robert Langdon, but I know enough to realize that there is a lot more that I am missing. I think it is those missing pieces that are the key to this show.
Unknown said…
By "Jacob accepting his death" I mean to say "Jacob accepting being hated by Ben and having his body stabbed." We of course don't know what the state of his being is at this point. I don't mean to even try to speculate that.
Unknown said…
... and it seems I was wrong about the ankh that the statue is holding. Those are Egyptian ankhs symbolizing eternal life and are not Roman.
Jace Lacob said…
Dave,

Totally agree with you, though I was going to point out that the ankh is in fact an Egyptian symbol and not Roman.
Dean said…
Dave,

Roman Sandals. Is that a brand name ? The Egyptions wore sandals Dave.

This goes back to what I said before about the majority of the world thinking that the ancient Egyptions were stupid retards that could not do anything for themselves. Most of the blame for that goes to the people who write books saying that the pyramids were built by alien astro nuts and the media rehashing it over and over.

But the Egyptions were not as good of stone masons as the anctient mexicans ( or whatever the people who lived in South America back then were called )were.

Anyway anytime someone has wriiten a story involving the ancient Egyptions ( except for mummy stories ) it has ALWAYS involved aliens from other worlds.

In addition if this does come down to a devil vs God thing then the writers are pushing Christianity which would piss off a lot of LOST fans who beleive in a religion other than Christianity. The writers would never do that and the studio would never allow it.
Dean said…
This is interesting

BuddyTV Interviews LOST's Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse - and gets Answers!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

It has captured imaginations, and frustrated viewers for three seasons now, it is ABC's monolithic smash hit LOST. Lately, the show has been beseiged with complaints that there are no answers, so we sent our intrepid LOST guru Jon "DocArzt" Lachonis in search of some of the details LOST fans crave. He sat down with LOST executive producers and writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to get some insight on the island's biggest mysteries. Will there be another LOST Experience? Will Marvin Candle ever escape the confines of gritty 16mm orientation films? Are there twins among the others? What does the forthcoming game from UbiSoft hold in store for fans? When will season four premiere? And, what is up with that mysterious cable? The answers are here.
.BuddyTV: Is there enough information given on the show that someone could put together a fact-based theory that more or less explains what’s going on, on the island?

Carlton Cuse: I don’t think so, I mean, the story is not yet complete. I don’t think there’s enough that we’ve put out there that would allow someone to draw a conclusive theory about the island and the show.

Damon Lindelof: I think that there are bits and pieces that someone could put together. Recently Carlton and I put out to the Yahoo community all over the world, what do you think the monster is? And some people came alarmingly close to what its origins were, how it functions, what its purpose is, but they weren’t able to go the next level as Carlton says, deeper into saying, “That’s what it is but what does that mean in the grander scheme of what the island is.” It doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t accidentally back into it and anticipate something that they haven’t seen yet. But sort of the real hardcore intel about the island is going to start to reveal itself towards the end of the season as we learn more about the others.


BuddyTV: So far there’s been three David’s in the show: Hurley’s Dad, Libby’s husband and Hurley’s imaginary friend. Is there anything to that or do you guys just like the name David?

Damon Lindelof: We like certain biblical names and David is one of them. David happened to be my father’s name, maybe that’s sort of subconsciously rattling around in there.
Unknown said…
About the idea that the ankh is an Egyptian symbol. I recall once reading or hearing that the ankh is the first known glyph, or use of an abstract symbol to represent some idea or concept, as opposed to something like cave drawings or the like which would be literal representations of the very thing they mean to describe. The point being that while it was a part of the Egyptian lexicon, it was incorporated into it rather than having been invented for it, and so would predate the culture.

Anyways, that's how I remember hearing it. Also, that it has had many similar meaning at different times, typically as a symbol of immortality, fertility, life, etc.

There's one other thing that stuck with me from the early episodes regarding the smoke monster. The first time it appears someone says in the background chatter that the sound it makes, that sort of metallic, mechanical stomping sound, is a familiar sound to them from living somewhere in New Jersey, I think. Since everything seems to mean something on lost, it MUST mean something that this was said.
Dean said…
There is another assumption that we are all making. That is that the two men talking on the beach are currently living in the time of the Black Rock. That doesn't have to be the case. Maybe the Black Rock was pulled through time. The only time reference we have is that of the full statue and we don't even know when it was damaged. It could have been damaged in 1960. It would only take about 10 years or less for the bodies to decompose in the ship. And why were the slaves not released if they were stranded on the island ? The answer is that they were not stranded for very long before the people with the keys died or were removed from the ship.
Dean said…
I've got it !

In a previous post I said:

The first part is. Esau asks Jacob how they found the island. Jacob replies "You will have to ask them when they get here." Esau then has a pained look on his face. Why ? Because he knows it's a smart ass answer.

Why is it a smart ass answer ? Because Esau knows ( as does Jacob ) that the people on the ship are already dead !
Dean said…
A tweak on my previous post.

It seems as if Esau only "appeared" because of the ship.He also mentions that he just ate. Could what he have eaten be the crew of the ship ? Which would explain why he cannot now ask them how they got there ?
Shea said…
I have to agree with Dean's statement that the bomb must not have detonated in the finale. Especially since, as noted by Dean, there was no crater as surely would have been had it detonated.
Going back a couple of seasons, when the hatch DID detonate, there WAS a crater afterwards, even if it does seem a bit small on the surface.
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hatch_imploded.jpg

Remember, that the key Desmond used was intended to destroy the energy in the event of a catastrophic buildup. Could it be that the idea for this failsafe was contrived by Chang as a result of what Faraday told him? Could this failsafe actually have been the H-bomb?

Next, there is the contamination and quarantine that is associated with the hatch. We have no answers as to why the Swan inhabitants had to inject themselves every 9 days. Kelvin calls it a vaccine, but could it very possibly be medicine to prevent radiation poisoning? Remember, the H-bomb was leaking radiation when Faraday told the Others to bury it.

Lastly, but I seem to recall the device that Desmond was using the key on seemed spherical on the surface. Could it be the access panel of the H-bomb?

To my mind, these points of evidence seem to indicate that the bomb survived up until DESMOND detonated it long past 1977.
Dean said…
THANK YOU Shea !

The whole quarantine thing was a hoax. We don't know why.

Plus the "incident" was NOT what happened in 1977. If you watch the Swan orientation video Chang clearly says that the "incident" happend shortly AFTER the experiements began. That means AFTER the Swan station was built. Plus there was a video game based on LOST and in the video game another room was found in the Swan station. This room had a big machine in it with two big electrical coils. I think whatever they were doing with that machine was the cause of the "incident".
Dean said…
When Sun asks Ben what happened to the statue he also gives a smart ass answer. He says it was like that when he got there. He meant when he got there with Sun and the rest. So what he said can't be used as a date for the statue.
Shea said…
Another thing, if we are correct about the bomb not detonating, Juliet survives and should still be there in the next season.

The big question of all, whether or not the bomb went off, is who's Jacob and the stranger, "Esau". I have a feeling that it is not a good vs evil theme. Locke has always claimed that the island speaks to him, and he still claimed that after his "resurrection".
Could it be that Esau is a personification of the island itself, and Jacob is somehow controlling the island? That would explain why Esau wants Jacob dead.
Like a volcano builds up pressure and finally explodes, and similarly like the EM force had to be contained and released to prevent explosion, so the island is being controlled.

I think that Jacob is a personification of destiny. In many stories, a weaver is portrayed not as a creator, but as someone who is controlling threads of peoples lives and how they interact, where they begin and where they end. We can see Jacob's hand in the lives of all those he touched during the episode, presumably ensuring that they ended up where he wanted them.

The loophole Esau was looking for may be the one thread of destiny that Jacob wasn't controlling. Or at least, not controlling any longer. Locke's death would have severed the thread of destiny that Jacob was weaving. If instead Esau began weaving a new thread for Locke, he would have the loophole he was after. After all, Jacob would hardly weave a destiny resulting in his death.

Richard would have to be, in my mind, the biggest unknown. Although its doubtful Lost is promoting any christian themes, the idea of a trinity is present not only in christianity, iirc. In Lost, you have Jacob aka Destiny. You have Esau, aka Chaos. You have Richard, unchanging. That Llana calls him Ricardus, and he answers in Latin also, AND he knows the answer to the question, add up to an interesting theory: Back in roman times, Richard set up a group that has existed all the way through history. Kind of like the Illumanti or freemasons.
Alternatively, back in season 2, Richard administered a test to a very young John Locke. The outcome of that test scared Richard very much. Perhaps gleaning some knowledge from that test about John Locke's purpose, Richard had plenty of time to prepare. Exactly what he saw, and whether he has acted on that knowledge, I hope will be revealed in season 6.
Dean said…
Shea that was awesome ! I never thought about Jacob being a weaver.I also never considered that the island may be alive. Maybe it's being kept as a prisoner because it has such powerful abilities.

I got a feeling that Esau only comes out at rare times like when the ship appeared. If Esau IS the personification of the island that would explain it.

Jacob may also be able to weave people through time and space. I still think Jacob and Esau were in much more recent times when they are sitting on the beach. I wonder if the tapestry were burned if it would revert things to the way they were before.

Your reference to the "loophole" is also brilliant. That goes back to weaving.

Weaving in this case could also mean weaving a story.

Why couldn't Esau kill Jacob himself ? And why would a common knive work ? I mean if these personifications are super beings how can they die by being stabbed ? I still don't think Jacob is dead.

When Richard is testing John he says "Which one of these things ALREADY belong to you." How could they ALREADY belong to him ?
Mazza said…
@Dean

Weaving in this case could also mean weaving a story.Go back and read Jace's original review of this episode, especially his opening. That's what he was talking about in the first place.
Dean said…
I think Jace was talking more about Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse weaving a story than Jacob weaving one.
Mazza said…
@Dean

Uh, that's the whole point. He's talking about both Jacob and Damon and Carlton. It's called METAPHOR and it's clear he's talking about both and chose the imagery because of the opening shots of Jacob at the loom.

You might want to try to stay awake during English class.

Totally disagree with your theory. If you understood the show you would know there's no way Damon and Carlton would introduce aliens now. Please go read some Joseph Campbell.
Doug said…
@dean Wouldn't have phrased it as harshly as Mazza but agree that it's obvious that Jace was referring to Jacob and Darlton in his opening in metaphorical terms. Both are weaving stories at their looms.
Dean said…
Elaborate on Joseph Campbell.

Maybe Jace can say what was meant.
Unknown said…
In reference to when Richard visited the young Locke and asked him to pick the one that belonged to him:

This is a test very similar to the one used to determine the reincarnation of the Dali Lama.

High Lamas may have a vision in a dream or if the Dalai Lama was cremated, they will often monitor the direction of the smoke as an indication of the direction of the rebirth.

Once the High Lamas have found the home and the boy they believe to be the reincarnation, the boy undergoes a series of tests to affirm the rebirth. They present a number of artifacts belonging to the previous Dalai Lama and if the boy chooses the items which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, this is seen as a sign, in conjunction with all of the other indications, that the boy is the reincarnation.

That is what I think Richard meant when he clarified what he was asking by using the word "already." Young Locke thought Richard was asking "which object do you want?"
Unknown said…
Also in reference to Dean's earlier post (5/25): “if this does come down to a devil vs God thing then the writers are pushing Christianity which would piss off a lot of LOST fans who beleive in a religion other than Christianity. The writers would never do that and the studio would never allow it.”

I agree. I would be very disappointed if this comes down to “a devil vs God thing.” I don't feel like the show is pushing Christianity or any other religion at all. If the writers were pushing Christianity, the Egyptian statue, for example, would not be the way to do it. That said, there are countless references to many world religions. By this, I think the writers are giving credence to many religions both ancient and modern.

Fate, destiny, and free will, along with the conflict of good and evil (i.e. not specifically devil vs God) are common themes in the philosophy of many world religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Taoism. The themes of Lost are much more broad than pushing religion. I believe they are trying to encompass something bigger than any one religion can explain or hold.
Dean said…
The Dali Lama test must be it then because it fits perfectly. It would also validate what I said about Richard trying to see if Esau is in John.

Could the fire pit in the Leg House be related to this ? Esau/Locke did kick Jacob into it.

And one of the objects was a vial of what at least looked like sand. Locke picked that. Does that mean the island belongs to him ?

There was also a book of law, which I guess is the old testament. He did not pick that. But why was that among the objects ?

Also they made a great effort to hide the feet of Jacob and Esau when they were on the beach so that you could not count thier toes.
Shea said…
Another side-thought just popped into mind. If the ash was imprisoning the being in the cabin, and if the being in the cabin was Jacob, then Esau was the one using the likeness of Christian, just as now he is using the likeness of Locke.
I think it is likely that Esau was imprisoned by the ash, and not Jacob. After all, Ben took Locke to the hut while Richard is taking them straight to the statue AND Ben didn't expect anything to happen because he knew Jacob wasn't there.

Another interesting notation. Richard says that he is unaging because of Jacob. Locke agrees in this instance, but at every other time, he claims it is the island. The island talking to him, the island healing him etc. To my mind, it is likely that the island has some kind of influence just as Jacob does, and that they are separate entities.
Shea said…
Umm, Mazza and Dave. Dean was referring to my post, not about Jace's comments on the weaving. Jace comments that being a weaver shows that Jacob is the creator. I think that is wrong. A weaver in every other instance I've seen is a personification of destiny, NOT of the creator. Plus, we have no indication that Jacob creates anything, but every indication that Jacob influences people and events to get them where he wants them.

The analogy of the Dali Lama test is very fitting. I don't see how that fits in, though. Locke clearly isn't a reincarnation. It does raise the issue of what Richard saw and what he did/knows about what's to happen.
I doubt that seeing the toes of Jacob/Esau has much to do with it. Probably the number of toes is a red herring and is simply how many toes the statue in egyptian mythology has. And since neither Jacob or Esau have a crocodile face, I doubt something like the number of toes is a more accurate representation of a supernatural being, hehe.
Dean said…
Locke doesn't have to be a literal reincarnation. He could simply be posessed by Esau which is my theory.
Steve said…
I just had a crazy thought. Maybe Locke is alive? Remember when they transported the rabbit through time and there were 2 of the same rabbits in the same room. What if there is 2 lockes in the present time and one just happens to be dead.

Because the fact is that John Locke that we think is possessed isn't just a ghost walking around he can be touched unlike Christian.

So my new theory is that somehow there are 2 lockes in the same time and one is dead.

My head hurts..
Dean said…
That is a good theory Steve. It could just be true.

We don't know if Christian can't be touched. He touches things and he touched the dog in the first scene of the first episode. Unless my theory about the dog being a recreation is true and that's why he can touch it.

At this point I would not be surprised if one of the episodes next year had the statue come alive and Godzilla comes out of the ocean to fight it.
Dean said…
So now we have to figure out just where in time the second Locke would have come from. But how does it connect to Esau ?
Dean said…
Too Funny !

Go here:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=index

and in the little video player select the video for LOST Untangled-515
Dean said…
In the episode "Dave" when Locke is talking to Ben in the vault and Locke suggests that God knows how long Ben and the Others have been on the island ben says"

"God doesn't know. God doesn't know how long we've been here John. He can't see this island any better than the rest of the world can."

So there you have it. Jacob is NOT God.

What the heck he meant by that I don't get.
Dean said…
Here is another thing. Ben never had a problem with John being on the island. In fact it's just the opposite. Ben protected Locke every step of the way, except for the one time he shot him. Which I know doesn't make sense. Unless Ben's personal envy took over at some point and made him shoot him. Ben's emotions took over at one other time. Christain told Locke to move the island but Ben took the job over because he wanted to get off the island to try and kill Penny to get revenge for Alex being killed. Christain later told Locke "I told YOU to move the island John." There are only two explanations for this that I can think of.

One is that someone told Ben that a new leader of the Others was coming and that it was Locke.

The second is that Ben knows that Locke has a greater purpose even higher than being the leader of the Others. Good or bad.
Shea said…
That is a very good theory, Steve. I'm still not sure Locke is being possessed, or that its not the real John Locke. Locke may simply be parroting exactly what the island tells him to say and do, voluntarily.
Shea said…
Umm, Dean, don't forget that Ben also tried to embarass John when he told John he had to kill his father in front of all the Others, and John couldn't do it. It took Richard giving John the dossier on Sawyer, and getting Sawyer to kill his father, for Ben to acknowledge that Locke was to be leader, and that was just before he shot him.

Also, remember the convo between Ben and Richard. Ben said he'd been trying hard to get rid of John. So he was never protecting John. At every instance, Ben has been trying to be the leader and keep the position to himself.
Dean said…
Shea

I know what you are saying but their relationship has been very contradictory. When the mercinaries were coming Ben told John to be careful because he was VERY important. Unless Ben was being a smart ass again.

It could be because Locke is two people. The problem is that we don't have the backstory of what was going on with Ben behind the scenes.
WhicketyWACK said…
Just a thought:

What 'errand' did Loch go on into the woods right after they summoned the smoke monster? He just waltzed off into the woods KNOWING that there was a smoke monster possibly on it's way... so maybe Loch was Esau at the time and went into the woods, ready to confront the monster.

Also, how did he know where to find the monster?
WhicketyWACK said…
"Maybe Jacobs original home was the statue and Esau destroyed it and trapped Jacob in the Cabin until Hurley broke the ash and set him free. That's why Alana went to the cabin first and found the cloth with the statue on it telling her where to go next."

That's it! Jacob blessed Hurley for setting him free from his entrapment?! And was the guitar case given to him because Jacob knew he would land in the water, to be used as a flotation device?

Aye?
Dean said…
You have to keep in mind that Alana was not looking for Jacob. She was looking for Richard. She may not even know who Jacob is or that he lives on the island. Although I'm still not sure that the phrase 'lives on the island' applies to Jacob.

I sure wish I knew what Richards real purpose is because it sure as heck isn't watching the Others.

Why does he act like their leader even though they have a leader ?
Unknown said…
Lost script has a lot of flaws, but we agree to ignore them, because of its overall quality. But anyway I think that trying to calculate future moves taking in account episode details will not work, because, it's obvious, writers do not think over each detail as a part of the hole - they just put interesting or intrigueing detail here and there from time to time.

For example, it's an obvious mistake: Hurley was playing chess with Jacob at the hospital before Sayid took him away. And than he doesn't recognize Jacob in the taxi.

And this stupid one - Ben doesn't remember Sayid, because he was cured by the Island. But why he remembers his father and doesn't remember Sawyer, Juliet and Miles who lived with him in Dharmaville for 3 years?

And one more - dead Alex tells Ben to follow Lock, when Lock is already dead. So, this Alex must be working for false Lock, because it's impossible that she doesn't know about Lock's death. BUT Lock himself is surprised to hear that Alex talked to Ben.

And one more - Lock tells Ben about his plan to kill Jacob, when he is not sure that Ben will not tell Richard about it. It's like putting all his BIG plan at risk for nothing. It's just stupid.
Dean said…
OK, so far I seem to be correct about two things I said before.

First:

"OK, Juliet did not die. I also thought the bomb went off at the end but it did not. The white flash is a white flash of time travel not the white hot heat of a nuclear bomb. The reason Juliet changed her mind about setting off the bomb was because something or someone changed it. Setting off the bomb somehow made a time travel incident occur. That's why they had to get off the sub and meet at the drill site. They all had to be there to get kicked back to thier own time line.

Which is answered here:

http://www.televisionaryblog.com/2009/06/channel-surfing-matthew-fox-talks-lost.html

" As for the beginning of Season Six, look for the action to begin with the reveal of just what happened after Juliet seemed to detonate the hydrogen bomb, with Fox teasing, "It's very surprising and probably fairly confusing initially to the audience..."

and here:

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b136443_elizabeth_mitchell_talks_v_her_return.html

"Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse did announce that Juliet would be returning this season on Lost. When are we going to see you?

Pretty immediately, and then I'm not sure after that, but I think that it will be satisfactory."

Second:

"And V has nothing to do with Elizabeth Mitchel returning or not. Lost is already in the can. It has been for at least a year. They rapped up filming many months ago. I was soooo hoping that they would just give up this next January crap and just show the remaining episodes now and get it over with."

Which is answered here:

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b136443_elizabeth_mitchell_talks_v_her_return.html

"Are you going to be in many episodes, or is V going to affect that possibility?

V doesn't affect it all. Lost is done. They're set in what they're doing. The success or failure of V doesn't in anyway influence Lost. They've had this last season planned for a really long time, so I think that it will be whatever it is. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I know that it will be enough that they mention me."

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