I Am DB

There’s so much to talk about as a result of this episode that I barely know how to organize it. For the six of you who actually read the whole thing, my apologies in advance if it seems all over the place.

YOU DON’T KNOW DICK
Richard Alpert made his first appearance about halfway through Season Three, in the Juliet-centric episode Not in Portland. He was presented as a doctor attempting to recruit her to join his company Mittelos Bioscience, which turned out to be a ruse for bringing her to the island. Soon we saw him as one of the chief Others, taking orders from Ben. But near the end of the season, in Ben’s flashback The Man Behind the Curtain, young Ben – maybe 11 years old – met Richard in the jungle. And Richard looked the same age that he did years later. So began one of Lost’s biggest mysteries. In fact, according to a poll last summer of Entertainment Weekly fans, asking what burning questions must be answered in the final season (a poll which I talked about in one of my pre-season 6 messages), the Ageless Alpert Enigma was numero uno.

Ab Aeterno answered that question in probably the most head-on revelation of a major Lost mystery yet. It was satisfying to finally learn Richard’s backstory, but the episode wasn’t quite what I expected. I thought we’d see more of a “Richard through the years” journey, in which we learn not just how he came to the island and was granted eternal life, but also how he functioned on the island during the subsequent arrivals of other groups. I thought we’d see more of him in the Widmore/Ellie days, as well as what role he played as those transitioned to the Ben days. But I guess that wasn’t in the cards.

The episode began not with Alpert, but with Ilana. Re-visiting a scene from last season’s finale, we once again see Jacob visit a heavily-bandaged Ilana in a hospital, albeit this time with some new shots, angles and bit more of their conversation. We knew already that Jacob came to ask Ilana for help; here we find out that he needs her to protect six people, whose names he will give her. When he says this, she almost starts to cry. She looks like she’s just been asked to carry out a suicide mission – scared, sad and also worried that she can not live up to the expectations being placed on her. “This is what you’ve been preparing for,” Jacob reassures her. She asks who the six people are, and he tells her they are “the remaining candidates.”

I actually have a lot to say about this, but I’ll save it for later so that we can get to Richard.

The hospital scene with Jacob and Ilana is intercut with present day on the island, where Team Jacob sits around a campfire as Ilana explains (barely) the candidate situation. It leads up to Richard offering his personal theory on their current situation.

Not so fast, Debbie Downer. There has long been a contingent of Lost fans out there whose grand theory posits that the island is hell, or purgatory…or generally that the castaways have been dead all along. Well I hope they weren’t doing victory laps, because it’s a load of crap. Richard was clearly not speaking through the lens of his extensive time on the island, but rather as a man who had briefly lost his faith and sense of purpose. Oh, and incidentally, Richard is not the first person to believe the island is hell. Locke’s father had the same notion, which he shared with Sawyer in the Black Rock…just before Sawyer choked him to death (like father like son – Locke was choked to death too).

Ilana wants to go after him but Jack argues against it. Richard doesn’t know what to do, he says, and now wants to listen to somebody else. When he catches on to fact that Ilana knows who the “somebody else” is, Ben says, “Oh, this should be interesting.” Sun explains that Richard meant Locke, which throws off Jack since he doesn’t know anything about the Man in Locke. Locke was in a coffin the last time Jack saw him, newly fitted with a pair of Christian Shephard’s shoes. “Locke is dead,” he says.

“If it’s any consolation,” Ben offers, “it’s not exactly Locke.”

Jack sees Hurley standing away from the group, speaking in Spanish to some invisible presence. Assuming Hurley is conversing with Jacob, Jack strides over and wants to know what he’s saying. Hurley says it’s not Jacob and tells Jack it has nothing to do with him.

LOVE AND DEATH
Richard’s journey to the island begins in 1867 on a different island: Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. His wife Isabella is desperately ill, coughing up blood as he cares for her in their small cabin. He gathers what little money they have to pay a doctor, and she removes what is obviously a precious cross from around her neck, adding it to his meager collection despite his objections. “I will save you,” he promises – a very Jack comment.

He rides through a rainy night to the home of a wealthy doctor who does have medicine, but at a high price. When he scoffs at Richard’s paltry offering, Richard grabs his arm to beg. The doctor angrily pulls away and winds up falling backward and smashing his head into the table. The blow is fatal. Stunned, Richard flees with the medicine, but arrives home too late: Isabella is dead, and Richard is arrested.

In jail, he is visited by a priest who notes that he is reading from an English Bible. Richard, now wearing Isabella’s cross, says he and his wife were learning English and planned to move to New World. He gives his confession to the priest, who says that he can’t absolve him of murder. “Please Father” he begs, “there must be some way to earn God’s forgiveness.” The priest says that only through penance can this be achieved, but as he is scheduled to be executed the next day, there is not enough time: “I’m afraid the devil awaits you in hell,” he says. But later, the priest brings Richard to see man called Whitfield, who purchases him and declares him the property of Captain Magnus Hanso.

Magnus Hanso of course, is an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, the primary funder of The Dharma Initiative. And way back in Season Four’s classic episode The Constant, Charles Widmore purchased at auction the ledger of the Black Rock’s first mate, the only known artifact to survive from the lost ship. The auctioneer noted that “the contents of this journal have never been made public, or known to anyone outside the family of the seller, Tovard Hanso.” So…there’s that.

BLACK ROCK DOWN
The vessel gets caught in a raging nighttime storm, and as it is rocked by waves, one of the slaves chained to the galley wall along with Richard peers out through the slats and sees, illuminated by the lightning, the island and the statue of Tawaret.  “The island is guarded by the devil!” he cries. The water apparently rises so high that the ship crashes right into – and through – Tawaret’s head. Two more mysteries solved: what happened to the rest of the statue? Check. How did the Black Rock come to be in the middle of the island? Check.

After learning that the captain is dead, Whitfield comes down to the galley and stabs the slaves with his sword, explaining to Richard that there are five officers left and not nearly enough supplies. Just as he’s about to run Richard through, the sweet sound of Smokey is heard above.

Now the sole survivor of the Black Rock, Richard works to undo his chains, but progress is slow. He goes into and out of sleep, and at one point wakes up to see Isabella, looking healthy and beautiful, coming into the galley (much better than when he woke up to a boar feasting on one of the deceased slave’s insides). She runs to him and they converse in Spanish.

Isabella: We’re dead, both of us. We’re in hell. I’m here to save you before he comes back.

Richard: What? Before who comes back?

Isabella: The devil.

Richard: The devil?

Isabella: I looked in his eyes and all I saw was evil. Have you seen him Ricardo?

Richard: Yes, I think I have…

When they again hear the Black Smoke, Richard urges Isabella to run. She wants to stay but he insists. “I said I would save you, and I will my love!” So she runs outside…and right into the Black Smoke’s wispy clutches.

The next time Richard wakes up, it’s at the gentle prodding of the Man in Black.

PLEASED TO MEET YOU, HOPE YOU GUESS MY NAME…
We haven’t seen the Man in Black in this incarnation since the opening scene of The Incident, Season Five’s finale. He offers Richard water, and says he’s “a friend.”

“I am in hell?” Richard asks.

“Yes, I’m afraid you are,” the Man in Black answers. Richard knows his visitor is not from the Black Rock, and the Man in Black says he was here long before the ship. When Richard asks about his wife and describes what happened to her, Man in Black says “he” must have her. Richard begs to be freed so that he can help her. The Man in Black says of course, sympathizing because, as he explains, he wants to be freed too. And he wants help in return. Richard promises to do whatever is asked of him. Using keys he found on one of the officers, the Man in Black unlocks the shackles. “It’s good to see you out of those chains,” he says…the same thing he says years later when he appears to Richard as Locke. Outside, he offers Richard food, having told him he will need his strength. “I’m afraid there’s only one way to escape from hell. You’re going to have to kill the devil.”

That dagger he gives Richard is, of course, the same one that Dogen gives to Sayid. Where did this knife originate? Does it have any special qualities? How did the Man in Black come by it? The instructions he gives Richard about not letting the devil speak echo those given by Dogen to Sayid as well. So seduced by the promise of a reunion with Isabella, Richard makes his way to the beach and approaches the chamber door…

…BUT WHAT’S PUZZLING YOU IS THE NATURE OF MY GAME
This Jacob is angrier than we’ve seen before. He’s always been so Zen, but at this moment he’s unexpectedly aggressive. I guess he has the right – someone is coming to kill him and his statue has just been shattered – but it’s a striking change of pace. And even through his anger, Jacob seems more credible and genuine than the Man in Black. He remains cagey enough to keep us off balance, but I still lean toward him being the good guy and Man in Black the bad guy; the latter just seems oily. (Another reason I think the Man in Black really is the bad guy is that he tells Richard he can save Isabella – but there’s no question she’s dead. And when he takes the form of Locke, he suggests to Sayid that he would be able to see Nadia again.)

The particular emphasis Jacob puts on the question about where Richard got the knife makes it sound as if the weapon is known to him, but maybe I’m reading too much into it. Also, the look on his face as Richard explains what the Man in Black said about him – that he’s the devil, that Richard needs to kill him – elicits a pensive look from Jacob, like he’s trying to figure out the best next move.

Sitting on the beach a few minutes later, now wrapped in a blanket, Richard accepts a cup of wine from Jacob, and the two men talk.

Gaaaahhhhh, so much to talk about!!!

Jacob says he’s not the devil…but of course, what else would the devil say?

I understand Jacob wanted people on the island to help themselves, but why has he allowed the Man in Black to run wild in the form of black smoke, killing people at will? Was it within his power to stop it? And what difference does it make if Richard represents him or not? Interference is interference whether it comes from Richard or directly from Jacob.

And how exactly has Richard even played that part? Sure, he’s been there all along as, according to Ben, “a kind of advisor,” but has he really influenced events? He seems to have delivered messages from Jacob to whoever is in charge at a given time, but isn’t that all? Hasn’t he himself just followed the instructions of those leaders? As I said at the beginning, he initially seemed like just another Other taking orders from Ben. He supported Ben during The Purge, went off island for Operation Juliet, etc., but what has he done to keep people on the path from corruption?

When Ben kidnapped baby Alex and brought her back to the Others’ camp, Widmore was upset with him and said he was supposed to kill her. Ben argued, saying that he didn’t believe Jacob wanted the baby killed. As he and Widmore clashed, Richard sat there and watched. He didn’t say a word, didn’t try to direct the outcome, nothing. The only time I can think of that Richard took an active role in influencing events was when he gave Locke the Others’ file on Sawyer. Ben had told Locke that in order to join them, he would have to kill his father, but Locke couldn’t do it. So Richard approached him and said that Ben had been wasting their time with things like fertility problems and that they had more important things to do. But other than that – trying to facilitate Locke supplanting Ben as leader of the Others, possibly on Jacob’s instructions – what has Richard done to help people on the island make the type of “right decisions” that Jacob spoke of?

And what was happening in the 1950’s, when young Widmore and Eloise “Ellie” Hawking were on the island? Richard seemed to be the man in charge at that time, as opposed to just an advisor. But what were they all doing? If Jacob brings people to the island to test them, are the Others the ones who passed the test? If passing the test means keeping free of corruption and sin, Widmore, Ben, and many of the other Others we’ve seen wouldn’t exactly qualify, would they? So what are they all doing there? When does the game between Jacob and the Man in Black end? If Jacob has to choose between stepping in or letting people die, then hasn’t he lost? If year after year, he brings people to the island and they all fail to pass his test, and then finally one day he finds one person who is worthy, is that really a victory? Hasn’t the Man in Black already proven himself correct? When they spoke on the beach at the beginning of The Incident, the Man in Black said of the island’s many visitors, “They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”

Jacob replies, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

But is it really?

Then there’s this: if the chosen candidate is supposed to be the person who proves the least corruptible of everyone Jacob has brought to the island over the years – and I’m not sure if that’s what Jacob is looking for in the candidates, but we’ll get to that later – then who among the Flight 815 survivors fits the bill? It has to be Hurley, right? Of those still alive, isn’t Hurley the purest and most decent? The others may have goodness, but each also has a dark side that they frequently struggle with. The worst thing Hurley ever did was horde some food from the Dharma stash. I once said that he had emerged as the conscience of the show, and I think it remains true. Hurley was the one member of the Oceanic Six who voted against the lie. When he won the lottery, he didn’t become an arrogant douchebag; he remained true to himself, and tried to shower his loved ones with generosity. He’s been a loyal friend, a voice of reason, a calming presence…when you look at it from Jacob’s point of view, isn’t Hurley the ideal candidate?

Here’s what I’m starting to think. As the castaways learn more about what’s happening on the island, Hurley – the only one capable of communicating with Jacob – will once again be the voice of reason; he’ll be the one who makes Jacob understand that he can’t continue bringing people to the island to play out these dramas in perpetuity – partly because there will never be a satisfactory resolution, and partly because it’s wrong to play with people’s lives. Jacob, even if he is the good guy, is not innocent in all of this. Man in Locke spoke to Sawyer about all the lives Jacob has wasted, and it’s a fair point. I think Hurley will be the one who finally makes him realize that. How it could play out from there and how the inevitable battle will fit into that I don’t know…but it will end with the sinking of the island. When all is said and done, Hurley will be the one to end the Island Experiment.

That’s what I think. Until tonight. Or next week.

CROSS TO BEAR
After his conversation with Jacob, Richard returns to the Man in Black, who can tell immediately that things did not go his way.

Man in Black: You let him talk to you, didn’t you?

Richard: He told me to give you this. [Hands the Man in Black a smooth white stone]

Man in Black: I’m sure you realize if you go with him, you’ll never be with your wife again. I understand. He can be very…convincing. But I want you to know that if you ever change your mind – and I mean ever – my offer still stands. I have something for you. You must have dropped it. I found it on the ship.

He hands Isabella’s cross to Richard, who looks down at it. When he looks back up, the Man in Black is gone. Richard walks to a nearby stone bench and buries the cross in front of it.

Now, years later, he returns to dig it up. He is relieved to find it still there, and he cries out to the emptiness, “I’ve changed my mind. Are you listening to me? I’ve changed my mind. I was wrong. You said I could change my mind! You said the offer would stand! Does the offer still stand? Does the offer still stand? Does the offer still stand?!?”

And then Hurley shows up, much to Richard’s surprise.

I don’t know whether he could actually hear and feel her briefly, or if this was just a decision of how to present the scene. I’m just glad Isabella and Hurley didn’t pull a Patrick Swayze/Whoopi Goldberg move and have Hurley caress Richard’s face. It was weird in Ghost, and would have been weirder here.

As for the Man in Locke, seen nearby, has he heard all of this? Did he come to answer Richard’s call?

YOU’LL BE THE DEATH OF ME
Soon after Richard accepts the job offer, Jacob finds the Man in Black sitting alone, playing with the white stone.

Jacob seems surprised that the Man in Black tried to kill him, but this conversation takes place after the one we saw in the opening scene of The Incident. During that scene, they were sitting on the beach with the full Tawaret statue looming over them. Man in Black looked at Jacob and asked, “Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?”

Jacob, calm as ever, said, “Yes.” Now – after the statue has been destroyed – Jacob seems surprised that Man in Black has attempted to follow through. Did he really not think it would happen? Also in that previous conversation, there was a ship off in the distance that at the time I thought might be the Black Rock. Apparently Damon and Carlton suggested in a recent edition of the official Lost podast that the ship was indeed the Black Rock, but that seems sketchy to me. The ship we saw during Jacob’s conversation with the Man in Black was not far from the island at all, and the scene took place on a sunny morning. Surely it would have reached the island before a violent nighttime storm rolled in. I guess it doesn’t really matter…I just get caught up in these minutae. The more important point is Jacob’s surprise over the Man in Black’s attempt to kill him, which he should have somewhat expected at this point. And it makes me wonder: has Jacob’s goal in bringing people to the island always been to find a replacement, or was it just to prove his point about the decency of humanity? If the latter is correct, when did he decide to search for candidates? And is that search a separate “project” from his ongoing wager with the Man in Black? This ties into what I was saying before about Hurley seeming to be the ideal candidate…if the ideal candidate is someone who meets the expectations that Jacob explained to Richard: someone who is incorruptible, who avoids sin and who doesn’t need to be told right from wrong.

It all begs the question of how this began in the first place. How did Jacob and the Man in Black first come to the island? Did they come together? If not, which one was there first, and why? If so, was Jacob tasked from the beginning with guarding the Man in Black? Was he appointed that task by someone else, or did he take it upon himself? Is the Man in Black essentially his prisoner, and the island a sort of Superman-esque Phantom Zone meant to keep him contained? How do they each have the powers that they do? And what did the Man in Black mean when he said to Richard that the devil – Jacob – betrayed him and took his body and his humanity? There wasn’t a literal body swap, was there? Do you think the Man in Black originally looked like Jacob? Are these two playing out a version of the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau?

SIX LITTLE INDIANS
I want to go back to beginning of the episode, when Jacob told Ilana that he had six people for her to protect, because I think it raises a couple of questions and might – if my reasoning is correct – even solve one of our many mysteries. It interests me that even when Jacob visited Ilana at the hospital, the list was already down to six. In the recent episode Dr. Linus, Ilana told Sun there were six candidates she needed to protect. I said in my write-up that she must have ruled Sayid out at that point, knowing that he had killed Dogen and Lennon. So at that point we knew that Jack, Sawyer and Hurley were still on the list, and at least one of the Kwons, maybe both. If it was both, that left one person; if it was only one Kwon, then two mystery candidates remained. I’ve been unsure if Kate should be counted or not, because her name was crossed off on the dial at the lighthouse.

But now, hearing Jacob tell Ilana in the hospital that the candidate list is down to six, things have changed. Maybe. Sayid was certainly one of the candidates at that point, given that Ilana personally brought him onto Ajira 316. If on the island she’s still saying there are six people she needs to protect, does that mean there is still hope for Sayid? Remember too that upon their arrival at The Temple, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Jin and Sayid were nearly killed by Dogen until he found a list with their names inside the ankh that Hurley had delivered from Jacob. I would think that this list is the same one Jacob gave to Ilana, and it confirms that the five people present are written on it. The only one missing from the scene who we know to still be candidate is Sawyer (we know because his name was not crossed out in Jacob’s cave, and Man in Locke told him he was a candidate). So if Dogen’s list and Ilana’s list are the same, we have our six candidates…and Sun is not one of them. Could that be why she remained in 2007 when Ajira 316 went to the island, while Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sayid joined Sawyer and Jin in 1977? (I noted in another pre-season write-up that Damon and Carlton said they would not directly explain the reason for this but that there would be clues hinting at it.)

Of course, Ilana wound up in 2007 too, and if she is meant to protect the candidates, having her in a different era doesn’t really help. Also, when Ilana and Bram brought Lapidus with them from Hydra Island to the main one, she said it was because he might be a candidate. But she had the list of candidates at that time and she knew he wasn’t on it. So why did she keep him around? Maybe Jacob told her he would still be useful. After all, Ilana knew that Miles had the ability to communicate with the dead, even though Miles is not a candidate. How did she know about him? Did Jacob tell her?  And why has he chosen to give this task of protection to Ilana now? Has she been asked to protect others over the years? Is that how she became injured? He says when he visits her that he’s sorry he couldn’t come sooner. Was it in his service that she was hurt? And if she has protected others, and if those others are all dead, does that explain her emotional reaction to hearing that he has a list of names for her? Does she feel like she has failed in her task?

I also have long wondered if Jacob and the Island share a consciousness. Are they the same entity? I don’t see how that would quite work, but the fact that Jacob seems to govern so much of what goes on there makes it a fair query, I think. If they did share a consciousness, then wouldn’t Ilana have wound up in 1977 with the assumed candidates? Yet on the other hand, Jacob says he’s responsible for bringing people to the island, so wouldn’t that mean he controls how they get there? Or does he simply bring them to a certain point and then The Island takes over, meaning Jacob had no influence on certain passengers from Ajira 316 being zapped off the plane and into 1977?

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT

-I never thought about this before, but why did Ben take Locke to the cabin the first time they went to see Jacob (in Season Three)? Ben had no intention of really bringing Locke to see Jacob – he admitted so last season, adding that he was as surprised as Locke was when the chair started rocking by itself and things started flying around the cabin. So what did Ben think the cabin was? Did he think it was just an abandoned structure that he could pass off as Jacob’s? He’s said that he had never actually met Jacob (until the encounter where he kills him) but did he know that Jacob lived in the statue? And since Jacob had the statue, did he ever really occupy the cabin at all? Was the cabin – with its ash perimeter – just a prison for the Man in Black? Earlier this season I put forth the idea that the ash was not meant to keep the Man in Black out of the cabin while Jacob was safe inside, but rather that it was meant to keep the Man in Black trapped inside. Don’t know what the answer will be, but surely the cabin mystery has to be solved – if only to explain that freaky eye we saw!

-It’s interesting how during the past couple of seasons the show has played up Hurley’s ability to converse with the dead. When that element was first introduced, it seemed almost like an amusing characteristic, a comical symptom of his generally low-key mental problems. A comment here about playing chess with Mr. Eko, a brief encounter there with Charlie, etc. But now it’s really been incorporated as a vital element of his character, and seems to have even more of an effect on events – so far – than Miles’ similar ability. If I’m on the right track at all with my Hurley theory from earlier, then his talent (which he called a curse, but which Jacob told him – when they met in a Los Angeles taxicab – might really be a gift) will be nothing less than pivotal.

-I assumed that when Richard saw Isabella in the galley of the Black Rock, it was actually Smokey, appearing to Richard as his wife so that he could use the promise of her to manipulate him into killing Jacob. He must have seen what she looked like when he came fog-to-face with Richard and “photographed” him. (The same logic would apply to Mr. Eko’s brother Yemi, who appeared to Eko several times before Smokey showed up and killed him. The last time, when Eko explained why he had no sins to confess, Yemi sneered down at him and said, “You speak to me as if I am your brother.”)

The only thing that gave me pause is that when Isabella was in the galley with Richard, they heard the Smoke Monster approach. When Isabella fled the ship, we heard Smokey at the same time that we heard her screams. I’m not sure if the Man in Black can appear both in smoke form and in the form of someone else at the same time. So I’m not sure what to make of that. But I’m still gonna go with it. I’m not prepared to say that every “apparition” that has appeared on the island has been Smokey, but in these cases I think it was. With Richard and Eko (and with Ben below the Temple, just before Alex appeared and told him to follow John Locke’s orders) we know that Smokey stared them down and did its lightning flash thing. But I don’t think Smokey ever had similar face-offs with Shannon (who saw Walt), Kate (who saw a familiar horse) or young Ben (who saw his mother).

xx

-If Jacob is responsible for bringing everyone to the island, does that include the members of the Dharma Initiative? If so, why was there friction between Dharma and the “Hostiles?” Why was there a need for a truce? Wouldn’t they have been serving the same master? If the Dharma Initiative found the island through some other means, Jacob might still have seen potential in some of its members, given that we saw a few Dharma names on the lighthouse dial or in the cave (Goodspeed, Inman and Lewis, which could be Charlotte’s father). Oh but wait…as I write this, something else is coming back to mind. Remember what Eloise Hawking told Jack, Sun, Ben and Desmond when she brought them into The Lamp Post station?

“The room we’re standing in was constructed years ago over a unique pocket of electromagnetic energy. That energy connects to similar pockets all over the world. The people who built this room, however, were only interested in one…the island. They’d gathered proof that it existed; they knew it was out there somewhere but they just couldn’t find it. Then a very clever fellow built this pendulum, on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be and start looking for where it was going to be…This fellow presumed, and correctly as it turned out, that the island was always moving. Why do you think you were never rescued? Now, while the movements of the island seem random, this man and his team created a series of equations which tell us, with a high degree of probability, where it is going to be at a certain point in time. Windows, as it were, that while open, provide a route back.”

Yeah. So the Dharma Initiative wasn’t brought to the island by Jacob. They already knew about it, and they went looking for it. Why? How did they know about it? And who was this deliberately unnamed “clever fellow” who built the pendulum and figured out how to find the island?

-At a recent publicity event Damon and Carlton said that actor Terry O’Quinn – aka Locke – “is playing a guy who we’re not going to see until the finale.” Which is weird, because isn’t he playing the Man in Black, originated in The Incident by actor Titus Welliver? So was the quote a mistake? Was it something meant to mislead us? Or are they saying that even the Titus Welliver-Man in Black is not the original form of that character? Hmm…

-The approximate translation of the Latin Ab Aeterno is “since the beginning of time.”

-Jacob talks about the island as the “cork” preventing the evil from getting out and spreading. Maybe he needs to get off the island more often and take a look at the rest of the world. Evil, darkness, malevolence…they abound. No matter the day or age, there is murder, deceit, plague, destruction…the world is already infected with evil. So really, what is the island keeping in?

STATE OF THE SEASON
This was ninth hour of Lost this season, which means we’re halfway through. And I gotta say: they’ve got their work cut out for them. We’ve gotten some answers, but not nearly enough. And even some of those we’ve gotten haven’t really been answers. Telling us that the Man in Black/Locke is the Smoke Monster is definitely a start…but it hardly closes the book on the subject. Why does he turn into black smoke? How does he have that power? What governs his choices to kill immediately vs. judge and let live? Why doesn’t Jacob stop him? Can Jacob stop him? He’s been called a security system for the island; is that how he sees himself or is there a different meaning to it? Just in this episode we see Smokey grab the officer Whitfield without hesitation, but when he comes back to Richard, he surveys him and retreats. Why kill Whitfield and the others immediately?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m loving the season. I’ve enjoyed each episode unto itself, and it definitely feels like we’re building toward a conclusion. But with only nine hours left to go, seriously: it’s time to let the dogs out. At the beginning of this write-up, I mentioned the poll from Entertainment Weekly about the lingering mysteries that fans wanted solved. If you look at it again, you’ll see that few of them have been touched. And I had a long list of my own that I added. Here are some of the big things still hanging that aren’t reflected in the poll (some of which are new this season):

-Christian Shephard – WTF?
-Pregnant women dying
-The eye in Jacob’s cabin
-All things Eloise Hawking
-When Widmore asked Ben if he’d come to kill him, why did Ben say they both knew he couldn’t do that?
-How does SidewaysLand connect to the “regular” timeline?
-Why is the island at the bottom of the ocean?
-Who is the boy that Man in Locke saw in the jungle?

So…yeah.  Plenty to cover. To be fair, a lot can happen in nine hours, and I haven’t lost faith that the show will deliver what we’re all hungering for. I expect big answers and revelations to start cascading out in the last third of the season. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sweating it a little…

Tonight’s Episode: The Package