I Am DB

Now that’s more like it. After the interesting and yes, important, but nevertheless ill-timed diversion of last week’s mythology-heavy installment, we were back on terra firma for the final hour-long “standard” episode of Lost. Ever. I can’t believe it will all be over in a matter of hours.

THE GATHERING
When Jack wakes up and looks in the mirror, he finds a cut on his neck. It’s in the same spot as the knick he found in the Flight 815 bathroom during the opening minutes of the season premiere, though this time it’s bleeding more heavily. What’s causing this cut, which seems to be from the battle to detonate Jughead in last season’s finale, to keep appearing in SidewaysLand? Jack has breakfast with David and Claire, and confirms that he’ll be attending David’s concert that night.  The meal is interrupted by a phone call from an Oceanic rep saying that his lost cargo has been located and will be in L.A. by the end of the day. But deception is afoot, for the Oceanic caller is revealed to be Desmond. The Scottish rogue continues his efforts to bring the Oceanic 815ers together, being so bold as to return to the high school parking lot where he ran down Locke. Once again he sits in his car and watches Locke roll across the parking lot toward the school, but Ben spots him and calls him out on what he did. Desmond gets out of the car and proceeds to bang Ben’s face up against the hood. Ben says he won’t let Desmond hurt Locke again, to which Desmond replies, “I’m not trying to hurt him. I’m trying to help him let go.” Then he begins punching Ben in the face from above, until Ben has a flash of the other timeline: Desmond punching him on the dock after he shot him and almost shot Penny. Desmond leaves Ben to deal with the meaning of this vision.

While being treated for his injuries in the school nurse’s office, Ben receives a visit from Locke, who heard there was an altercation in the parking lot. When Ben tells him who it was and what happened, Locke pulls out his phone and starts to call the police. But Ben says that he believed his attacker when he said he wasn’t trying to hurt Locke but was trying to help him let go. This stops Locke, who hangs up the phone. Later that day, he goes to Jack’s office and recounts the coincidences that began with the two of them being on the same flight and continued through his would-be assailant using the term “let go,” just as Jack did the last time he and Locke met. Jack advises him not to confuse coincidence with fate, but Locke is less interested in semantics than he is in finally agreeing to the surgery that could restore the use of his legs.

Ben’s afternoon unexpectedly brings him to the home of his favorite student, Alex, and her mother, our old friend Danielle Rousseau. With Ben’s arm in a sling, they offer him a ride which turns into a dinner invitation. I gotta say, it was pretty damn weird to see Rousseau as a member of normal society, wearing a dress, smiling. After dinner, she thanks Ben for the interest he’s taken in Alex and tells him that with Alex’s father having died when she was two, Ben is now the closest thing she has to a father. The compliment chokes Ben up, and he and Rousseau have themselves a little moment. A moment! Ben and Rousseau! I guess his newly-opened window to the island timeline has not yet opened so wide for him to recall getting Alex killed or stealing her from Rousseau.

Desmond, meanwhile, goes to Sawyer’s precinct and asks for him specifically. He turns himself into Sawyer, admitting himself to be the suspect in a hit-and-run and an assault. Sawyer brings him into a holding cell…which is occupied by Sayid. Kate lies on a cot in the adjoining cell. Desmond looks from one to the other, and couldn’t be happier. Later in the day, when the three of them are loaded into a van to be transported to county, Desmond tells them that he can get them out of there but in exchange he’ll ask them to do something which they must promise to do. Thinking him to be crazy, Sayid readily agrees and Kate is game to play along. But both are surprised when the van does actually stop and its driver – Officer Ana Lucia Cortez – comes back, uncuffs them and lets them out. Hurley drives up in his yellow humvee and hands an envelope with $125,000 to Ana Lucia (who he recognizes now, accidentally addressing her by name even though she doesn’t know him). When she drives off, Hurley asks why she’s not coming with them. “She’s not ready yet,” Desmond says – the same thing Eloise Hawking said to him when he visited her a few days earlier at the museum where she was organizing an impending benefit event.

And it would seem that that’s where they’re heading. Hurley’s Camaro is already parked where they were dropped off, and he tells Desmond everything is inside. Desmond says Sayid is to go with Hurley in the humvee while Kate comes with him. He holds up a nice cocktail dress and tells her they’re going to a concert. This concert, it appears, will be the point of convergence for all those connected to Flight 815. Miles told Sawyer just before Desmond’s arrival at the precinct that he was attending a benefit that night at his dad’s museum – the one where Eloise’s benefit was being held. (When Desmond visited Eloise at the museum, it seemed like the event was only hours away, and this is obviously happening days later, yet I have to assume this is the same event. The stars seem to be aligning that way.) So assuming I’m right, in addition to Miles and Desmond’s foursome being there, it feels likely we will see Eloise herself, along with her husband Charles Widmore and his daughter Penny. And let’s not forget that Daniel Faraday – Daniel Widmore in this timeline – was to perform at this benefit along with Charlie’s band, Drive Shaft. Charlie ran off after driving Desmond off a pier, but will be turn up? We could see the museum’s Dr. Chang and Charlotte at the event, and I think we can safely assume that the concert David Shephard is performing in is the very same, meaning we’ll see Jack and probably Claire there as well. We’ll meet Jack’s ex-wife, David’s mother, who I’m guessing is Juliet. Maybe we’ll see Dogen turn up, as his child was previously seen at a music audition with David. How will the other key characters factor in? Will Sawyer show up, having been invited by Miles? What about Locke, Sun, Jin and Ben? Will Hurley bring Libby? Will Rose and Bernard be there? A few surprise guests perhaps <*cough Shannon and Boone cough*>?

I can not wait to see how this goes down.

THE JACOBIAN CANDIDATE
Not that there aren’t big to-do’s happening on the island, but I’m kinda more excited by the sideways story at the moment. I think that’s just because I love the narrative device of interconnectivity and seeing seemingly disparate figures come together toward an endpoint. That, and the promise of seeing some old favorite characters. But things on the island are coming to a head as well.

Jack stitches Kate’s wound and along with Hurley and an even more emotionally-wrecked Sawyer – if that’s possible – they head off to find Desmond. On the way, Sawyer admits that Jack was right about the bomb, though Jack is quick to say that he’s been wrong before. “I killed them, didn’t I?” Sawyer asks. I love that Jack quickly and firmly says, “No. He killed them,” not wanting Sawyer to carry that burden. After the Jughead explosion left them all on the island, the grief-stricken Sawyer was enraged at Jack for getting Juliet killed. I suspect that now he feels guilt not only for his role in the deaths on the submarine but also for his earlier attitude toward Jack, now that he knows the feeling.

As Kate and Hurley follow behind, Hurley sees Young Jacob, who demands that Hurley hand over the sack of ashes – adult Jacob’s ashes – that he took from Ilana’s things after she blew up. The boy grabs the bag and runs off. (I wondered why the kid seemed so angry, but then I reasoned it was because he knows he’s going to grow up and unleash a monster made of black smoke which will ultimately kill him. And he’s still got to deal with puberty while living on an island with no access to women other than his loopy mother. I’d be pissed too.) Hurley pursues him and comes upon adult Jacob, sitting by a small campfire. Jacob says his ashes are in the fire and that once it burns out, he’ll be gone for good. “You better get your friends,” he says. “We’re very close to the end, Hugo.” Hurley brings the others back, and they finally meet Jacob…

…and learn his reasons for bringing them to the island.

I’ve heard from a few of you that this scene was a disappointment, particularly because of Jacob’s seemingly casual comment to Kate about her name being crossed out. But I didn’t have a problem with it. I think he makes it clear what the people he brought to the island over the years had in common, and his remark to Kate isn’t saying that his choice of her was insignificant but rather that his reason for ruling her out was instinctual. I think the “why he chose them” is much more meaningful than the “why he crossed them out.” His answer tells me that once a potential candidate had found what he saw as a sense of purpose, protecting the island no longer needed to be that purpose.

I would have liked Jacob’s reasons for choosing them to be a little more developed than they were, or to learn more details about what exactly he did to get them all there, but with the show’s time constraints (self-imposed though they may be – a topic I’ll address in my final write-up), I was satisfied with the scene and liked how it played out. Still, the reasons Jacob gives for choosing them focus on their adult lives despite the fact that he has been watching them since childhood. His off-island encounters with Kate and Sawyer happened when each were young (with Sawyer, maybe you could argue that his flaws had already begun and would just grow more consuming as he aged), and although Jack was already a doctor when they met, the lighthouse mirror revealed an image of Jack’s childhood home, from which we can infer (just as Jack did before smashing the mirror) that he had been watching since Jack’s childhood. So at some point, he must have made a somewhat random choice to watch them, right? Or do his mysterious powers extend to being able to see a child and know their future? I’d consider the possibility of Jacob having identified the candidates as adults and then going back to points in their past to touch them, thereby guiding them to the island, but I’m not sure if that theory holds up. And what about Hurley and Sayid, who were touched by Jacob after their rescue from the island? Did they have another brief, random meeting with him earlier in their lives before going to the island, or were these post-rescue encounters their first run-ins with him?

I also was hoping that Jack, Kate or Sawyer would recognize Jacob from the earlier encounters, but then I had to remind myself that their meetings were just everyday happenings in their own lives. Jack, especially, met Jacob for all of five seconds one day. Sawyer and Kate had more significant encounters with him, but both were young and would never recall the face of a stranger from so long ago. Kate probably remembers that at roughly age 10 she tried to steal a lunchbox from the store and was almost turned in until a nice man showed up and paid for it. And Sawyer might recollect that on the day of his parents’ funeral he began writing his Dear Mr. Sawyer letter on the church steps, where a man approached him to offer condolences and a pen to replace the dried out one he was using. But would either of them recognize Jacob now as the friendly stranger? I wish it were so, since I would have liked to see that, but it’s probably not realistic…which is kinda funny since in this world, an island jumping through time is realistic.

Anyway, with Jack having agreed to be Jacob’s candidate, Jacob leads him across a stream and performs a simple ceremony similar to the one the Woman in White performed the night she made him accept the role of island savior. Jack swallows a cup of water instead of wine, but the liquid itself must matter less than the invocation Jacob recites prior to offering the drink. With the ritual complete, he says to Jack, “Now you’re like me.” And like him, Jack may have to figure out the secrets of the island on his own, since Jacob doesn’t seem to share any of them – not even the words he spoke over the water in case Jack ever needs to find his own replacement. He does tell Jack where to find the tunnel of light (not far from the bamboo field in which he woke up from the 815 crash) and says that’s where the Smoke Monster is trying to go. On the other side of the stream, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley watch them. “And I thought that guy had a God complex before,” Sawyer says flatly, acknowledging a moment later that it’s a low blow. “I’m just glad it’s not me,” Hurley says, and I couldn’t help but wonder in that moment what his role will be in the endgame. Hurley’s not a fighter, so seeing him engage in a physical battle or even a gunfight seems unlikely. But I feel like circumstances will transpire that call for Hurley to step up. He’s done it before – his heroic Dharma van rescue of Sayid, Jin and Bernard from the Others on the beach in Season Three’s finale is one of the show’s classic moments. But what will he do against the force of darkness that is the Man in Black?

GUN FOR HIRE
Elsewhere on the island, we reconnect with Richard, Ben and Miles, last seen splitting from Team Jacob at the burning Black Rock so they could travel to New Otherton and locate more explosives for the Ajira plane. They are still en route to the barracks when we pick up with them (which doesn’t really make much sense given that the Man in Locke will be joining them shortly. In the time since they departed, Hurley’s crew has made it to Locke’s camp, fled Locke for Hydra Island, been captured, busted out and been on the sinking submarine – a full day or two’s worth of events before these three have even made it to their destination. But who’s counting…)

They arrive at Ben’s house (outside of which Miles has one of his sixth sense moments over the spot where Richard says he buried Alex) and enter his hidden secret-agent-man room, where they load a backpack with at least six bricks of C4 before hearing a noise out in the kitchen. They emerge to find Zoe and, much to Ben’s surprise, Widmore. He sends Zoe to the dock to retrieve their things from the canoe, and Ben asks him how he got back to the island. “Jacob invited me,” Widmore answers. Ben says Widmore has never even met Jacob, but Widmore counters, “I most certainly have. He visited me, not long after your people destroyed my freighter. He convinced me of the error of my ways, and told me everything I need to know for this exact purpose.” (To be fair Charles, it was your guy – Keamy – who destroyed the freighter, by rigging it with explosives. Although Ben did kill Keamy knowing that doing so would trigger those explosives, so there is that.)

They’re interrupted when Zoe comes over Widmore’s walkie and reports that Locke is rowing up to the dock. He orders her back to the house and says they need to hide. Not that he’s warming up to his old nemesis, but Ben offers his hidden room. He refuses to hide himself, however, preferring to face Man in Locke and bring this all to an end. Richard says that all Locke wants is for him to join him and maybe if he does he can buy the rest of them some time. Not digging any of these options, Miles decides to make a run for it in the jungle. Before he goes, Ben takes Widmore’s walkies and gives one to Miles. “In case I need you,” he says, keeping the other one. Widmore and Zoe go into the hidden room while Ben follows Richard out in front of the house, where the Black Smoke promptly tears into view and rams into Richard, lifting him off the ground and tossing his ass into the jungle. Is that it for Richard Alpert? Has the ageless island aide finally been killed (and if so will he face the devil, as he feared over a hundred years before), or has he merely been knocked out of commission? If that was it for him, it sure was quick. I don’t need a long, drawn out, overly-theatrical death scene with lots of stumbling around and gasps for breath, but something a little more weighty than that would have been nice. We’ll see…

After watching Richard get thrown like football from the hands of Tom Brady, Ben sits in a chair on the porch and waits. Man in Locke approaches and sits down next to him, pulling out a huge knife and turning it over in his hands while telling Ben that there are some people he needs him to kill. He promises that once he leaves the island, Ben can have it all to himself. Ben accepts the offer and when Man in Locke asks whose canoe full of crates is down at the dock, he gives up Widmore and leads Locke into the secret room.

And so ends the still mysterious life of Charles Widmore. I can’t say we got all the answers about him and his relationship with Ben that I wanted, but I’m not feeling too hung up on that right now. But I was intrigued by his comment about Jacob showing him the error of his ways, and would have liked to know more about that. Do the errors he refers to go all the way back to his time on the island, or are they limited to more recent activity like sending the freighter? And why is it that Ben was able to kill Widmore so easily when in Season Four’s The Shape of Things to Come, he found a way into Widmore’s penthouse but said “We both know I can’t do that” when Widmore asked if he’d come to kill him. And a small point here, but why was Widmore unwilling to explain the details of Desmond in front of Ben?

I don’t know how the rest of you interpreted this, but I firmly believe that Ben is lying to Man in Locke. I don’t think he has any intention of killing anyone for him. Shooting Widmore was the settling of a personal score, but it also allowed him to earn Man in Locke’s trust. I’ve long maintained that Ben would choose the right side in the end and would die a noble death trying to help the good guys, among whom he always counted himself.  I remain convinced that his arc will play out that way, and that he will attempt to thwart Locke in the end, possibly even enabling Team Jacob’s ultimate edge – if they’re to have one. And I think the fact that he gave Miles a walkie-talkie is definitely going to come into play. Are both devices turned on? Is he letting Miles hear everything he and Man in Locke are up to? Ben once told Locke (the real Locke), “I always have a plan.” He seemed to lose that mojo once Man in Locke came into the picture, but I think he’s got a plan again…and like many of his plans before, this one involves him playing Locke like a fiddle.

Locke leads Ben out to the well where Desmond should be dead, but is greeted by a different sight – one which elicits a surprising reaction.

Hearing the line at the beginning of the clip about why Locke walks rather than puffs and billows, I was reminded of the antagonist of Stephen King’s epic The Stand, which J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse always cited as one of the major sources of inspiration for Lost. It’s been years since I’ve read it, but the line brought back memories of Randall Flagg, who draws followers to his side for the ultimate battle between good and evil. His nickname was The Walkin’ Dude.

EVE OF DESTRUCTION
So Man in Locke intends to destroy the island. That answers a question which popped into my head earlier in the episode, which was why the Man in Locke would go after the light at the center of the island. Jacob says that it needs to be protected from the monster; that that’s where he is headed. I wasn’t sure why at first, since that’s where he came from and I was more in the mindset that he just wants to leave the island. But I can’t really say more without re-visiting my Man in Black II theory from the last write-up, which is highly susceptible to deflation…as are most of my theories. And I know that at least a couple of you had a different take on what happened to Man in Black in that tunnel. So let me just say that my Man in Black II theory comes from two things: 1) having to guess, like we all did, about what happened in the tunnel; and 2) taking at face value Carlton’s comment from a few months ago that Terry O’Quinn is playing a character who wouldn’t be seen until the final episode. Maybe plans changed, maybe I misinterpreted the comment or maybe it was a red herring, but I took it for what it was and came to the conclusion that the Black Smoke is not just what remains of the Man in Black, but something or someone else. But some of you think, and it probably makes more sense, that the Black Smoke is essentially the Man in Black’s soul; that Jacob killed him, or his body at least, and he floated into the tunnel where some force that was already in there latched onto the freshly killed body and extracted his soul or lifeforce or whatever you’re inclined to call it; or that somehow the soul simply broke free from the body, and that Man in Black continues to live on in this way, even though his body is dead. (This doesn’t address any of his abilities, like taking on other people’s form or projecting images of their lives, but for this discussion it doesn’t need to.)

Okay, so assuming that Man in Locke/Smokey is what’s left of the Man in Black, then his desire not just to leave the island but to destroy it is easy to understand. All this time later, he still carries resentment that he was unable to locate the heart of the island after the Woman in White first took him there, and he may still even harbor curiosity about what is down there and about how he became what he did. Not to mention that for ages the island has been his prison. He probably believes that by destroying it once for all, he will be free…and will have the last laugh in the process. Unless he truly is unable to leave the island; is in fact inextricably linked to it and therefore can not destroy it without destroying himself. I like that idea. I like the idea that the Man in Black thinks he knows what he’s doing, but at the end of the day will learn that his understanding of the island is incomplete or incorrect – just as Jacob learned when he threw his brother into the tunnel. Of course, I’m not sure if I should like the idea of the island being destroyed, since it goes against what the Woman in White told the boys when she first took them to the tunnel: that the light is the same as the light that is inside every man, and that if it goes out here it will go out everywhere. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe the island needs to be destroyed. Maybe Jacob has come to realize that. And maybe the job of protector that he passes onto Jack isn’t really about keeping the island safe for more centuries to come, but about keeping it safe long enough for some unknown final act that needs to happen there before Man in Black gets what he thinks he wants.

Or maybe not. Maybe Man in Black isn’t linked to the island and he can destroy it. Maybe the only way he can get off the island is to destroy it, and if he does then the light will be extinguished all over the world, causing everyone to die – which is what we keep hearing will happen if the Man in Black gets off the island: everyone will die.

Oh hell, I don’t know. I just like the concept of the Man in Black thinking that destroying the island is his ticket to freedom when in fact it will seal his doom.

I keep going back to the season premiere and the image of the island at the bottom of the ocean while Oceanic 815 safely soars above. That riddle will surely be addressed in the finale, and I wonder: is it down there as a result of Jughead’s detonation, or as a result of what the Man in Locke is about to do? Or something else? I keep trying to come up with a scenario in which the sinking of the island unifies the two timelines; that it is somehow the end of one timeline and the beginning of another, or something like that. But I can’t. And it hurts my brain to try.

The other “huh?” thing I’m trying and failing to figure out is the whole Desmond factor. Widmore tells Man in Locke, who tells Ben, that Desmond is a last resort, designed to keep the Man in Black from getting off the island. Which means Jacob must have played a part in Desmond having the unique abilities that he does. So how is that to play out? Is Jacob aware of the sideways timeline? Does he know what Desmond is doing? Is Desmond doing what he’s supposed to be doing, or is he unwittingly interfering with a plan designed by Jacob or some other power player, like Eloise Hawking? And speaking of Eloise, I was remembering last season’s Faraday-flashback and how young Daniel was playing the piano when his mother came in looking like she’d just seen a ghost and told her son that he would have to put his interest in music aside and focus all of his efforts and energies on science and mathematics. And years later, she urged Daniel to accept Widmore’s offer of going to the island. In both cases, she seemed to know the course on which she was setting her son, and now I wonder if she was acting on instructions from Jacob himself, who eventually needed Faraday to be a guide of sorts to Desmond in his travels through space and time. If Desmond is Jacob’s failsafe, then maybe Faraday’s purpose in this cosmic game is to ensure Desmond can navigate the path.

Oh yeah, if Jack’s theory is correct, Locke wanted them all dead because only then could he leave the island. So is his plan to kill them all – or arrange to have them all killed, I should say – and then go to the tunnel and destroy the island? Do they have to be dead first? Why can’t he kill them directly? We’ve seen that he has no problem killing others – the bodies littering The Temple are among those who can attest to that. So why not Jack and company? I have to assume it’s because they’ve been marked by Jacob. Maybe that’s why they have to die before he can destroy the island – because they’re carrying a bit of Jacob’s protection and Jacob was in communion with the island. There’s a lot of Voldemort-ish stuff going on here, isn’t there? Let’s hope the finale is as satisfying as the final Harry Potter book.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-The Muppet Invasion continues with the latest editions of Lost Untangled and the Slapdown series, the latter’s focus for this week being on auditions for the Smoke Monster.

-There’s also this awesome video from Jimmy Kimmel, a huge Lost fan who has given the show a lot of attention over the years – spoofing it, visiting the set, bringing Damon and Carlton and the cast members on as guests, etc. On Friday night, in addition to Damon and Carlton being on, he ran a Lost version of a segment he apparently does every week, where he takes clips from a TV show and bleeps out lines that are totally inoffensive…but seem to become offensive based on the bleeping. Funny stuff…

[Note: The original clip embedded here was deleted from YouTube. This replacement is the same one, but as Kimmel notes, it was run around the time that the complete series was released on DVD…which was obviously after this post was published.]

-So in case you don’t know, here’s how it goes down tonight. From 7:00-9:00 there will be a series retrospective that I think is more than just the requisite clip show, but also will feature interviews with cast members and creators. Then the finale itself airs from 9:00-11:30. And then after the news, Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to Lost.

-It’s been reported that the DVD release of Lost – and I’m not sure if this is for the complete series set only or if it will also be on the stand-alone Season Six set – will include a featurette in which some of the show’s more minor, unsolved mysteries will be explained. That’s a cool little gift to the fans, so at least some of the less important (in the creators’ eyes) questions can be addressed for the sake of abating our curiosity.

-I wish I had the time to review every write-up I’ve done this season and to really spend time thinking about all that’s happened to get us to this point, but I don’t. And maybe it’s for the best. Too much overthinking, too much effort looking at all the pieces and trying to make them fit…for all my questions and attempts to understand, predict, make sense of, etc. it’s nice to just sit back and go on the ride. So I don’t have much to offer under this Loose Ends heading this time around. My mind is focused on what’s to come. In SidewaysLand, we have Desmond bringing everyone together at the benefit concert. On the island, we have Man in Locke trying to kill the remaining survivors and destroy the island. Where is Desmond? Does Jack now have Jacob-like abilities? Is Ben really with Locke or does he have a trick up his sleeve? What about the wildcards – Claire, Miles, possibly Richard and maybe-impossibly-but-I’m-still-holding-out-a-sliver-of-hope Lapidus? Where are they and what will they do? How will the two timelines reconcile? Who will live? Who will die? And for the love of God, will we finally find out what happened to Annie, the little girl who was Young Ben’s friend on the island?!? ‘Cause if they don’t solve that mystery…

Kidding. What I really want is a finale that has my heart racing with suspense (something every season finale has accomplished for the last six years), a finale that is surprising, brings back old favorites, answers some of the big questions and carries the story and the character journeys to an emotional and thrilling climax worthy of the six spectacular seasons that got us here. Am I excited? Hell yeah. Sad? Yup. A little worried? Afraid so. But as I said at the outset of the season, when it comes to Lost I’m a man of faith.

It will probably be a couple of weeks before I have a final write-up completed, but whether you like it or not I will be back one more time to infect your Inbox with my ravings. Until then…

LINE OF THE NIGHT
Two, both courtesy of the always reliable quote-machine, Miles:

“Well I lived in these houses 30 years before you did – otherwise known as last week – and I have no idea where the hell we are.”

“What’s this, a secreter room?”

Tonight’s Episode: The End