I Am DB

Just when you thought you’d finally gotten it out of your system – the thrills, the chills, the spills, the several WTF moments – I bring you, for your reading or deleting pleasure – my final Lost summary of the season. I regret the two week delay, but as those of you who were with me last year may remember, twice the episode means twice the writing time, and this whole “having a job” thing kinda gets in the way sometimes. I’ll tell you right off the bat too: it’s not worth the wait. I loved the episode, but was utterly confounded by it, and even with two weeks to work on this, I was still down to the wire, up past a reasonable bedtime last night, trying to finalize it. I don’t even feel like I’ve been able to really take time to process what it all means. So be prepared for an illogical, humor-deficient summary that likely takes the prize for my crappiest Lost write-up ever!

SUDDEN IMPACT
It would be hard to talk about this episode and what each development means for the future if we don’t start at the end. In fact, the most crucial scenes of the episode are the first and the last. So let’s start at the end and go from there. We’ll come back around to the details, but for now it will suffice to say that the core of the hydrogen bomb winds up at the bottom of the hole being drilled at The Swan site, just as Jack intended it. But it doesn’t detonate on impact. Poor Juliet also finds herself at the bottom of that hole, and uses a rock to try and smash the bomb and set it off. Does it work? If so, what does that mean for our friends? Those two questions hover over nearly every other question posed by this episode.

DUEL OF THE FATES
Backtracking to the opening scene of the episode, we find ourselves in a sparse cave lit by torches and a circular fire pit. There are hieroglyphics on the wall, simple handmade jugs here and there, and a man in loose clothing working a loom. This man goes outside onto the beach, catches a fish, cooks it on the rocks and settles back to enjoy the serenity. A ship approaches in the distance, masts at full sail. It looks like a pirate ship. The Black Rock, I presume?

As he enjoys his breakfast, another man arrives on the scene, similarly dressed in sandals and loose, cloth garments (dark, as opposed to the first man’s light, furthering one of the series’ elemental themes). And, well, here it is:

So…that was Jacob. Lying in the shadow of the large Anubis statue. It all begs the question: what the hell just happened? Who is this other guy, and what are they talking about? Their language sounds contemporary, but their dress, Jacob’s living space, the pirate ship and the towering statue all suggest the scene takes place a long, long time ago. Are these two men part of a larger community, or is it just them? Despite all the signs pointing to Egyptian influences on the island, we have here a couple of white boys.

“They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same,” says the man to Jacob. I took this to mean that people have come to the island over and over again through the centuries/decades/years, always playing out the scenario that he describes, and no matter who they are or where they come from, the end result is always the same. But I was talking with reader David Z., and he threw out the idea that the man is actually referring not to random groups of people that have come to the island over time, but the same group…over and over again. His idea was that the ship on the horizon, which I think we’re all assuming is the Black Rock, crashes on the island and sets off a chain of events that has been on a loop for who knows how long; a chain of events that eventually finds Oceanic 815 crashing on the island; a chain of events that may play out with differences each time, but which ultimately ends the same: visitors corrupting and destroying. (Any fans of The Matrix Reloaded out there? Does this scenario remind you of the film’s final scene, in which Neo encounters The Architect?)

The line which seems to be the key to this scene is Jacob saying, “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” I don’t fully understand the meaning; I mean, I get it, but how exactly it applies here eludes me. After he says it there’s a long pause before the man says how much he wants to kill Jacob. Why does that line stick in his craw?

Watching this exchange unfold, I get the impression of Gods lounging on Mount Olympus, ruminating on the existence of the little people below, manipulating their fates for their own games or experiments. As the episode continues, they do seem to exhibit some God-like powers. Or maybe they’re just a twist on The Duke Brothers from Trading Places, making a bet for yuks and giggles. Whatever exactly these two are playing at, Jacob seems to see the potential for goodness in human nature.

WE’RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD…
Locke, Sun and the Others continue their trek to see Jacob, who Ben admits, in a confession to Sun, he has never met – confirming Locke’s accusation from the previous episode. Locke notices that Richard keeps staring a him, and asks him to come out and say what’s on his mind, which it turns out is Ben having told him about killing Locke.

Richard: He said he was sure you were dead. He saw your coffin loaded onto that plane that you came back on. How are you alive?
Locke: Well you’ve been on this island much longer than I have, Richard. If anyone should have an explanation I’d think it would be you.
Richard: I have been here a long time, John, and I’ve seen things on this island that I can barely describe but…I’ve never seen someone come back to life.
Locke: And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
Richard: I’m this way because of Jacob. And if I had to guess, he’s the reason you’re not in that coffin anymore.
Locke: I agree completely, Richard. That’s why I’m doing this, so I can thank him. Once I’ve done that, we’re gonna to need to deal with the rest of the passengers from the Ajira flight that brought me here.
Richard: What do you mean deal with them?
Locke: You know what I mean.

That’s an awfully ominous statement that Locke slips into his otherwise folksy banter. Does he just want to get rid of all non-essential personnel, or does he know about Ilana, and that others from the plane are a threat to his plans?

During the journey, Locke also learns about Ben’s encounter with “Alex” beneath the Temple. Armed with the knowledge that Ben has been instructed to follow Locke’s orders, Locke informs him that he, Ben, will be carrying out Jacob’s murder.

They arrive at the 815ers beach camp, where Locke tells everyone that according to Richard, they’ll reach Jacob by nighttime and that they should take a rest and catch their breath. “Considering what I have planned for you, you’re gonna need it.” What does he have planned for them? Obviously something after he deals with Jacob…

Ben sits alone, processing the burden that has placed on him, when Locke sits down beside him…

Locke: What happened that day at the cabin? When you first took me to meet Jacob.
Ben: Well you clearly already know that I was talking to an empty chair, John. That I was pretending. Which is not to say that I wasn’t as surprised as you were when things started flying around in the room.
Locke: But why would you go to all the trouble to make something like that up?
Ben: I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know that I had never seen Jacob. So yes, I lied. That’s what I do.
Locke: Alright then.
Ben: Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?
Locke: Because despite your loyal service to this island, you got cancer. You had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. And your reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you’d never even met. So the question is Ben, why the hell wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob?

This is a brilliant turning of the tables, given that Ben has played Locke like a fiddle from the beginning. When he was prisoner in the hatch, he undermined Locke by pointing out that Jack was the real decision-maker. When he was prisoner in the basement of his own house, he taunted Locke about not knowing what he was doing and incurring the doubt of his followers. Time and time and time again, Ben has manipulated Locke to get what he wants, and here Locke flips it, planting the seeds of unrest in Ben to accomplish his own ends. And as we know from the eventual encounter with Jacob, Ben falls for it. He always knew how to push Locke’s buttons, and now Locke pushes his right back.

Meanwhile, Sun sees Aaron’s tipped-over crib, and my heart leapt as she approached it. One of my tugging regrets over the last two seasons has been that Charlie, before swimming down to his death in the Looking Glass, left his Drive Shaft ring in the crib for Claire and she never had a chance to find them. Sun finds the ring (which prompts a memory of her own wedding day) ans I’m hoping it will still find its way to Claire somehow.

LONG TIME COMING
They arrive at the statue of the foot, and Locke asks Richard why they’re stopping. Richard says this is where Jacob lives. Ben’s look is hard to read; he doesn’t seem to show any sign of recognition. When Sun asks him what happened to the rest of the statue, he claims not to know, saying it was like that when he got here. “Do you really expect me to believe that?” she asks. “Not really,” he answers in as blasé a tone as possible. Still, that doesn’t mean he isn’t telling the truth.

Richard prepares to lead Locke in, but stops when he sees Ben following them. You don’t see Richard get riled very often, but now he becomes angry.

Richard: What are you doing?
Ben: John wants me to join him.
Richard: You can’t bring him in.
Locke: Why not?
Richard: Because only our leader can request an audience with Jacob, and there can only be one leader on the island at a time, John!
Locke: I’m beginning to think you just make these rules up as you go along, Richard. Ben is coming in with me and if that’s a problem, I’m sure Jacob and I can work it out.

Richard opens a secret door and leaves them to their business. Is he not supposed to enter with Locke, or is he refusing to go in as a small act of defiance for Locke’s attitude? Whatever the case, he remains outside. As they stand in the entryway, Locke gives Ben a knife. “I know it won’t be easy, but things will change once he’s gone. I promise.” He doesn’t say that they’ll change for the better, but…

They enter the room we saw at the beginning…

That unfeeling, emotionless answer from Jacob cuts Ben like a sword through the heart. The disdain, the thought that Jacob deems him utterly irrelevant, is about the worst thing Ben could imagine. Ben, who has sought power and importance all of his life and who seeks the validation that he never got from his father, is crushed by Jacob’s response…which makes it easy for him to follow through with his instructions. Jacob has seen the knife, he knows what Ben and Locke are there for…is he provoking Ben in that moment? Is he trying to get Ben to kill him, the way I still want to believe that Faraday deliberately instigated his death for some reason not yet clear to us? Is it sort of an Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” taunt to his enemy?

So is this the end of Jacob? And what’s going on with Locke? In order to answer that – who am I kidding, I have no idea how to answer that – but in order to ask the right questions, we need to jump back and follow the other group on the island that has been coming to see Jacob.

TEAM AJIRA
Ilana, Bram and their little crew arrive on the main island, with Lapidus in tow. Ilana tells Bram that just because Frank couldn’t answer the riddle doesn’t mean he’s not important. She says he could be a “candidate,” something that is left hanging out there to be dealt with next season (meaning Frank will be back. Yay! He’s the only remaining member of the chopper team whose purpose on the island – or more accurately, whose connection to the island – is as-yet-unexplored).

The crew is more civil to him now, describing themselves as friends, offering him water and showing him the contents of that huge metal crate when he asks to see inside. We don’t get to see what’s in there, but he does. And it clearly concerns him. Bram says they need to show the contents of the box to a particular person, so that this person will know “who they’re up against: something a hell of a lot scarier than what’s in this box.” He says Frank is safe as long as he’s with them, reassuring him that they are the good guys. Frank replies, “In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys, are the bad guys.” Bram doesn’t respond. Is Frank’s observation fair? And could it apply to Ben, who has often described himself and The Others as “the good guys?”

They arrive at Jacob’s cabin, with its now familiar gravel-like demarcation, which Bram describes as ash and which has been disturbed in one spot, prompting Ilana to look concerned. She enters alone, and we see the cabin is in poor condition. Holes in the wood, broken items, the painting of the dog is on the floor…like the Dharma barracks in 2007 where Sun and Lapidus encountered Christian Shephard, the cabin looks deserted and ransacked. There is a piece of parchment pinned to the wall by a machete. When Ilana looks at it, her expression seems to become sadly alarmed, or nervous. She goes back outside and says, “He isn’t there. Hasn’t been in a long time. Someone else has been using it.” This comment once again makes me question whether or not Christian Shephard has actually been speaking on Jacob’s behalf, or if he’s been exercising his own agenda (or the agenda of someone other than Jacob). He told Locke to return to the island with Jack and the others, and he confirmed that Locke would die in this effort. Yet Locke, back on the island and seemingly resurrected, turns out to be not quite himself, so which team does that leave Christian playing for?

Ilana shows Bram the parchment, which features a drawing of the statue, and orders the cabin burned. She watches the flames swallow it, and her look remains one of concern and sadness. What does she understand from her visit here?

That night, they arrive at the statue, where the Others sit on the beach waiting for Locke to return from his talk with Jacob.

What the fuck?

So what might be at play here? The Locke who went inside with Ben has, ever since showing up on the island post-Ajira crash, seemed to be a new and improved version, with an unflappable confidence and a direct plug-in to the Island. But he also has all of his memories intact. At several points in this episode alone, Locke references past events – meeting Ben in the hatch for the first time, going to visit Jacob’s cabin the first time, etc. When they arrive at the statue, he does not seem to recognize it as Jacob’s dwelling. If he is the new incarnation of Jacob’s nemesis from the first scene of the episode, passing himself off as Locke, would all those Locke memories be intact? Wouldn’t he recognize the statue? When Locke’s body is revealed in the crate, why does Richard not rush into the chamber to stop whatever might be happening? It’s possible that he does, but that we won’t see it until next season. After all, this encounter with Ilana must be happening concurrently with Locke and Ben meeting Jacob inside. When the dying Jacob tells Locke that “they’re coming,” is he referring to Ilana and her group, or to a larger group? Perhaps to the Oceanic gang caught in that time loop that begins with the arrival of the Black Rock, as David Z. suggested earlier. And what is Ilana’s role in all of this? I’m starting to think of her group as the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They were an ancient society sworn to protect the resting place and integrity of the Holy Grail. Perhaps Ilana’s team serves a similar purpose for the Island….

BACK TO THE BEACH
A few other things have been going on throughout all this that we can now turn our attention to, like Sawyer, Juliet and Kate sitting on a submarine that’s heading away from the island. When Kate tells them what Jack plans to do, Sawyer resists going back and becoming embroiled in yet more island drama, but Juliet agrees with Kate that they can’t let Jack potentially kill everyone on the island. So they manage to escape from the sub and take a raft back to the island, where they are greeted by a surprise…one that answered a frequently asked question of late.

“OH HELL, NO…”
When Sawyer, Juliet and Kate arrive on the beach, Vincent the dog bounds out of the trees, followed by Rose, and a bearded Bernard. Turns out the couple has been living in nature for the last three years, deliberately avoiding attempts by Sawyer, Jin and the others to find them and bring them safely into The Dharma Initiative…because, as Rose says, “we’re retired.” They’ve built themselves a cabin, stocked up on Dharma canned goods and are perfectly happy with their simple life. Even when Kate explains what Jack is about to do, their attitude is, to paraphrase one of this season’s signature lines, whatever happens happens. They don’t care if they die; they just want to be together, and I think that their “all you need is love” message might play into the eventual decisions Sawyer, Juliet and Kate make when they encounter Jack.

Will we see Rose and Bernard again? Tough to say. There’s a heartfelt goodbye as they direct the trio toward the Dharma barracks, and we get the sense that this may be our goodbye to them as well.  The scene had the feel of a farewell, and of Damon and Carlton slyly saying to the fans, “Okay, you’ve all been haranguing us about the whereabouts of Rose and Bernard; now you know, and that’s it. We don’t want to hear about it again. These are two busy actors whose availability is often limited, and we can’t keep working around their schedules, so enjoy this moment. It’s the last you’re gonna get with them.”

On the other hand, if we re-visit the Oceanic 815 crash next season, they could very well be back in the fold. We’ll see what happens. Whether we see them again or not, I would not be surprised if they turn out to be the answer to one of Lost‘s longest-lasting mysteries, set to be solved next season: who are the corpses Jack discovers in the caves, dubbed by Locke as Adam and Eve?

Future resolutions aside, one thing that did seem foreshadowed in this scene was ill tidings for Juliet. As her life with Sawyer has come unraveled over the last several episodes, she has seemed headed for a fall (no pun intended). Her lingering moment with Rose and Bernard – in which she declined a cup of tea but said “Maybe another time,” gave me the sense that there would not be another time for her.

TIME BOMB TOWN
Having followed instructions from Faraday’s journal for removing the core of the hydrogen bomb, Jack and Sayid are ready to head for The Swan. They’ll do so on their own, however, because Richard knocks Eloise unconscious to prevent her from leading them there and risking her life. He shows them how to get out of the tunnels and sends them on their way. Faced with the challenge of walking through Dharmaville unnoticed, Sayid grabs a jumpsuit from the house they’re cutting through and they try to make their way through the crowds that are still dealing with the evacuation, the alarm, etc. They’re almost clear when Roger Linus spots them, and shoots Sayid in the gut. Seeing Sayid take that bullet made me feel like I’d been shot in the gut too; could he possibly survive that wound?

Yet another shootout ensues, but Hurley, Miles and Jin pull up in a Dharma van. Jack helps Sayid onboard and off they go, with Jack instructing Hurley to head for The Swan. Things aren’t looking good for Sayid…or for Jack when Hurley slams on the brakes to avoid running over Sawyer, Juliet and Kate, blocking the van’s path and looking supremely badass while they’re at it.

Jack agrees to Sawyer’s request for five minutes to talk in the jungle. He tries to explain his reasons, but Sawyer’s not buying it. “I don’t speak destiny,” he says. (It was one of a few examples in this episode of Sawyer channeling Han Solo; “Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I seen a lot of strange stuff. But I’ve never seen anything to make me believe there’s one all powerful force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field controls my destiny.”)

In the end, Jack admits he’s doing this because he had Kate and he lost her, which baffles Sawyer even more, since Kate is just mere feet away and all Jack has to do is go tell her how he feels. Jack says it’s too late. Sawyer points out that if Jack is right and
Flight 815 lands in Los Angeles without incident, he and Kate will be strangers. Jack says that if it’s meant to be, it will be.

Now like many fans, I do wish that Jack’s motivation was grander, deeper or more epic. But at the same time, I appreciate the human frailty and weakness of it coming down to something so simple, emotional and personal for him. There’s something real about that kind of desperation. It was a great scene, not just because I always enjoy Sawyer and Jack trying to be civil to each other, but because it was a treat to see Sawyer play the therapist, digging in to get at the root of why Jack is pursuing this course, and to see Sawyer being so practical, reasonable and even, in a way, understanding. (“What I do understand is a man does what he does cause he wants something for himself. What do you want, Jack?”) This scene, along with a few others still to come, are further proof of what a stellar performance Josh Holloway has given throughout this season. He’s always kicked ass as Sawyer, but this season’s storylines gave him the opportunity to kick up his game in a huge way, and he nailed it at every turn.

Things get intense when Jack and Sawyer start kicking the bejesus out of each other. It’s getting pretty brutal when Juliet finally intervenes and expresses a change of mind and heart, telling Sawyer to let Jack follow through with his plan. Sawyer can’t believe it, and begs her to explain what she’s thinking. I have to say that I didn’t appreciate until I watched the episode a second time, having been too caught up in the forward momentum of the story the first time around, that it really captures something honest about the complexities of love, the frailty of relationships and the obstacles that we throw up in our own path which keep us from being happy or going after what we want. We’re all such fucked-up jumbles of neuroses, and the relationship stuff portrayed in this episode all plays into that. Juliet, for example, seems unable to allow herself the hope of a future with Sawyer – a decision she reaches based on baggage she creates herself. You can argue that her reasoning is irrational, that it doesn’t make sense, but you can also argue that that’s love, and sometimes it’s inexplicable.

MOMENT OF TRUTH
When Kate finds Jack again, bloody and bruised from his throwdown with Sawyer but no less determined to carry out Operation Do-Over, he tells her that nothing in his life has ever felt as right as what he’s about to do and that he needs her to believe that. He asks why she made him promise never to ask about Aaron, and points out that if he succeeds, the plane will land in L.A. and Claire and Aaron will be together. When she points out that Claire was going to give him up for adoption, he says that they don’t know what Claire would have done. “If you want to save Claire,” he tells her, “this is the only way to do it.” She finally agrees to help.

And not a moment too soon, because things aren’t going well down at The Swan. Chang has tried to warn Radzinsky of the danger involved in continuing to drill, but Radzinsky will not be deterred. He tells Chang that he came to the island to change the world through manipulation of electromagnetism and he intends to do just that (these guys all want to manipulate something; time, electromagnetism…). When he learns about the shootout back in Dharmaville, he radios Phil to drive out with a security team in case the insurgents show up.

As Jack goes out to do his thing with the bomb, he tells Sayid that the plan will save him. “Nothing can save me,” Sayid says. (God, I hope he’s wrong.) While the others wait by the van, Miles chimes in with a reasonable question. “Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy’s actually gonna cause the thing he says he’s trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke is the incident? So maybe the best thing to do is nothing?” It’s a good point, and they all look at each other acknowledging as much, leading him to add, “I’m glad you all thought this through.” But there’s no time to think it through any further, because they look down in the distance and see Phil and some security guys driving toward The Swan. Kate says Jack will be killed if they see him. (It’s like Marty McFly arriving back in 1985 Hill Valley and watching the Libyan’s bus – which, come to think of it, is the same kind of VW bus the Dharma Initiative uses – barreling toward the mall to kill Doc Brown.)

When Phil spots Jack hiding on a ledge above the dig, they all open fire on him and more shootout madness unfolds. The Dharma van speeds onto the scene with Kate, Juliet, Sawyer and Miles all firing at the Dharma goons to provide Jack with cover. Sawyer knocks Radzinsky down (though doesn’t have time to do the kind of damage I wish he could) and then grabs Phil while Dr. Chang keeps a gun on Radzinsky, which is great. I love that Chang is assisting them in trying to prevent the drilling – even if he doesn’t know what Jack is about to do. The remaining Dharma folks drop their guns, and Sawyer calls out to Jack, “Alright, you can come out now, Doc! Hurry up and do your business!” Not quite as supportive as Han Solo’s cry, “You’re all clear kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home!”…but it works.

Chang tries to turn the drill off, but something is pulling it downward. Radzinsky says they hit the pocket, as if Chang hasn’t been warning him about this and he’s suddenly shocked by it. Douchebag.

Jack drops the bomb and they all brace for impact. Nothing happens. And then everything starts to go haywire, with the powerful magnetic force pulling everything metal in the vicinity, just as we saw in The Swan at the end of Season Two. Could Miles have been right? Could the presence of the bomb have kick-started the process? Probably not; one thing doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the other, and the magnetic surge was likely about to happen anyway, but why didn’t the bomb detonate on impact?

As metal crunches, grinds and flies into the hole, Chang’s arm gets caught and crushed, which must explain the prosthetic he wears in The Swan orientation video. Miles frees him and sends him away. Radzinsky flees as well and Phil is fatally skewered by some metal rods. Then, in the most frightening moment of the show, chains fly at Juliet, wrap themselves around her waist and pull her down into the pit, which is already sucking down the metal rig, vehicles, and everything else metallic. Sawyer dives and grabs her, holding her hand while Kate tries to undo the chains, but she can’t reach. The force of the magnetism pulling Juliet down is excruciating and threatens to rip her in two. In the end they can’t free her, she can’t hold on, and if she tries they’ll all be crushed. She proclaims her love for Sawyer as she slips and disappears into the darkness. It’s the most harrowing death scene we’ve had on the show, with the possible exception of Charlie, whose final moments were powerful and emotional but not as violent. And of course, can we even call it a death scene? We soon see Juliet is still alive down there (perhaps the biggest leap of faith we’re asked to take in the whole episode). She’s broken and bleeding, but she’s alive. The un-detonated bomb lies within reach, and what happens next…we’ve already covered.

If they survive what happens, Sawyer may be going after Jack for another beatdown.

TOUCH AND GO
That covers all the action on the island, which leaves us with the chain of flashbacks. Like the Season One finale, this episode’s flashbacks cover multiple characters, devoting a scene to each one. The common link? Jacob. We see him visit each castaway in turn, and not only does he encounter them, he touches them. Literally. In one way or another, Jacob physically touches each person. Most of these flashbacks contain other significant moments, so let’s consider some of them.

-Kate: When young Kate is caught stealing a lunchbox, Jacob intercedes and pays for it. In a nod to past events, Kate is with her friend Thomas, who will eventually be killed when she tries to flee from a hospital after sneaking a visit to her mother. He is holding the toy plane that was in a time capsule which they buried as kids, dug up shortly before his death, and which Kate becomes obsessed with reclaiming from the Federal Marshall’s briefcase after the crash.

-Sawyer: On the day of his parents’ funeral, young James Ford begins to write his letter to Mr. Sawyer. When his pen runs out of ink, Jacob appears and gives him a new one. He offers his condolences and moves on. As James continues writing, another man approaches – a relative or family friend – and upon seeing the beginnings of the letter, tells the boy that while he has every right to be angry, what’s done is done and the desire for revenge will only cause him pain. He makes James promise not to finish the letter, and James agrees. But is he lying, or is this an instance of Jacob altering history? What if James Ford never writes that letter, never takes on the name Sawyer, never goes to Australia to kill the man he believes to be responsible for his parents’ deaths?

-Jack: Here we see the surgery that Jack told Kate about when they first met and she stitched his wound. Yet it unfolds a little differently than he had described it, and I wonder if that’s significant or not. The way he told it to Kate, when he made a potentially fatal mistake on his patient, he decided he was only going to give the fear five seconds to wash over him and do its thing; then he was going to brush it aside and fix her. But as we see, it is Jack’s father who helps him get control of himself and instructs him to count to five. After the surgery, Jack complains to Christian that his actions in the operating room
embarrassed him in front of his surgical team. “Dad, I know you don’t believe in me,” he says, “but I need them to.” Christian, weary at Jack’s history of accusations and insecurity, replies, “Are you sure I’m the one who doesn’t believe in you, Jack?”

So has this been another case of the writers violating the show’s continuity, or is it a deliberate attempt to show small differences between past events as we’ve been told they happened and how they actually did (or how they are being changed within the Great Loop of Time)? Is Jack’s future on the island altering, in small ways, his past? Or does Jack simply have an overinflated ego which led him to omit the part about his father when he told Kate the story?

As Jack’s father says his line, we hear the clink of coins dropping into the vending machine just a few steps away, and upon watching the scene a second time, I was acutely aware that Jacob is not only interacting with Jack in this moment, but he is sharing space with Christian as well. Although we don’t know if he sees Christian and they have no direct contact, the fact that both are present in the room intrigues me. After Christian walks away, Jacob offers Jack the candy bar which the machine had failed to deliver moments earlier (it’s an Apollo bar, the same candy Hurley discovers in the hatch). When Jack says it got stuck in the machine, Jacob says, “I guess it just needed a little push.” Something which could be said of Jack himself at times…

Locke: Jacob sits on a bench and we see, in very deliberate close-up, the cover of a book he’s reading: Everything That Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor. The cover picture is of a bird being pierced through the chest by an arrow. I thought of two things when I saw it: the Christ-like spread of the bird’s wings; and Walt, who had the odd trait of luring birds to their death – something we saw in the season one episode Special, as well as in the minisode Room 23. Walt’s birds didn’t die by arrow, but rather crashing into doors, walls and windows. Maybe I’m working too hard to make a connection; it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m sure EW.com’s Doc Jensen, who lives to explore Lost‘s literary references, will have plenty to say about the possible meaning of this book’s inclusion. Oh, and on the subject of Room 23: in that minisode, Ben says to Juliet of Walt, “Jacob wanted him here. He’s important. He’s…special.” I asked it then and I’ll ask it now; why, as Season Four was about to begin and Walt was long gone from the show save for an occasional cameo, would the producers remind us so prominently of his powers? I still say the show is not done with Walt. I don’t expect them to wrap up every single mystery and loose end, but if they don’t resolve this, I’ll be pissed.

Anyway, as Jacob sits reading, a body crashes to the ground in front of the building behind him. As if he’s been waiting for it, he gets up and walks over to an unconscious, bleeding John Locke, who has of course just been pushed out an eighth story window by his father. Jacob wakes Locke up when he places a firm hand on his shoulder, and says, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be alright. I’m sorry this happened to you.” Then he gets up and walks away.

It looks as normal as any of the other encounters Jacob has with our heroes, but is this one different because of Locke’s supposed destiny to come to the island? And is that destiny thrown into new light by the fact Locke seems to have been…re-purposed by Jacob’s enemy? When Locke turned the wheel and left the island, he encountered Charles Widmore, who told him, “There’s a war coming, John. And if you’re not back on the island when that happens, the wrong side is going to win.” Though we know he was loyal to Jacob at one point, did Widmore eventually move to the side of Jacob’s enemy? What kind of presence has that enemy had, if any, in the life of The Island and those who have spent time there? I also wondered if Locke was supposed to have been killed by that fall, and if Jacob’s touch brought him not merely back to consciousness, but back to life.

-Sun and Jin: The only time that Sun and Jin have been together all season was in this flashback to their wedding day. As she and Jin receive a line of well-wishers after their ceremony, they meet Jacob. In fluent Korean, he tells them, “Your love is a very special thing. Never take it for granted.” He touches their arms, bows to them and moves on,  leaving each of them to wonder how the other one knows him.

-Sayid: Is it just coincidence that Jacob stops Sayid for directions, indirectly resulting in Nadia getting mowed down (much the same way that Juliet’s ex-husband was hit by a bus, which she later seemed to think Richard might have caused)? Or did Jacob for some reason deliberately bring about Nadia’s death? He shows no emotion or shock on his face when she is struck, reacting only by gripping Sayid’s shoulder. Then he’s gone. This also throws into question whether or not Widmore was responsible for Nadia’s death, as Ben claimed. Was Sayid really a target? Was it random? Was it all Jacob’s doing?

-Hurley: When Hurley is released from prison, he gets into a cab occupied by a stranger who offers to share the ride, as he’s only going a few blocks. The stranger is, of course, Jacob, and there is a guitar case between them. Jacob calmly asks Hurley why he doesn’t want to return to the island, and Hurley – relatively relaxed considering this stranger knows his name and is asking him about the island – says it’s because he’s cursed. But Jacob says he might be blessed, not cursed, and that he is definitely not crazy. He then tells Hurley that if wants to go back, he should be on Ajira 316 the next day. Touching his arm, he says that Hurley doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He exits the cab and when Hurley calls out that he forgot his guitar, Jacob says, “It’s not my guitar.” Is it his…something else, something other than a guitar? Is it someone else’s guitar? Someone else’s something else? Whatever it contains, it’s probably significant.

It’s also important to note that Jacob’s encounters with Hurley and Sayid come after they have returned from the island. The other flashbacks are all pre-island, which first led me to think that Jacob somehow brought them all to the island in the first place, but the fact that he meets Hurley and Sayid after they’ve been to the island and left makes it less clear what Jacob’s visits to the Oceanic survivors mean. Note that Sayid and Hurley remain behind when the others take the Dharma van directly to the Swan site to protect Jack. If the bomb does detonate, they might be somewhat protected by nature of their distance. Irrelevant? Maybe. Maybe not.

There is another flashback, which may or may not take place in the three years between the Oceanic Six’s rescue and their return: Ilana. It’s the first flashback centering on her (though she did appear in Sayid’s several episodes ago). In the scene, she is bedridden in a grimy hospital in an unknown foreign country, her face entirely bandaged except for her mouth and one eye. We can see cuts and bruises on the little skin that’s exposed. She is visited by Jacob, who is dressed all in black – jacket, scarf, gloves – and who sits at her side and speaks her language.

Jacob: I’m sorry I couldn’t make it sooner.
Ilana: I’m very happy to see you.
Jacob: I’m here because I need your help. Can you do that? Can you help me, Ilana?
Ilana: Yes.

She smiles when she answers, as if proud to be called to service and flattered that he would ask her. He doesn’t touch her; she’s the only one he doesn’t, and this, when taken with the dialogue, confirms that their relationship is different. They have history. So how do they know each other and what is Jacob asking her to help with? If she is going to the island to help Jacob, why does she bring Sayid with her? Is that her decision, or is it something Jacob requests? If Jacob intended to send Ilana to the island to stop Fake Locke from killing him, is she too late, or is Jacob’s death not as clear-cut as it seems?

As I watch these encounters with Jacob, I wonder if there were similar meetings that he had with Charlie, Boone, Shannon, Michael, Libby, Ana Lucia, Eko…or if only those who have made it this far had encounters with the mystery man. Ben mentions the lists when he confronts Jacob, and it’s the first mention of the lists we’ve heard in a long time. It would seem that these people Jacob meets off-island are on a list. But we still have no idea what all those lists mean. And what about Desmond? Has Jacob met Desmond? How will Desmond fit into the final season?

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-According to Lostpedia, Richard’s Latin answer to “what lies in the shadow of the statue” roughly translates as, “He who will protect/save us all.”

-It only ends once. That line makes me wonder if we will see the end of the island by the time the show wraps up. Obviously we have no idea where things will land next year, but do you think that whatever happens, the island will be destroyed when all is said and done? Or will it continue to endure, lying in wait to ensnare more unsuspecting castaways, regardless of where the 815 gang lands? Or to ensnare the 815 gang all over again?

-Jack’s transition to Man of Faith gets another boost when Richard asks him about Locke, saying that in the times he’s gone off-island to see him, he’s never seemed particularly special. Jack defends Locke, suggesting that Richard not to give up on him.

-What if Christian Shephard is the new vessel for Jacob? What if Jacob can transfer his essence, soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it, and he’s put it into Christian so that the Jacob who gets stabbed by Ben might be the body of Jacob as we know him, but is not really him? I’m thinking out loud, and not really stopping to consider all the reasons that such a scenario surely makes no sense…

-Could this thing – this other being inside of Locke – have been lying dormant there his whole life? If Locke is fated to find the island, and if people really have been trying to get him there, could it be because of this thing inside him? Probably not…not if Jacob is the good guy and he’s there to overthrow Jacob, who is followed by all the people who seem to have an interest in Locke: Ben, Widmore, Richard…

-Richard told Sun that he watched Jack, Kate, Hurley (and presumably the others) die. But Richard wasn’t with that group at The Orchid, so did he mean what he said literally, or did he mean that he believed their plan to detonate the bomb would end in certain death, and he watched them march toward that?

-The episode’s one flashback that does not involve Jacob belongs to Juliet, whose bad luck with relationships is set-up in a scene depicting her parents announcing their divorce to Juliet and her sister. And we didn’t get a flashback for Miles at all…

-When Ben mentions Locke being marched in like Moses, a close-up of Locke shows him turning to look at Jacob. Is this just a dramatic gesture, or does that line of dialogue hold significance?

-One thing I was really surprised not to see in this episode was the reappearance of Caesar. Despite Ben blowing his ass across the beach with a shotgun, I was sure we’d see him again. I’m still not convinced we won’t, though an appearance in the finale would have refreshed the audience’s memory since he didn’t get much screen time and we have a long wait ahead. The reason for my conviction is simple: when Damon and Carlton announced the casting for Caesar and Ilana last fall, they said the two characters would factor into the show’s overall mystery in important ways. Now sure, Damon and Carlton are cryptic with their clues, and they certainly keep their secrets, but I’ve never known them to deliberately mislead the audience with red herrings. Which means they either changed their minds about Caesar mid-way and decided the character wasn’t necessary, or we haven’t seen the last of him. Or this time, Damon and Carlton deliberately misled us with red herrings.

-So as we head into Season Six, we’ve got a long list of mysteries to be solved, and for the purposes of keeping my brain organized and uncluttered, I will attempt to list some of them here, as they come to me (not including the ones raised in this episode, like what Lapidus might be a candidate for, who Jacob’s enemy is, and hell, pretty much every damn thing that happened):

• Kidnapping children
• Pregnant women dying
• Lists
• Walt: what the hell?
• The Adam and Eve skeletons in the caves
• The Lamp Post (off-island Dharma station manned by Eloise Hawking)
• Eloise Hawking: what the hell?
• The Island’s power over people (not letting Michael kill himself, for example)
• Jacob’s cabin
• Christian Shephard: what the hell?
• The Smoke Monster
• The remaining details of the Charles Widmore/Benjamin Linus relationship (like why Ben can’t kill Widmore, how Ben really came to power, etc.)
• The Truce between The Dharma Initiative and the Hostiles/Others
• The Statue
• Jungle whispers
• The Purge
• Will the castaways turn out to have influenced future events by being in 1977?
• And probably many more that I just can’t think of right now…

-A final salute to the best of this season’s performances. There’s really not a weak link in the cast, so it’s almost a matter of who got the most great material than it is who gave the best performances. Michael Emerson is never less than remarkable as Ben; Jeremy Davies did great work as Faraday; Ken Leung makes Miles endlessly watchable; and Elizabeth Mitchell, though slightly underused as Juliet, remained a great presence. But whereas Emerson was the shining star of Season Four, this season was owned by three actors: Terry O’Quinn as Locke, matching if not exceeding his best work ever on the show in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham; Jorge Garcia as Hurley, who continues to be not just brilliant comic relief, but also shines in his dramatic moments and has become the conscience of the show; and Josh Holloway, who simply blew the roof of the joint as Sawyer. From his earliest moments in the season to his last – demanding answers from Faraday about the time-warping; reacting to Locke disappearing down the well at The Orchid; coming into his own as LaFleur; or watching Juliet slip into the dark – Holloway did his best work yet, and deserves an Emmy nomination for his efforts.

There were also plenty of great guest stars and recurring  performances as well, so a raising of glasses to Nestor Carbonell as the fascinating Richard Alpert; Jeff Fahey as the eternally ruling Frank Lapidus; Fionnula Flanagan, who drenched Eloise Hawking in mystique; Alan Dale, never letting us trust him as Charles Widmore; Francois Chau, who got the welcome opportunity to expand his role as Dr. Chang; Eric Lange, who made for a great, paranoid prick as Radzinsky; Zuleikha Robinson, keeping us on our toes as Ilana; Lance Reddick as the much-missed Matthew Abbadon; L. Scott Caldwell and Sam Anderson, also missed for much of the season as Rose and Bernard; Sonya Walger, whose performance as Penny beautifully compliments Henry Ian Cusick; John Terry as Christian Shephard; and of course, Mark Pellegrino as Jacob.

-I also need to mention something that doesn’t get said often enough, which is that Michael Giacchino, who composes the music for the show, is a huge part of the reason it works so well.

-As usual, we have little information about what next season has in store. Damon and Carlton have said that the time-travel storylines will come to an end and that the season will be much more character-centric, like Season One…though they’ll need to work hard to solve all the lingering mysteries. Multiple sources have also confirmed that despite being cast on a new show, Elizabeth Mitchell will return – perhaps on a limited basis – as Juliet. No word on whether we can expect to see Naveen Andrews back as Sayid. And I’m still wondering if (depending on where and when the story goes) we might see some past cast members return to duty. Although Michael has come and gone twice, Harold Perrineau’s show The Unusuals was not renewed for next season, so maybe they could bring him back one more time and do right by him; Dominic Monaghan has always seemed receptive to coming back as Charlie; and as I said, we better get more of Malcolm David Kelly as Walt.

FINAL THOUGHTS
And that’s it. Like a hibernating polar bear, Lost has settled into slumber for the long winter of my discontent. Of course, there will be rumblings in the months to come – this summer’s Comic-Con is likely to bring a few Season Six teases, Emmy nominations will be revealed in July, etc. – and I’ll pop up again in your Inbox when there’s something newsworthy to share. But for now, I’m going home and deleting Season Five from my DVR, never to be seen again. Until I buy it on DVD December 8th.

Tonight’s Episode: Shit…does this mean I need to start watching Fringe? That season’s over too?!? Damnit! Looks like I’m goin’ to see Star Trek again…

AMAZING TALES OF FILICIDE
I suggested last week that a few of my questions about Faraday’s death scene may have been asked prematurely, and it turned out that I was indeed jumping the gun. The opening moments of this episode suggest that Richard does in fact remember Faraday from the 1950’s, and that Eloise does as well; it just takes her a minute – after shooting him – to recall. Even Widmore, staring at his face, remarks that he looks familiar.

So Faraday is dead and now Jack and Kate are caught, being held in Eloise’s tent. Jack has become energized by the promise of Faraday’s plan, revealing elements of his personality that have been dormant since his return to the island. His motive for wanting to do what Faraday suggested – the motive he talks about first, at least – is the one I suggested last week: that all the people who’ve died will be able to come back. He tells Kate that this is their chance to wash away all the misery they’ve experienced. “It was not all misery,” Kate says, clearly commenting on their relationship and surprising me with a dash of the sentimental. Jack may appreciate her effort, but he responds, “Enough of it was.”

EW.com’s Doc Jensen made an observation about this which I liked:

“But his [Jack’s] haunted self-involvement is so epically solipsistic and myopic, he can’t see what his mad quest for a historical clean slate would cost those still living — especially his would-be girlfriend. For Kate, the castaway adventure has been painful and hard — but it has also given her so much, from a community of friends to the experience of mothering Aaron to Jack himself. To hear him blather on about obliterating the events that brought them together — I mean, that’s almost like a boyfriend breaking up with you and bitterly saying, ‘I wish we had never met — and now I shall ask my magic genie to make it so!'”

(Hmm, that last part makes me want to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind…)

Jensen goes on:

“Moreover — and I think this idea is richly twisted — Jack’s plan would take away something even more important to the castaways. From the very beginning of Lost, we’ve been encouraged to consider these characters as fallen people desperate for redemption, or at least a fresh start. Jack’s plan is a shortcut to absolution. It would also negate the redemption and happily-ever-afters that his castaway friends have achieved.”

He also had something to say about Faraday, which I enjoyed:

“If Daniel’s notebook really is some kind of Bible that holds the key to castaway salvation, then Faraday’s legacy will be redeemed. He’ll have been transformed from a sheep led to slaughter — by his own mother no less! — to a Christ-like good shepherd, sacrificing his life to bring his Lost herd home. I like the idea of ‘Daniel Faraday, Lost messiah.’ A man of science making a crazy leap of faith would make for a nifty reconciliation of the show’s warring themes and an apt conclusion to this ‘316’ season.”

Moving on, when Eloise enters, she asks Jack to tell her the truth about how they came to be there with the man she just killed, who claimed to be her son. She makes it clear to Jack that she is open to his explanation. So Jack tells her that killing Daniel can be undone; that they can change things. Eloise looks to Kate. “Does he know what he’s talking about?” she asks. Kate looks sad as she answers, “He thinks he does.”

Eloise decides to lead them to the bomb, with Richard’s help. She does not invite Widmore to join them, and though the two share a private moment, we are quite deliberately not privy to their exchange. But it looked to me like he put a hand on her stomach as if expressing concern for a baby. I can’t be sure, though; the angle we saw it from – it may have just looked like his hand was there. But this brings up something I asked about last week. I wondered how Eloise could be on the island in 1977 when I figured she must be off, raising Daniel. I assumed the scene where young Daniel was playing piano probably took place around ‘77. But Eloise doesn’t mention anything about having a son, so are we to believe Daniel hasn’t been born yet? If he was born even a year later, in 1978, that would make him 26 when he lands on the island in 2004 (and 29 now that three years have passed). Yeah, I’m buying that like I’m bought Edward Furlong as a 10 year-old in Terminator 2. (In case my skepticism isn’t translating onto the page, that means I’m not buying it at all.) But it’s a relatively minor point, I suppose.

The scene offers little in the way of details about Eloise’s relationship with Charles Widmore. When Jack asks who he is, Richard tells him the man’s name – a name Jack and Kate are obviously familiar with – and adds, “He and Eloise are…well let’s just say love can be complicated.”

BOMB SQUAD
In order to get to the bomb, they need to swim through a tunnel under a stream, but Kate refuses to go further. When the Oceanic Six were on Penny’s boat devising the Lie and Jack asked Kate if she was with him on his plan, she replied, “I have always been with you.” But this time she’s not. She tries to walk away, but the other Hostile accompanying them raises his rifle and tells her to stop. She keeps going and a shot rings out.

I really thought he shot her. I did. But then we see it’s the Hostile who’s been shot, and Sayid rises from the bushes, his gun smokin.’ What a great reveal. I love that Sayid has just been tracking them, watching in silence waiting to see what happened. Or so I assume. I’m guessing he wasn’t just there in that particular spot when they happened to show up. I choose to believe he’s been hiding out and looking in on the Hostiles. Jack proceeds to bring him up to speed.

Sayid: So you’re telling me you’re going to erase the last three years of our lives?
Jack: We can change things, Sayid.
Sayid: I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’ve already changed things. I killed Benjamin Linus. And we’re all still here.
Kate: Because you didn’t kill him. Sawyer and me took him to The Others so that they could save him.
Sayid: Why did you do that?
Kate: Why did I do that? Since when did shooting kids and blowing up hydrogen bombs become okay?
Jack: The three of us disappeared off that plane and ended up here, ended up now, because this is our chance to change things.
Kate: And if you’re wrong, then everyone on the island dies, do you understand that?
Jack: I’m not wrong, Kate, this is it! This is why we’re here. This is our destiny.
Kate: Do you know who you sound like? Because he was crazy too Jack, you said so yourself.
Jack: Well maybe I was wrong.
Kate: No, you were right. I’m going back to find the rest of our people because if I can’t stop you, then maybe they can.

With Kate gone and a dispensable Hostile…dispensed with, it’s Eloise, Richard, Jack and Sayid on the Jughead journey. They swim underground and find themselves in Temple-like tunnels. Eloise has explained that the bomb is buried beneath the Dharma village – which of course didn’t exist at the time of the burial. Does its presence beneath their homes have something to do with the Truce? How did the Truce come to pass? Dharma folks showed up on the Island and said, “Well take it!” Hostiles showed up and said, “Uhh, not so fast, friendo. We were already here.” Squabbling ensued and escalated into violence…wait, I think I’m describing the plot of Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century…

But really, which side initiates the Truce, and why? Does anyone in the Dharma Initiative – Horace and a few other select members, perhaps – know that they’re living over a hydrogen bomb?

As they wend their way underground, Sayid points out that Eloise’s main interest in detonating the bomb may be to destroy the Dharma Initiative. Jack says it’s occurred to him, but he still trusts her because she’s the one who tells them all how to get back here 30 years later. “And that makes you trust her?” Sayid asks. Apparently Jack has no doubts, even though Faraday said his mother was wrong and that they shouldn’t have come back.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING
It’s been three years since Locke disappeared from a log right next to Richard, and now the man is back and ready to assume his position as leader of The Others. As he greets a stunned Richard, Ben and Sun watch from a distance, and Sun asks who he is. “His name is Richard Alpert,” Ben says. “He’s a kind of….advisor. And he has had that job for a very, very long time.” An advisor. That seems in keeping with an idea I talked about a few weeks ago in my Dead is Dead write-up: “Richard is just sort of a part of the package deal. If you want The Island, you gotta take Richard, like it or not.” And possibly foreshadowing what’s to come – not that I thought I was foreshadowing anything at the time – I went on, “In such a scenario, his primary purpose is to protect the island from forces that might harm it, and he won’t interfere with how things are run unless he has doubts about the person running it. Then he’ll do what he has to do to help shift power into safer hands.” I’m banking that theory for later.

Richard does a lot of traveling in this episode. In addition to his trek towards Jughead circa 1977, he has some footwork to do here in 2007.  Locke asks Richard and Ben to accompany him on an errand for which he insists time is of the essence. Ben seems less than eager to tag along, sarcastically asking if Locke is afraid he’ll stage a coup if left behind with his former people. “I’m not afraid of anything you can do anymore, Ben,” Locke says.

On their walk, Locke casually mentions that when this task is complete, he’d like Richard to take him to Jacob. This startles both Richard and Ben, who says, “That’s…not how it works, John.” But Locke clarifies that he is now the leader and as such, he wants to see Jacob. Richard agrees…but he’s not thrilled about it.

Locke leads them to the familiar Beechcraft plane, and those with memories stretching back to the season premiere knew exactly what was coming. Locke informs Richard that in a moment, a man who’s just been shot in the leg will emerge out of the woods on the other side of the plane from where they’re positioned. That man will be Locke himself. Locke tells Richard to treat the wound and tell Wounded Locke he must get his people to return to the island and that he’ll have to die doing so.

This directive from Locke could prove to be crucial. In my previous write-up, I talked about the various people who have said how important it is that the Oceanic Six return to the island. Richard was one of the people I cited, based on the scene from early in the season when Richard treats Locke’s wound. But now that we see the scene from a new perspective and with some background information, we realize that when Richard tells Locke he must bring his people back in order to save the island, he is not imparting information based on his own knowledge. Those instructions come from Locke, not from Richard. And if Locke is really experiencing some sort of symbiosis with The Island, then we now have to wonder if the Oceanic Six really did need to return to save the island, or if The Island simply (cause this is sooo simple) has plans for them. Locke’s communion with The Island is reinforced in his conversation with Ben.

Ben: Your timing was impeccable, John. How did you know when to be here?
Locke: The island told me. Didn’t it ever tell you things?
Ben: No, John. And it clearly it hasn’t told you where Jacob is or you wouldn’t need Richard to show you.
Locke: You’ve never seen him.
Ben: What?
Locke: Jacob. You’ve never seen him, have you?

Ben’s snarky comment is beautifully delivered, like the jab of a jealous playmate, but he never gets to answer Locke’s question because the other Locke disappears from sight. (This does clear up one curiosity for me, which is that for the people who were not moving through time during the flashes, the white light and strange noise went unnoticed. I had wondered if Ellie saw the light and heard the noise when Faraday disappeared from the Jughead site, and ditto for Rousseau when Jin disappeared outside the Temple, or if the effect of the flashes went unnoticed by anyone not caught up in them. Here we see that from Richard’s perspective, Wounded Locke just disappears. Pop. Gone.) Richard returns and says Wounded Locke seemed convinced, especially by the part about having to die. “I’m certainly glad that didn’t have to happen,” he says. “Actually Richard, it did,” Locke replies, looking at Ben…who in turn looks around to avoid eye contact.

STIRRING THE POT
Back from their errand, Locke wants to get going right away to see Jacob. Richard says they can do what he wants, but suggests they talk privately in his tent first. Locke instead asks if this group camped on the beach is the entire crew of Others. Richard says there’s another group at the Temple. Addressing those on the beach, Locke says, “I’ve been told that for some time, you all have been accepting orders from a man named Jacob. And yet, oddly enough, it seems that no one has actually seen him. Now, I’m sure there are very good reasons why his existence and whereabouts are secret, I just don’t know what they are.” He takes an extended pause here, staring at Richard and Ben, before continuing, “And to be honest with all of you, if there’s a man telling us what to do, I want to know who he is. Richard has agreed to show us where we need to go. So I’m gonna go and see Jacob. Right now. And I’d like all of you to come with me.”

I liked Doc Jensen’s observation about this: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did we just witness the completion of a profound role reversal on Lost? Because Locke’s rhetoric is that of the rational skeptic, demanding empirical proof before committing his trust to some great and mighty Oz. Jack is now the man of faith; Locke is now the man of science.”

The Others seem to like Locke’s idea. They like it rather blindly, like a flock of sheep who have never thought of this idea on their own. Wow, go and see Jacob? Why that’s a smashing plan! Jolly good, yes. This John Locke is clever.

Richard is not as enthused as everyone else. “I’m starting to think John Locke is gonna be trouble,” he says.

“Why do you think I tried to kill him?” Ben responds.

The following morning, the entire group sets out for Jacob. (I guess Locke decided not to leave that night?) Will they be stopping at The Temple on the way to get everyone else? Locke is all smiles, remarking what a beautiful day it is. But Ben sees a storm on the horizon.

Ben: Richard had some concerns.
Locke: Concerns about what?
Ben: This pilgrimage to Jacob makes him uncomfortable. He’s expressed reservations about whether or not you know what the hell you’re doing.
Locke: I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, Ben.
Ben: I know we’ve had our differences in the past John, but I’m here to follow you now. So if you need Jacob to help you reunite your people, then I’ll do whatev…
Locke: I’m not interested in being reunited with my people.
Ben: What do you mean, you told Sun…
Locke: I know what I told her, but that’s not why we’re going to Jacob.
Ben: Then why are we going to Jacob?
Locke: So I can kill him.

Uhhh…

Okay, first: does Locke really intend to kill Jacob, or is he just telling Ben that? If it’s true…why would you tell Ben that? Why would you confide anything in that guy? Maybe if you really are 100% confident Ben is no longer a threat to you and your plans, then there’s no harm done. Personally, I’d play my cards close to the vest. And if it’s not true, why do you want Ben to think it? And if it is true, why do you want to kill him? Did The Island tell you to do it? Does that mean that Jacob and The Island are not of one mind? Could Christian Shephard be the one relaying psychic orders to Locke? I’ve already wondered aloud about the possibility that Christian actually doesn’t speak for Jacob, despite his comments to the contrary. On the other hand, when Locke first went to Jacob’s cabin, he heard a voice say, “Help me.” What if Jacob actually needs/wants to die, and now Locke understands that and plans to follow through, thereby removing the assumed malice from his intentions…

Second, we’ve had our differences in the past? That’s a hell of a way to gloss over shooting him in the stomach and choking him to death, let alone all the lies, manipulation…

Third, I was about to ask who Ben was kidding when he told Locke he’s prepared to follow him. But then I remembered his encounter with the Smoke Monster, and Alex’s warning: “You will listen to every word John Locke says and you will follow his every order.” If that was The Island talking through Alex, and if Locke is communicating with The Island, does that mean he knows that Ben has to defer to him? Is he finally able to trust Ben? I dunno – Ben can still disobey the order he was given by “Alex.” He’d likely have to pay for it with his life, but if he feared that Locke’s plan meant danger to The Island, would he sacrifice himself to stop it? It’s not hard for me to imagine that in the end, Ben will die something of a hero’s death. It would be in keeping with that comparison I’ve often made between him and a certain character from a certain book series about a certain bespectacled boy wizard.

AT LEAST THERE WAS NO WATERBOARDING…
In the wake of the shootout with Jack, Kate and Faraday, the alarm in Dharmaville has sounded, so there’s a bit of chaos. Hurley slips away amidst it all, carrying a backpack full of canned food and the guitar case he brought to the island. He meets up with Miles and Jin, hidden away up on a hill. But he is followed by Dr. Chang, who asks…well, the amusing exchange that follows is worth seeing:

Love that look Miles and Jin exchange when Hurley says there’s no such thing as the Korean war. Anyway, the scene continues with Chang asking Miles if he is really his son. Miles confirms it. Then we cut from Chang saying that he hopes Faraday knows what he’s doing to a shot of Faraday’s body on the ground. I want to make the leap that this edit implies Faraday did know what he was doing, even up to the moment of his death, but I don’t know…

Chang rushes into the security station, but is startled by the sight of Juliet and Sawyer tied up, being beaten by Radzinsky and Phil while Horace looks on powerless. Chang says they need to evacuate the island and hold off on drilling at the Swan, but Radzinsky, in full-on Asshole mode says that he – not Horace – is now in charge and that the decision is his. Groundbreaking at the Swan will commence in “less than 20 hours,” on schedule (20 hours? Didn’t Faraday say “four hours” just a few minutes before he got himself dead? Okay, four is less than 20, but clearly Radzinsky is suggesting that the dig is not quite as immediate as Faraday said it would be…)

Radzinsky really is an arrogant, paranoid prick. I take comfort in knowing that he’ll eventually put a shotgun in his mouth and end up a bloodstain on the Hatch ceiling. But I kinda wish we’d get the satisfaction of watching Sawyer kick his teeth down his throat. Instead, Sawyer confirms Chang’s concerns and says that the women and children should be put on the sub. He adds that if they put Juliet and him on there too, he’ll tell them whatever they want to know. So far, he hasn’t cooperated at all with Radzinsky’s questioning, and I wondered why they didn’t take him out to Oldham, like they did with Sayid. Not enough time, maybe. Not that they were convinced by Sayid’s answers anyway, but maybe hearing a second person say he’s from the future would make them consider it more carefully. As it is, Radzinsky responds to Sawyer’s request by handing him paper and telling him to draw a map to the exact location of the Hostiles. Did Sawyer draw an accurate map, I wonder, or did he pull a Dantooine?

Later on, Miles, Jin and Hurley are hiding again, this time watching people board the sub. They see Charlotte and her mother, and they see Chang forcefully insisting that his wife, holding Baby Miles, get on the sub too. Miles realizes, as I thought in the Some Like it Hoth write-up, that Chang was doing what he had to do to make her leave and go someplace safe. Then they see Sawyer and Juliet being marched onboard as well. Hurley figures Sawyer has a plan. And he does: get off the island, buy stock in Microsoft and bet on the ’78 Cowboys Super Bowl. Though we don’t yet know exactly how that plan will go awry, we know it will have something to do with Kate, who is brought onto the sub at the last minute after being caught coming back into the village by Dharma security. The looks on Sawyer’s and Juliet’s faces say it all.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT/LOOSE ENDS
-After learning of Richard’s lengthy stay on the island, Sun shows him the Dharma photo with Jack, Kate and Hurley and asks if he was there in 1977 and if he remembers them. He says he was and he does, quite clearly – because he watched them all die. So…that’s not good. But did he mean he just saw Jack, Kate and Hurley die? Or did he see everyone on the island in 1977 die?

-I keep thinking about this coming catastrophe at the Swan. According to history, this catastrophe occurs, but the Dharma folks – many of them, anyway – survive it, build the hatch and go on with their lives…until they die in the Purge, that is. If that’s the case, how bad could this accident be/have been, especially in relation to the consequences of an H-bomb detonation? Though we’re being led to believe the “incident” is impending, things seem amiss. Faraday said it would happen in four hours, but Radzinsky says 20. Faraday said it would happen that day, but Chang says in the Swan orientation video that the incident happens after the Swan is built and operational. Could it be that Faraday was lying about everything, and that he was actually trying to spur Jack into action for some other, as-yet-unclear purpose?

-Locke is leading the Others – one segment of them, anyway – to see Jacob. But who are these people? How did they come to be there? Are the children with the group at The Temple? Remember there was like, this whole thing about the Others kidnapping children? Remember that small detail? Remember Cindy, the flight attendant from Flight 815 who wound up with the Others? Where is she?

-Seeing Hurley carrying that guitar case again got me thinking. When he brought it onto Ajira 316, I asked if it was supposed to invoke Charlie, since Eloise told them they needed to re-create the original flight as best they could. What’s that you say? Hurley wasn’t there when Eloise said that? True. But remember the first episode of Season Four? Remember how Hurley kept seeing Charlie all over the place? Remember how Hurley talked to “Dead” Charlie in front of his mental hospital? Remember how Charlie was telling him that he needed to go back to the island? Could it have been Charlie who finally convinced him? Could it have been Charlie who told him to be on Flight 316? And could that guitar case contain more than just a guitar? Could Hurley be El Mariachi?!?

-In the wake of  this episode, friend and reader Denise B. and I were e-mailing about the whole “whatever happened, happened” thing. Here is part of our exchange that I wanted to include:

Denise: Last night’s episode seems to contradict the theory  that “whatever happened, happened” cuz everyone is trying to reinforce the “past” by doing what they experienced – Locke sending Richard to talk to himself and remove the bullet, Eloise sending Faraday to the island, Faraday talking to Charlotte, etc. If choices are the variable, then why still set things into motion that seem to lead up to the same results?

Me: All good points. And those questions are where I start to get dizzy with an effort to apply logic to time travel. Maybe the whole idea is that you can’t change the past, but you can change the future. Flight 815 has already crashed on the island and nothing can erase that reality for all of them…but maybe they can prevent it from crashing there again. Which wouldn’t change their past, but in the great cosmic loop of time, it would change the future. Does that make sense? I’m sure there are massive holes that can be punched into that idea…which is, again, why this stuff makes me dizzy. Let’s say that Daniel’s plan works and 815 lands in Los Angeles as it’s supposed to. What happens to Jack, Kate, and everybody else from the plane who are currently on the island? Do they suddenly cease to exist there? Or do they live out their days on the island knowing that other versions of themselves are having different lives back in civilization. I don’t know…

This exchange with Denise gave me an idea. I want to take it a step further, and propose another wild idea that builds on my wild idea from last week: that the season finale would set the stage for a sixth season in which Oceanic 815 does crash on the island again, but with altered outcomes. Scenarios will play out differently, but deceased characters like Boone, Shannon and Charlie would return to the show. I admitted it was far fetched, but left it dangling as a kinda cool idea. What if that were to happen, but in addition the current crew of survivors somehow got out of 1977 and shifted back to the future. Then you might have a scenario in which there are two Jacks, two Kates, two Sawyers, etc. on the island. And what if our Jack, aware of what’s to come, tries to prevent Boone’s death, for example? What if they start interfering with their own circumstances? Is this making any sense? The Boone example might not work actually, because if they did somehow wind up back in the present day, it would probably be 2007, not 2004 anymore. But maybe in that timeline, the survivors are still on the island three years after the crash, allowing for interaction between two sets of castaways. Oh God, what would I give to see Hurley meet himself?

I’ve lost you, haven’t I? That’s okay…I’ve nearly lost myself. I’ll dial it back down…

-I’m always tooting my own horn when something I speculate on in one of these write-ups ends up happening, and I have another one to point out. But in the interest of full disclosure, I won’t claim bragging rights for this, because I predicted it with complete sarcasm. A few days ago I was re-reading my write-up of the episode 316, and came upon the paragraph discussing Kate showing up at Jack’s apartment and agreeing to return to the island on the condition that Jack never ask her about Aaron. I wrote: “He easily, quickly says yes; she says thank you; she kisses him…and I’m thinking, what?!? A little boy, your nephew, just dropped out of the picture, and you’re going to roll over and not ask any questions? What do you think, she left him with his grandma? You don’t wanna know where is? You don’t care what happened to this three-year-old child?!?”

As we now know, of course, that’s exactly what she did: she left him with his grandma. I dunno…it made me laugh in hindsight. And I’ve always believed that if you can laugh at yourself, you can feel totally justified about laughing at other people.

-Early in the season, I proposed an Odd Couple-like buddy sitcom starring Hurley and Sayid after Lost ends. I would now like to add two possibilities: the same concept, but with Hurley and Miles (or perhaps all three of them) and an update of Three’s Company, set entirely on a submarine, starring Sawyer, Kate and Juliet. I’ve even started to re-write the theme song, tell me what you think:

Come and knock on our door,
Take a step that is new,
We’re descending to 20,000 leagues,
Three’s company too!

Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes. You’ll be rollin’ your asses up to the gates of my mansion asking for a handout after these ideas make me a billionaire.

FINAL THOUGHT
Alright gang, tonight’s the big one: the Season Five finale. So many questions…

WILL we meet Jacob?
WHO else will die?
WILL Hurley’s motive to return be revealed?
WHAT the [insert chain of five expletives] happened to Rose and Bernard?
WILL we find out more about Ilana, Bram and their statuesque mission?
DID Caesar survive Ben’s shotgun blast?
MIGHT Claire make an appearance to set-up her return for next year?

Hours to go…

Tonight’s Episode: The Incident (and remember, it’s 2 hours. 9-11, preceded by a recap at 8:00)

Trust me when I tell you that in my school days, I weren’t no math student (and apparently I weren’t much of an English student either). But one of the few things I did glean from Algebra is that every equation is comprised of parts, such as a constant and a variable. Last season, Lost gave us one of its best-ever episodes, The Constant, in which Desmond mentally traveled between 1996 and 2004 until a phone call to Penny stabilized him. If Lost itself is an equation, last week’s The Variable brought us one step closer to solving it. (Don’t miss next season’s thrilling installment, The Coefficient!) The only reason I’m grateful for the show ending next year is that I won’t have to face more titles inspired by advanced mathematics. Trig and Calculus can suck my long division.

I hate math. But I love Lost.

I BELIEVE THE CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE
I want to start at the beginning, but in order to do that I need to start at the end: this episode sees the unfortunate death of Daniel Faraday (at least, I assume it does. Maybe he’s gonna make it, but it sure looked like the light went out of his eyes.

But how did it come to this?

There’s a Bob Dylan song called “Gotta Serve Somebody” in which he sings, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody/Well it may be the devil or it may be the Lord/but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” So in trying to understand Daniel’s demise, I wonder: who does Eloise Hawking serve? In a flashback to Faraday’s childhood, Eloise approaches her son with trepidation as he plays the piano (quite skillfully, if I may say so). She seems to be steeling herself for what she has to tell this young boy, which is that his destiny relies on the application of his mind toward mathematics and science. “It’s my job to keep you on your path,” she tells him. The emphasis she puts on the word “job” suggests that her duty as a loving mother is secondary (at least) to serving her master, whoever or whatever that may be. There’s a pall over this encounter that makes me wonder if she knows even then that sending Daniel down this road will result in his death.

CHANG REACTION
Outside The Orchid with Miles, Faraday just waits, checking his notebook, until Dr. Chang arrives. “Right on time,” he says, and follows Chang into The Orchid. How does he know the day’s details down to the exact time Chang will arrive? How is he able to be so precise?

What follows is of course the very first scene of this season, seen from some new angles. Faraday listens to Chang tell a construction foreman that he must stop drilling so as not to release a powerful energy. As Chang is about to leave, Faraday approaches him to make his case.

Faraday: I need you to order the evacuation of every man, woman and child on this island.
Chang: Why would I do that?
Faraday: Because that man is on a stretcher as a consequence of the electromagnetic activity that your drilling unleashed down here.
Chang: Which is now contained.
Faraday: It’s contained down here. But in about six hours, the same thing is gonna happen at the site for The Swan station only the energy there is about 30,000 times more powerful Sir, and the accident is gonna be catastrophic.
Chang: That is utterly absurd. What could possibly qualify you to make that kind of prediction?
Faraday: I’m from the future.

Now I know he’s dealing with a guy who believes time travel is within reach, but Faraday still might have tried easing Chang into the whole “future” thing.” I might have said, “Because where I come from…it’s already happened.” But instead, he skips right ahead to the “f” word. Back above ground and outside the station now, his efforts to convince Chang that he’s serious – even trying to point out that Miles is his son – fail. Miles doesn’t admit the truth when Faraday asks him for backup, and Chang drives off even more pissy than usual. Faraday tells Miles that he’s just trying to make sure Chang does what he’s supposed to do. Which I figure is to follow through with that evacuation order, at least for some of Dharma’s inhabitants.

OXFORD BLUES
In another flashback, we meet Teresa Spencer, previously seen in a comatose state during Desmond’s attempts to track down Faraday’s mother. At that time, we learned that Faraday was, to an unknown degree, responsible for her condition and that he abandoned her and fled to America, though even then we suspected there was more to it than that.

So here she is, Faraday’s research assistant and girlfriend. When he introduces her to Eloise on his graduation day, his mother shows little interest in her. Over a mother-son only lunch, he complains of her rudeness to Teresa and of her apparent inability to be satisfied with him, pointing out that he’s the youngest doctor to ever graduate from Oxford and that he just got a 1.5 million pound grant from an industrialist named Charles Widmore. Eloise registers happy surprise at news of the grant, and another kind of surprise at learning that it comes from Widmore, but she doesn’t let on that she knows him. Instead, she gives Daniel a present – the notebook we’ve seen him so often referencing.

MEMORIES…LIKE THE CORNERS OF MY MIND
Jumping ahead in time, we finally revisit one of our first meetings with Daniel, in which he watches the news report about the discovery of Oceanic 815 in the Indian Ocean. (Continuity Police – I love that they made no effort at all to match his hair with the original footage, where it’s all kinda slicked back. One moment his hair looks like that, and the next it’s flat and down around his face as we usually see it. Seriously? You couldn’t have attended to that detail?) Maybe the crew is suffering from memory problems, just like Daniel himself. You may remember that when Desmond visited him at Oxford, he was running experiments with his rat Eloise and, over time, exposing himself to large quantities of radiation…without wearing any protective headgear. I assume that is what damaged his memory. Oxford Faraday even says to Desmond that Island Faraday must remember them having this conversation in 1996, but Desmond says no, Island Faraday doesn’t remember it.

Daniel is visited by Charles Widmore, whose name he remembers as his benefactor, though they’ve never met. When Widmore makes reference to Daniel having been dismissed from Oxford, Daniel says that what happened to Teresa was an accident, and that he had run tests on himself first. Whatever did happen with her, it now seems likely that Daniel was taken away from her as opposed to abandoning her on his own.

Daniel can’t explain why he’s so upset by the Oceanic discovery, but the newscast prompts Widmore to make his purpose known. He says that the plane wreckage is an elaborate, expensive hoax – which he himself orchestrated – and that the plane actually crashed on an island which has unique scientific properties, as well as the power to heal Daniel’s mind and restore his memory. He wants Daniel to go to this island, which he says will “further your research; show you things you’d never dream of.” Daniel asks why he’s doing this for him.

Widmore: Because you’re a man of tremendous gifts and it would be a shame to see them go to waste.
Faraday: You sound like my mother.
Widmore: That’s because we’re old friends.

I assume Daniel will forget that little nugget due to his memory problems, just as Widmore says he’ll forget the confession about the fake plane wreckage. (Hey! Now it’s official: Widmore staged the 815 wreckage!) I wonder if Widmore makes Daniel this job offer knowing what fate awaits him on the island, or if Eloise alone is burdened with that foreknowledge.

That burden becomes more apparent when she visits Daniel at home in what must be mere days after Widmore was there. She tells him that he should accept Widmore’s offer and go to this island. Daniel asks if that will make her proud. She says it will, but she can barely maintain her smile before her expression collapses into fear, regret and sadness. Even before Daniel’s fate is revealed, we know from her look that something terrible awaits him.

By the way, we now understand last season’s scene where Daniel and Charlotte were on the beach, looking at three face down playing cards, with Daniel trying to guess what they were and coming up short. He was trying to see if his memory was coming back.

GAME OVER
Sawyer convenes a meeting at his house with Juliet, Jack, Kate, Hurley and Jin. The gig is up, he tells them. With Phil the security guard tied up in his closet, their cover is blown and they have precious little time to ditch Dharmaville. Their choices are to commandeer the sub and get off the island, or head into the jungle and start from scratch. Jin won’t leave the island while there’s a chance Sun is on it, and Hurley doesn’t want to go either after all the effort involved in getting back (hmm, we still don’t know why he came or how he knew about the flight). Before the rest can weigh in, Faraday and Miles arrive and the former says he needs to find the Hostiles, one of whom is his mother. “She is the only one on this island who can get us back to where we belong,” he says. Oh yeah, that’s right! I neglected to mention that Faraday’s whole reason for returning to the island was that he saw Jack, Kate and Hurley in the new recruit photo and he needs to know how they got to 1977. Early in the episode, Jack informs him that they arrived via a plane that they were told to board by his mother. And he told Jack that his mother was wrong and they shouldn’t be here.  So…there’s that.

What Faraday says about her being the only one who can get them back where they belong is an important point, as it reinforces that Eloise seems to be a gatekeeper of sorts. Why is it that she would know how to readjust their course on the island? Why is it that she knows how to get to the island? Is she the sole keeper of this information? Later in the episode, in 2007, Eloise will be approached by Widmore, which once again leads me to wonder how he could possibly not know for all these years that she holds the key to getting back to the island.

Come to think of it, how does Faraday even know that his mother is a Hostile? He didn’t know it when they wound up in 1954 and he told her to bury the bomb. Or at least, he certainly didn’t let on that he knew. Did he somehow learn about her while in Ann Arbor? I can’t see how…

Sawyer resists the idea of Faraday going to the Hostiles, so Jack looks to Kate to tell him where they can be found. Jack says whether they go on the sub or go to the beach, they don’t belong here. “I belonged here just fine until you came back, Doc,” Sawyer says.

Jack looks to Kate again. “Kate, you made me promise to never ask what happened to Aaron, or why you came back here. But I know that reason isn’t…it isn’t here. It’s not now.” Kate agrees to take Faraday, with Jack tagging along. Juliet gives them the code for the pylon fence, and the rest remain to pack what they can and flee.

Oh, and before heading out, Faraday spies little Charlotte on a swing-set and goes to tell her that when Dr. Chang asks people to leave the island, she and her mother have to go. Just like she told him he would when she was dying.

This is followed by a shootout with Radzinsky and a few of his men, who come upon Jack, Kate and Faraday taking guns from the motor pool. Our trio manages to escape in a jeep, though Faraday is grazed by a bullet. While treating the wound out near the pylons, Faraday reiterates a lesson we learned from Miles a few episodes ago: “Any one of us can die, Jack.” It’s a loaded moment; the words hang there and the camera lingers on Faraday, then moves to Jack. It’s loaded with the inevitability that one of them might soon prove the statement right. And we know which one did…for now. I’m still left with the faintest feeling though…wouldn’t it be ballsy to kill Jack at the end of this season?

Think about it…he dies, but remains a presence on the island, occupying the same ethereal plane his father is on…and the one Locke is possibly on. Father and son reunited, Man of Science and Man of Faith reunited, all with a common purpose. I don’t think it will happen…but I think it could.

And if it doesn’t, I still think chances are high Jack will die before the end of the show. What’s left for him in the real world? A happily ever after with Kate? I feel like that ship has sailed. Jack’s fate seems tied to the island. And remember Ben’s words (not that you can ever trust them, but still) when they were preparing to return: “Find yourself a suitcase. If there’s anything in this life you want, pack it in there. Because you’re never coming back.” Jack dying soon would even, in a way, honor J.J. Abrams’ original intention, which was to kill Jack off at the beginning the series. His plan was for Jack to be introduced as the apparent leader of the survivors, only to have him die three-quarters of the way through the first episode. But the network rejected this idea, fearing viewers would be alienated. Anyway, most people probably assume that because Jack is the primary hero of the show, he’ll survive at least until near the end, if not all the way through. So for him to die with a whole season left to go…

CAUSE AND EFFECT
Once they’ve crossed over into Hostile territory, Faraday lays out what’s about to happen and why his mission is of such crucial importance. And here comes that trippy time travel, butterfly effect shit that I eat up like sugar.

I love it. This entire chain of events is gonna start happening this afternoon. Awesome.

I know I’m not the only one among you who was thinking that Kate isn’t likin’ that plan so much, knowing that all her problems with the law will start over if the plane lands in L.A. She might argue against Faraday’s plan, and with good reason. But while I’d feel for her plight, my counter-argument would be rather simple: Charlie. Boone. Shannon. Michael. Ana-Lucia. Libby. Eko. Rousseau. Alex. Charlotte…

Speaking of which, the wild idea that floated into my mind briefly after this episode was that Faraday’s plan will kinda work. He’ll change the future, but only to a small degree. The plane will still crash on the island, but events will unfold differently than they did the first time. And that would be the set-up for Season Six. And the big surprise would be that because we re-visit the plane crash, departed cast members Boone, Shannon and Charlie – and perhaps some from the tail section – would return to the show as regulars.

That wouldn’t work, I quickly realized, because Harold “Michael” Perrineau is starring on another show, and Malcolm David “Walt” Kelly has reached the far shores of Pubertyland. That plot development would also free the creators from having to answer a lot of big questions, like why Claire disappeared into the jungle with her Ghost Dad, why some people were in 1977 while others were in 2007, why Locke is walking around again…and so on. Still, I feel like there would be ways of making it work. Can I leave it hanging out there as a radical possibility?

Okay, getting back to business: Faraday wants to detonate Jughead. I assume that’s part of the reason he wants to find his mother – not just because she can help them get back where they belong, but because she knows where the bomb is…since he’s the one who told her to bury it. But I gotta ask – and hey, I’m no physicist – but can someone explain to me how detonating an H-bomb will be any less catastrophic to the island and its inhabitants than an enormous blast of electromagnetic energy?

Also, isn’t it a little bit early for the incident to occur? (For surely that’s what this release of energy from the Swan site constitutes: the “incident” that Chang spoke of in The Swan orientation video, and the incident for which next week’s season finale will be named. Don’t you think?) As I pointed out in the previous write-up, Chang – aka Dr. Marvin Candle – says in the video that The Swan was “originally constructed as a laboratory where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations emanating from this sector of the island. Not long after the experiments began, however, there was…an incident.” It clearly sounds like The Swan was up and running with its normal purpose in place before this “incident” ever occurred. So does Faraday have his facts wrong? Or has the show just lapsed into complete inconsistency? Or are there different incidents?

And one other thing – if The Swan’s original purpose was for study, why does Faraday say it won’t be built if he can prevent the release of the energy? Wouldn’t it just be built with maybe a little less concrete? Maybe it would look a little different, but it would still be built, right? Built and used for its original purpose, that being the study of electromagnetic energy, rather than the prevention of releasing electromagnetic energy?

IN THE BALANCE
Let’s briefly interrupt Faraday’s mission impossible to return to life off-island in 2007. Desmond is one tough son of a bitch, cause after the beatdown he gave Ben on the pier, I assumed he was unharmed by Ben’s bullet. I thought it must have grazed him, or been absorbed by a pot roast hidden in his grocery bag. But no, he did take the bullet, and now he’s been rushed into the emergency room. As Penny and little Charlie wait, they are visited by Eloise, who tells Penny that she is Daniel Faraday’s mother. “I came, Penelope, to apologize. Your husband has become a casualty in a conflict that’s bigger than him, bigger than any of us.”

The word “casualty” alarms Penny. “What do you mean, is Des gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Eloise says. “For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.” Is that because this is as far as she’s ever been able to see, or is it because the course of events she has always expected has somehow been altered? Maybe some action taken on the island has already changed the future that she’s been used to for so long. I’m not thinking anything as major as what Faraday proposes to do with Jughead…but some alteration that has changed the course of future history.

When the news arrives that Desmond is okay, Eloise slips out. Outside the hospital, Widmore steps from the shadows and asks if Desmond is okay.

Eloise: Your daughter’s in there. Why don’t you go in and say hello?
Widmore: Unfortunately Eloise, my relationship with Penelope is one of the things I had to sacrifice.
Eloise: Sacrifice? Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles. I had to send my son back to the island, knowing full well that…
Widmore: He’s my son too, Eloise.

Bombshell!!

Or was it? I dunno, was that obvious? Did any of you see it coming? I brought it up as a possibility in my write-up for Whatever Happened, Happened, but it was just speculation after Richard was warned that taking young Ben might upset Ellie and Charles. I asked, “What is this Ellie and Charles business? Is Richard no longer the leaders of The Others, as he appeared to be when we first met Ellie and Young Widmore in the 1950’s? If he is no longer in charge, how did that come to pass? And are Ellie and Widmore sharing power? And more importantly, are Ellie and Widmore gettin’ it on? Are Penny Widmore and Daniel Faraday siblings? Do I have any reason to suspect as much? No? Think that’ll stop me from suspecting it anyway?”

Another minor victory…unless I was the only one who didn’t see this writing on the wall from a mile away.

Eloise slaps Widmore when he refers to Daniel as his son. Why the slap? Was she forced to raise Daniel alone and resents Widmore for it? Was Widmore the one who put Faraday on his path, as a young boy, to the island? Is it because Widmore didn’t have to bear the burden of knowing what would happen to his son? Is Widmore the somebody that Eloise has gotta serve? (Nah, I’m guessing the one she serves goes higher than Widmore.) If Eloise resents Widmore, for whatever reason exactly, does that explain why she helped Ben get back to the island but never helped him?

LOWER THE GUN, STUPID!!
Why Daniel, why do you go marching into the Hostile’s camp and refuse to lower your gun? You’re surrounded by people with rifles, there’s no way you can get what you want in his situation by means of firepower. Richard seems willing to talk to you! All you have to do is lower your gun, and you can have a civil conversation regarding your mother’s whereabouts. You’re smarter than this. You’re so much smarter than this that I wonder if you’re doing it deliberately; if you’re trying to make them kill you; if that’s part of your plan. Except that doesn’t make sense given what you just told Jack and Kate about your intentions. Plus, you seemed genuinely surprised that you were shot – not just surprised that your mother did the shooting, but surprised that you were shot at all. Which brings me back to my original point. Lower your gun!! There’s no reason you can’t lower your gun. There’s no reason you need to die. Why, damn you, why?!!?

Okay, so maybe there is a reason you need to die. Maybe it’s to service the plot. But you don’t know that! You don’t know there’s a plot! You’re a character! So just lower the gun, Stupid!

Okay, so maybe I was affected by Faraday’s death. No, I didn’t cry. But he’s such a great character, and my respect for Jeremy Davies dates back to Saving Private Ryan. Maybe tonight’s episode will shed light on the reason for his death. And hey, maybe there’s a chance he’ll pull through. Maybe Eloise will realize what she’s done and bring him into The Temple to let the healing begin! Of course, if it were that simple, Future Eloise probably wouldn’t be so emotional about encouraging his return to the island. And like I said earlier, it really did look like he breathed his last breath. I guess I’m just clinging to wishful thinking. There’s a chance, but not a great one…

Riddle me this, though: how is it that Eloise is even on the island now, in 1977? Shouldn’t she be on the mainland with Daniel? I don’t know how old he’s supposed to be, but given the flashback we saw to his piano-playing childhood…wouldn’t you figure that had to be sometime around ’77? Also, why don’t Eloise and Richard recognize Daniel from the good ‘ol Jughead days? Maybe I’m overestimating the power of memory – after all, their encounter back then only lasted part of a single day. Maybe they just don’t remember his face. Or maybe they do. Richard did ask if they knew each other, but I read that less as “you look sort of familiar” and more as “should I know who you are?” And Eloise had barely stared into his dying face when the show ended, so maybe she did recognize him and it just took her a minute to place him. Again, tonight’s episode might clear it up.

Fine, I’ll be patient and give them a chance to actually answer questions before I ask them.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-One of the things I keep thinking about – okay, there are obviously many, many, many things this show keeps me thinking about – but one that has been front of mind for weeks is why the Oceanic Six needed to return to the island. They were told by Locke, who was told by both Richard Alpert and Christian Shepherd, that the Flight 815 survivors left behind on the island would die if Jack, Kate, Sayid, Hurley and Sun didn’t come back (or what they may have said is that in order to “save the island,” the O6 needed to come back. But saving the island and saving Sawyer and the others amounts to one and the same, so…)

And indeed, after they left, things were pretty bad, as Sawyer, Juliet, Locke and the rest rocketed hither and thither across the space-time continuum. But consider these facts, which I’ve mentioned before: a) the time warping was caused by Ben turning the wheel, which had nothing to do with the O6’s departure; and b) the time-warping stopped when Locke turned the wheel again and moved it back into place. In fact, Locke keeps saying that Jack and Co. never should have left the island…but if they hadn’t left, then Locke wouldn’t have left to bring them back, and the wheel wouldn’t have been re-set, and the time warping would have continued until they all wound up like Charlotte: nosebled and dead. So from one perspective, the O6 departure actually saved the lives of those left behind.

But I’m getting off track. Point is, the Oceanic Six (well, five actually) finally return to the island to find that, other than it being 1977, everything is copasetic. Everyone has assimilated nicely into the Dharma Initiative, and things are going particularly well for Sawyer and Juliet. Both have made it clear that they didn’t need the others to come back and save them from anything. So what’s the deal? Are all of us – the viewers, the Oceanic Six, Locke – victims of a big manipulation which led us to believe the O6 had to return to the island? Or has the danger facing the island and those left behind simply not yet revealed itself? Could it be The Purge? If Jack and the others didn’t come back then Faraday wouldn’t return, the Swan incident would happen, the plane would crash, the freighter would come, the O6 would be rescued, Sawyer and the others would be killed in The Purge, and who knows what would happen to The Island.

Or maybe something entirely different is in motion. If we’re keeping score: Richard, Christian, Ben, Locke and Eloise all said the Oceanic Six needed to go back to the island. And in this episode, Faraday says they didn’t. Alls I’m asking is: did the Oceanic Six have to come back? If so, why? And if not, why were they (and Locke) led to believe they did?

-Moving on, where the fuck are Rose and Bernard? Seriously, no one has even mentioned them since the time-tripping began. What the hell?

-I’m still wondering if Faraday will be revealed as the “clever fellow” that Eloise talked about (in her off-island Dharma hatch) who figured out that the island was always moving, calculated the equations to figure out where in time it would be at any moment, built a massive pendulum to help make those calculations etc. It’s gotta be him, right? But when? And how does that fit in? And why, I ask again, was Eloise in a Dharma station to begin with?  Could this whole thing be a ruse? The friction between the Hostiles and the Dharma Initiative, the “truce”…is it all just a big lie? Are they all really one big group…perhaps serving whatever lies in the shadow of the statue? Nah, I guess that doesn’t really make sense when you start to think about it. Plenty of mysteries still to be solved as Lost winds down…

-I came across two pretty good interviews with Damon and Carlton recently, if you’re interested. One is from Variety and one is from Lostpedia. They don’t really answer any plot questions or give clues away, but they do have some interesting things to say.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy. Good to see you again. Pound cake’s in the kitchen, help yourself to the punch. – Sawyer

Tonight’s Episode: Follow the Leader

The Variable was Lost’s 100^th episode. Check out this cake that was made for them! Click here for a larger picture, and here for some close-ups.