Lostwatch: Everything That Rises Must Converge. Eventually. Right?
ABC
Before you read this post, take a leap to the bottom of the world's softest mineshaft and watch last night's season five finale of Lost.
"I'm beginning to think that you make up these rules as you go along." —Locke (or is he Locke?) to Richard
Everyone's had this feeling about Lost at some point, right? Well, after the season 5 finale, I don't quite feel this way, simply because so much that we've seen plotted in the early seasons of the show has come full circle. That's as far as the grand scheme of Lost is concerned: I have faith in that much. But as far as the details are concerned—how that grand scheme gets executed—that seems to be subject to a certain amount of improvisation. That's responsible for some of Lost's finest elements (the fact, for instance, that Michael Emerson ended up a series regular) and some of its weaker ones (the seeming dead-ends of characters like Shannon, e.g.).
Which maybe explains why this finale was at times thrilling and awesome and other times disappointing. There's a lot of story here—and a lot of tidbits to analyze that I'm not going to take the time to learn Latin to figure out tonight. And I want to get something posted so you all can take over the discussion. So for practical purposes I'm going to divide this into Things I Liked, Things I Didn't Like, and Things I May or May Not Have Liked But I'm Going to Have to Wait Until 2010 to Find Out.
Things I Liked: The strange, disorienting, Beckettian interchange at the beginning between Jacob and his roommate/deadly enemy, whom I will henceforth call Fred. (Though I'm not sure I like the fact of that relationship itself—more on that later.) The climactic performances of several actors who'd been featured this season, especialy Sawyer's wrenching goodbye to Juliet and Ben's possibly even more wrenching kiss-off to Jacob. (Who by the way is very well-kept and modern-groomed for a hundreds-year-old Island deity.)
[Update: I should probably quote part of that exchange between Jacob and Fred, because of its comment on all the Island's guests over time: "They come, they fight, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same." "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that--it's just progress." This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.]
I liked, because who couldn't, seeing Jack and Sawyer finally come bloodily to blows. But more than that, I liked seeing Rose and Bernard (and Vincent), and having them put into perspective the drama that their fellow castaways carry with them wherever they go: "We traveled 30 years back in time and you're still finding ways to shoot each other?"
I surprisingly liked the Jacob flashbacks, even though they were of scenes and character moments we'd covered before, and even though his appearance lost its impact after so many repetitions. (His sitting reading Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge as Locke fell from a building behind him was brilliant.) Did he resurrect Locke or just wake him—and either way, given that he must have some foreknowledge about all the characters whose lives he was stepping into, did he know what "Locke" would do to him all along?
Above all, I simply enjoyed the hurtling pace and balance of stories in the first two-thirds or so of the finale. Somewhere after the first commercial break, I was struck by a simple fact: how amazing it is that a story of this scope and complexity is on commercial TV at all. Eighteen minutes into the episode, we had seen seven scenes, with seven different sets of characters, in different locations and different times—some of those times being "flashbacks" that were farther ahead in time than the "present"—and yet it all fit together and made sense.
Things I Didn't Like: From the moment that Juliet "changed her mind" and told Sawyer that Jack needed to set off his bomb after all, something seemed off, at least about the 1977 storyline. It's usually a bad idea to begin with whenever big decisions are made on Lost on the basis of the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle. (Particularly when Jack, having just explained the urgency of getting the bomb in place like now, stops in the jungle to talk with Kate about their relation ship. Or, as my notes read: "While Kate and Jack ARE BULLS__TTING ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS, alarms go off at the Swan...") And this bit seemed especially forced.
Why did Juliet decide that they had to go back to stop Jack, and then, just as soon, that they had to help Jack? Sawyer's noting that her indecision seemed crazy didn't make it any less so. Perhaps she did see how Sawyer looked at Kate and that affected her—but she was seeing, and suspecting, those glances since Freckles returned. Ultimately, it just seemed an especially transparent move to get the chess pieces into place: Sawyer, Juliet and Kate had somehow to get from the sub back to the jungle, and then Juliet had to get into the Swan pit with the bomb. It was only more distracting that Cuse and Lindelof would try to give her actions the thinnest of motivation with that generic and tacked-on-seeming flashback to her parents' divorce. (Though I was waiting for Jacob to show up as a marriage counselor.)
From there, the denouement of the 1977 showdown was—well, not a disappointment, exactly, but awfully anticlimactic for something that ended in the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Oh, the Battle of the Swan was thrilling—probably the purest edge-of-my-seat Lost scene this season, and Phil got spiked like a cocktail weenie by a piece of rebar!
But consider what happened, in a nutshell. We were told earlier what Jack and company would try to do (detonate an H-bomb). They do it (after a fall down a gigantic rock mine shaft fails either to kill Juliet or set off the hair-trigger bomb, but a whack with a rock by a petite dying woman does the trick). Oh, also, we were told last week that Locke would kill Jacob, and that happened too. (So much for my theory that it would not be a literal murder.)
And then... we find out next year what, if anything, happened as a result.
Previous Lost seasons have ended with a few ending seconds that upended the story and changed the game for the next season. The explosion of the bomb didn't do that—so, I guess, kudos at least for subverting that expectation.
Of course, the episode's other climax did include quite the switcheroo, so that brings us to...
Things I May or May Not Have Liked But I'm Going to Have to Wait Until 2010 to Find Out. So what is Locke now? Is he Fred? If so, how long has he been Fred? And maybe more important, how long has he been aware that he has been Fred? (Fred/Locke, note, appears to have access to all of actual living Locke's memories.) Has he known, all this season as we cheered him on, that he was actually the avatar of some grudge-holding Island being?
If so, this raises some implications that I'll get into in a minute. But first: the Jacob-Fred rivalry itself. What worries me is the possibility that, having invested ourselves for five years in the stories of the Oceanic castaways and the various rivalries—our heroes, the Others, Dharma, Ben, Widmore—that in fact, this entire time, we have been watching a show about someone else's conflict? That conflict being between two characters we have met for the first time at the end of the next-to-last season?
I mean, it may be a tremendously cool story. It may involve philosophy and intellectual history and the Egyptian Gods and Latin. But that doesn't mean I can get emotionally invested in it. But this is too dependent on how it plays out to pass judgment on. Hence we throw it in the wait-for-2010 pile.
Let's geek out instead for a minute on what it means—or may mean—that Locke's body was in the casket all the time and that Locke's death was evidently a means for Fred to find his "loophole." (Which was what, by the way? That Fred would have to become the Leader to kill Jacob? Or to find him? That he would have to corporeally assume another identity to kill Jacob? Or simply that he would have to find another person to do the deed? Oh, and do these "rules" have anything to do with the ones Ben says Widmore broke?)
The reason Locke/Fred is the now the leader is contingent on beliefs that Richard has held for decades about Locke's specialness, which were planted in his head by Locke himself—or, it now apparently turns out, by Fred himself. It was a post-"resurrection" Locke who gives Richard the compass and instructs Richard as to how to receive him in the future. [Update: Corrected—as pointed out in the comments, Locke gave Richard the compass before leaving the Island and dying. Or "dying." Or whatever. Update 2: Correction re-uncorrected, as the post-res Locke give the compass to Richard, with instructions to give it to pre-res Locke... and to tell him he must die. I think. I'm tired. Let's hope this is my last update.] If that was all an elaborate ruse, from the very start of this season, I have to admit it was a cool one. (Though—again put this on the 2010 pile—is it worth it at the cost of Terry O'Quinn playing Lost's final season as a villain?)
But if that was Fred's game, what was Jacob's? Why was he visiting the central characters at various formative stages of their lives? (And how explicitly was he guiding them? In some cases, as with Kate and Sawyer, he seem to simply be there to bestow a blessing or "give a little push," as with Jack and the Apollo bar; with Hurley, he gave word-for-word instructions; with Sayid, he pulled a look-over-there stunt to get Nadia killed by a car—and, presumably, to turn Sayid into a murderer for the man who would murder him.) Why, again, would he visit Locke, if Locke would later become the vessel for his murderer--and yet also summon Ilana? What's his connection with the Shadow of the Statue people? Is everything still unfolding according to his plan, or was his plan thwarted?
[Shrugs.] I got nothing. That's what you're here for. That's what the eight long months until Lost returns one last time is for. Now for a brief hail of electromagnetically-hurled bullets:
* We now know how Pierre/Marvin lost his arm. Forgive my poor memory and fogginess, but did Radzinsky survive the Incident? Things were not looking good for him, but presumably (at east in the old timeline) he had to live to end up in the hatch with Clancy Brown.
* "Well, it's a wonderful foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?" Funny line. But if Locke is at this point Fred--and is aware of it--then wouldn't he know that already? (Or does he need to hide that knowledge?)
* Am I correct to assume that any of the various languages I could not identify this episode were Latin?
* "He isn't there. Hasn't been there for a long time. Somebody else has been using it." This is probably one of those lines that is far more significant than I realize. How long has it been since Jacob has been away from the cabin? Can we still assume it was Jacob Locke saw in the cabin in 2004?
* "Has it occured to any of you that perhaps your little buddy is going to cause the thing he's trying to prevent? ... I'm glad you've all thought this through." Thank you, Miles. Though again, the fact that he vocalizes this objection doesn't make it any less of an objection. This occurred to no one? Really?
* I did not call the metal box as holding Locke's body, but Mrs. Tuned In did, nearly from the second it appeared. You?
* The name of the title story in that O'Connor book Jacob was reading, Everything That Rises Must Converge, is--this was way back in my mind from a misspent undergrad lit degree--taken from the work of Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. But I don't know enough about his work to relate it to the episode, or to Jacob. I'll let the Internet do that.
* I'm glad to see Frank back: "In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you they're the good guys are the bad guys." Especially meaningful given his "experience" with the Freighties. But back to him and the SoTS people: What the hell is a "Candidate"? The same as a "Leader"? I can only imagine what the flowchart of all the various groups on this show will look like after the series finale.
* Nice small ending touch: the black-on-white, as opposed to white-on-black, LOST after the nuclear explosion.
* During that lovely little scene with Bernard and Rose, I had the sad, sinking feeling that this would be the last time we see them. I have no particular knowledge and I hope I'm wrong, but the scene had the feeling of a farewell.
* Finally, even though he's become a much more dramatic character and suffered a terrible loss this finale, it's good to see Sawyer can still bring the funny: "This don't look like LAX." No, it don't. I can't wait to see where this plane lands.
[All right, I'm sure I've skipped over many important revelations and clues, but I need some sleep, I'm over 2000 words and I want to give you a crack at this. I may add more in the comments tomorrow—and, I'm sure, correct numerous errors in my hastily banged-out writeup. For now, have at it.]
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1
Great write-up, James. What an incredible, epic episode! So much to take in. I'm going to guess that it's been Fred/Blackie trapped in the cabin all this time, and that Ilana and her team were troubled to find that the ash had been disturbed and the man himself escaped.
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Then again, the way my guesses went this season, I think I'll give up on trying to predict where this all goes! -
2
The text in Jacob's tapestry at the beginning is Ancient Greek. I'm rusty with that, I could only make out some letters. The answer to what lies in the shadow of the statue is "ille quid nos omnes servabit" or "he who will save/protect us all."
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One thought and a major question before I go to sleep and percolate this episode throughout my dreams and my commute to work: the person we thought was Jacob in "Man Behind the Curtain" is actually Fred (or, because he's Jacob's enemy, I like calling him Esau). And it's been Fred/Esau who has been assuming the forms of all the dead people - Christian, Charlie, etc.
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All the electro-magnetism went crazy before the bomb exploded. Is THAT the incident, and Juliet setting the bomb off is changing the future? Or was that always part 1 of the incident, and the bomb was always part 2? Guess we have to wait til January! -
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An assumption I've made is that the smoke monster is a machination of Fred's, and is in direct opposition to Jacob. I'm basing this off of the visit Ben had with the monster, when it told him to do everything Locke told him to do, which would be silly for a pro-Jacob entity to do. So if we assume that the smoke monster is indeed anti-Jacob, then this puts a lot of things we've seen into perspective. Off the top of my head, we've seen the smoke monster visiting and judging Locke, and leaving him alone. Here might be when Fred realized the potential of Locke. Also, we've seen the smoke monster kill Mr. Eko. Does that mean Mr. Eko was pro-Jacob?
I'm sure the smoke monster has come up other times, too. Like at the very beginning of the first season, when it ate the pilot and freaked out the whole 815 crew. What was the motivation for that, to see lead them down the path of becoming potential allies?
It's a good thing we have 8 months before the next episode, I'm gonna need them to figure everything out.
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4
sorry, not a regular! I've just figured out why people dot their paragraphs!
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5
@Jimmy.. James.. Yes! Great write up!!
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Radzinsky has to survive the incident because he lives to join the U.S Army guy (Kelvin) in the hatch before blowing his brains out. That is unless the H-Bomb actually DOES change the past.
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One think I came away with is Jacob def has some loophole, if not Christian Shephard. There's no way he'd step right up to Ben unless he wanted to be killed, which is what I believe. He purposefully provoked Ben to kill him so he could pursue his loophole. He has a plan up his sleeve.
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The Latin translation of what Richard said was "He who will save us all" when SotS people asked him the question.
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The incident scene was one of the best scenes ever on Lost IMO.. Very much on the edge of your seat.
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Cmon... Juliet survives that fall. That was HOOOORRRRIIIBLLLE.
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There was something weird about the end of the Rose/Bernard scene when Bernard says something to Juliet and Juliet sort of puts her hand over her stomach.. Watching that made it look like she was pregnant or something and was hiding it. It was just weird.. didn't sit right.
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When I first saw the Blond/Fair skinned Jacob, I immediately thought it was Aaron grown up. Was this a fakeout by the writers? Or does anyone think this is still a possibility??? -
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One other thing that bothers me. It seems that Ilana becomes a main character in season 6. Not too crazy bout that... shes pretty annoying and not nearly as great an actor/character as Daniel Faraday , etc.
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@jimmycrack... "I'm going to guess that it's been Fred/Blackie trapped in the cabin all this time, and that Ilana and her team were troubled to find that the ash had been disturbed and the man himself escaped." That was my impression, too. Illana appeared to be on guard or frightened as she approaches the cabin. After realizing she was on a mission for Jacob, I wondered why she would be afraid unless she expected someone evil or dangerous to be there.
@James...You and all of Lostpedia have assumed the bomb went off, but it didn't seem that way to me at the time. For one, I noticed they were drilling in an already-wide, perfectly circular hole, actually what I took to be a well, since the walls were bricked... sound familiar? Anyway, I took the flash at the end to be the same flash that always signals a time jump, not the bomb, since there was only light, not an explosion.
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@James in re: Everything that Converges:
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Seems some cursory wikipedia research uncovers that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin came up with the concept of Omega Point, which is given the following summary:
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In this theory, the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness, a theory of evolution that Teilhard called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. For Teilhard, the universe can only move in the direction of more complexity and consciousness if it is being drawn by a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. Thus Teilhard postulates the Omega Point as the supreme point of complexity and consciousness, which is not only as the term of the evolutionary process, but is also the actual cause for the universe to grow in complexity and consciousness. In other words, the Omega Point exists as supremely complex and conscious, independent of the evolving universe. I.e., the Omega Point is transcendent. In interpreting the universe this way, Teilhard kept the Omega Point within the orthodox views of the Christian God, who is transcendent (independent) of his creation.
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Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from true God," and "through him all things were made."
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It would seem to me that this brings up some interesting ideas for how events, ideas, etc. influence the happenings of Lost and the growing complexity that further creates more complexity. It seems very cyclical without being repetitive. Or something. The wikipedia page also turns up some other interesting things about the Omega Point which may be relevant. Check it out. -
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@kespel...your Omega Point info ties back into something that was said between Jacob and Fred on the beach. I don't have DVR, so I can't check it, but I believe Fred was arguing against progress and change, while Jacob was saying it was inevitable.
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10
This also makes me wonder about Jacob's lists... why were Kate and Jack not on his list and do we have anymore insight as to what it might be for?
One interesting observation...
Locke came to the island in a casket, seemingly came back to life, and his corpse was still in the casket.
Christian Shephard came to the island in a casket, seemingly came back to life, and his corpse was gone. -
11
Call me crazy. Since Ben moved the island, I got the feeling that it was a spaceship. The stuff that I've seen this season just hardens that belief. The electromagnetism could have been a power source for it. The island is just formed on top of it.
As far as locke/fred. I figure he assumed locke when he returned to the island. I think Jacob knew Freds intention. My Hurleys guitar case has a lot to do with whats comes next. I also wasn't convince the bomb went off either. I do feel Juliette will be seen again. Unless Im missing something from an older ep. She has to have tea with rose and bernard. If this entire show is based on Jacobs and Freds relationship, i also think thats cool. -
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If you think about it. There were pivotal characters that Jacob didn't visit also. That has to say something. I gotta watch the ep again. Theres stuff I had to miss.
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13
@James, "things I liked", "disliked"? Who are you Peter King?
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I loved this finale, mainly I think because we got our Vincent sighting (as well as the huge amount of info with mainly game changers). -
14
the woman in the (middle eastern?) hospital... Did Jacob call her Ana? Was that Ana Lucia? Or did he call her Ilana? I can find no record of Michelle Rodriguez appearing in the episode, and I don't know why she would, but I could have sworn he said "Ana." (It wasn't Nadia, was it?)
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@kespel the Omega Point sounds a lot like what was going on during the incident, what with the metal being drawn in to a central point, the bottom of the well.
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@elkaba are you insinuating Juliet was at the bottom of the donkey-wheel well? Because they were at the Swan, not the Orchid. Of course, there's no reason to believe the orchid is the only place on the island where one can "turn the wheel."
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I especially appreciated all the little nods to fans throughout the episode. I can imagine someone who's never seen Lost wondering what the hell they just watched. But for us it was nice to get some perspective on Locke's dad throwing him out the window, or to know that Sawyer wrote the Sawyer letter with Jacob's pen.
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With the idea that this has all happened before in mind, I wonder if that means this specific reality with these specific characters, or just in general, people come to the island, feud in the name of Jacob or Fred, kill each other, and the island waits for more inhabitants. I can see it being the other way, with these specific characters unknowingly stuck in a time loop for millenia while Jacob and Fred, bored out of their minds, have to watch it all play out over and over again.
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Is Fredlocke still wearing Christian's shoes?
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Disappointed and confused about no Claire appearance.
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I was also surprised we didn't get to see who was on the ship. I assumed right away it was the Black Rock and Richard would be aboard. Although now knowing his name is Ricardus lends credence to the idea that he's much, much older than a couple hundred years.
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Oh hell, time to go back to the Pilot and just watch the Fred and Jacob show all over again, I suppose. -
15
@James
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You are wrong about Locke giving Richard the compass. That was "PRE-RESURECTION" Locke. Remember, that happened while they were skipping through time just days after the Oceanic 6 left the island. Locke jumped to 2007 one he turned the wheel to stop the time jumping. Then he died shortly after.
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I was really upset by the ending of the episode. It's like James said, things were done that the audience already had assumed were going to happen. They talked for three episodes about blowing up the H-Bomb and then they do it and.....nothing. A lot of the cast was hyping up the cliffhanger to be a bigger shocker than the Season 3 finale. Next time, I think the producers should tell them not to say things like that especially when it so far from the truth.
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Even the reveal that it wasn't Locke wasn't that big of a shocker. I kind of suspected that after the opening scene. Although, I don't understand why there are two Locke bodies. I assumed that Fred possessed Locke's dead body or something.
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I don't really care if Jacob and this other guy are behind the entire story. I mean, I think lost has always given characters involved with the overall mythology less screen time. Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking, Christian Shepherd and Richard are important to the mythology but all not really deeply drawn out characters themselves. And the producers have stated that they wanted to focus on the original cast as must as possible next season.
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It was an enjoyable finale but for me the best part was the very beginning. And that isn't something I was to be saying about a Lost finale. A show known for putting out some of the finales out there.
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One more thing. I had always thought at the end of the series fiale the LOST title card that flahsed at the end of the episode would be turned inside out to black lettering on a white background. But they chose to do it in this finale. -
16
Unless I'm missing something from a previous season on Richard's history, maybe Richard = "Fred". Since Richard looks different, maybe he isn't Fred, but a character from where Jacob comes from. I'm still really confused over Richard's character.
Anyone else fascinated w/ the tombs and giant sculpture? Besides weather/time maybe the body gets blown off by the island reacting to the bomb (as it travels back in time or something)
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17
I really loved this episode! I thought that there was something more important going on than Jacob just visiting with Losties - he gave them things (lunchbox, pen, candy bar, a blessing, life) and touched them too. I couldn't decide if the things themselves were important, or if they were just an excuse to touch the people, but it was like he was somehow marking them.
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18
How can no one have mentioned the most important line of the episode? Jacob's last words are, "They are coming." The question is who are "They"? Locke/Fred seems to think they are the SoTS people from Ajira 316. I don't think so. I think "They" are Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Jin, Miles, and (possibly but by all appearances not likely) Sayid and Juliet. My guess is along the lines of what natego said...that Jacob has his own loophole. He has been the one who manipulated the 815 gang to end up on the island so they can take down Locke/Fred/Smokie (or whatever he is). Also don't forget about Desmond. I think his ultimate return to the island will present some sort of wildcard that no one (Jacob and Fred included) is accounting for.
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My own hail of bullets:
-What was the significance of Bernard asking Juliet if she would like some tea? There seemed to be an underlying meaning to the exchange.
-Are we going to see flashbacks to the post-Incident/pre-Purge era on the island to explain how Radzindky ended up in the Swan, how Chang ended up making the videos, and how Richard grew long hair and decided to talk Ben into killing off the remnants of Dharma? Or are we done with the 70's/80's and back in the present full time until the end?
-Is there any signifance to the guitar case or is it just a red herring and this is a case of ultra-superstitious Hurley thinking that the mysterious guy-who-told-him-to-go-back-to-the-island left it for him to take back?
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It's going to be a looooong 8 months... -
19
Amazing mix of background tapestry (seasons 1-5 now set against an overarching, ageless, sibling?, rivalry), nods to a loyal audience (Bernard and Rose and Vincent, with what looked like a curtain call),
lots of helter-skelter action, and some touches of satire or perhaps unintended comedy (forget about 24's "suitcase nukes" - Lost has backpack thermo-nukes! made in the 1950s, to boot!)I read the comments to James's pre-episode post before seeing the finale last night; while watching, I chuckled when I saw the writers anticipate the need to show Vincent again, and even the need to cause the nuke to detonate by means of hammering with a really-really-big (ok, small) rock.
@matt: Esau's a nice touch
@renewkir: I had the same thought that you expressed so well:
"these specific characters unknowingly stuck in a time loop for millenia while Jacob and Fred, bored out of their minds, have to watch it all play out over and over again". That could align with the H-bomb finally changing the time loop - was this part of Fred/Esau's loophole, or part of Jacob's own counter-loophole?Talking about being bored out of their mind - Jacob weaving his Egyptian tapestry, strand by strand, over the centuries, was an interesting touch. Ilana pulled a piece of cloth out of the wall of "Jacob/Esau?"'s cabin that looked like a piece of Jacob's weaving.
Lots to think about ... Was Esau imprisoned in the cabin by Jacob, and escape through some action, by Ben, say? If Widmore wanted Locke to go back to the island to fight on the right side of the war, does that put Widmore on Esau's side? ... Richard says something to the effect that he was never impressed by Locke's specialness - was that an acknowledgement of Esau's manipulations causing "Locke" to become the leader? Is there some compact between Jacob and his island Others - where Jacob can be killed only by someone he had chosen as an Other leader?
@renewkir: Again, I'm with you all the way on your comment:
"Oh hell, time to go back to the Pilot and just watch the Fred and Jacob show all over again, I suppose." -
20
The thing that struck me was that Richard didn't see any of them die, so either they managed to change the time line or next season they'll still be in the 70, which would be kinda strange seeing how they where at ground zero of a nuclear bomb and/or the incident.
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@walle1: "The thing that struck me was that Richard didn't see any of them die." Very good point. What could he have seen instead? Maybe he witnessed a cataclysmic explosion, which he could only assume would have killed them—except that they were no longer there because of the change of events that the explosion effected. Or maybe not—it is a big shoe waiting to drop, anyway.
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this may be too obvious? that jacob is good (god) and fred/esau is evil (satan)? jacob referred a number of times to "always having a choice." seems to be tie into the free will given to us by god. just a thought...
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@ texgator - I don't think we need to see how Radzinsky was in the Swan, Chang made the videos, etc. We've already seen through the videos themselves what the DI thought happened and why they did the things that they did (well, most of them, at least). But going back and seeing the day after the incident from the DI perspective... well, it's not interesting in the scope of the larger story. Which now seems to be some crazy good vs. evil war.
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@ James & chriskw - hate to do this, but Locke 1.0 got the compass from 2007 Richard, who was told to give it to him by Locke 2.0/Fred/Esau. Same thing goes for the "you're going to have to die, John." Likewise, when Christian tells Locke at the frozen donkey wheel that he's going to have to die, it's because - I think - Christian is really Fred/Esau/smokey(?) -
25
I just had a thought on why Fred appears as Locke but doesn't actually possess Locke's original body. Maybe he is a manifestation of the Smoke Monster and Fred himself is the Smoke Monster. Remember, we didn't see Locke and Smokey together in the episode "Dead is Dead." It didn't show up at the barracks while Ben and Locke(Fred) were waiting for it. And Alex (Smokey/Fred) told Ben to do whatever Locke told him to do.
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Maybe the loophole was to get everyone to put their unquestioning faith into Locke based on the lie that he was Resurrected. And that only the Leader of the Others can kill Jacob. And that Ben was still technically the Leader because Locke was dead. Fred being the smoke monster would also explain why he has all of Locke's memories.
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This plan could have began back in season 1 when the smoke monster tried to take Locke down to its temple. And I think it is safe to say that Christian was speaking for Fred not Jacob. And that this plan to present himself as a resurrected version of the new Others leader began a long time ago.
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I forgot to mention earlier about how underwhelming Jacob's death was. Clearly he has been around for a long time and can leave the island at will. So how can stabbing him kill him. Or as I said before, maybe the Leader can kill him in any way. But Jacob would know that so why didn't he defend himself. Unless, as others have pointed out, he has his own plan.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 4 hours ago
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- Why Wells Fargo isn't paying back TARP
- How Will Obama Pay For Stimulus 2.1? (or 3.0, 3.1, whatever you want to call it)
- War of the Supermen: Q&A With Matt Idelson
- The Health Reform Abortion Wars, Part Deux
- Economists Growing More Wary of the Senate Health Bill
- Quinnipiac: Obama Gets Bump on Afghanistan
- The Truth Behind the Leaked Climate-Change E-Mails
- Mexico Witness Protection: Corrupt Program, New Killings
- Tiger Woods Must Face His Fans' Moral Outrage
- Helicopter Parents: The Backlash Against Overparenting
- Taiwan: World's Lowest Birthrate Could Affect Society
- Creating Jobs: Can Obama Government Boost Employment?
- How Strong Is the Evidence Against Amanda Knox?
- U.S. Doesn't Know Where bin Laden Is; Time to Let Go
- Suspect Headley: Pakistani Terrorist Group Going Global?
- Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting
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