The final season of Lost is really kicking into gear, and certainly meeting all of my expectations so far. The format is great, more and more light is beginning to be shed on the long standing mysteries and the big picture of the Lost story is more complete than it has ever been.
I’m eager to see how all of this is going to tie together, but I’m more confident than ever that it will come together beautifully. It’s going to be a great ride.
I have to say that this episode really sealed the deal for me: I love the alternate timeline. It’s such a love letter to all the huge Lost nerds like myself. I just can’t help geeking out with all the little revelations. Hurley owns Locke’s paper company. Rose works for Hurley as a job placement specialist working with Locke. Ben is a schoolteacher (those poor kids). Fate just can’t keep these folks apart. Plus, it was great to see Katey Sagal back as Helen.
It’s not just the little coincidences and winks at the audience that make the alternate timeline great, though. The writers of this show are really clever, and regardless about how you feel about the pacing or the mysteries, they certainly know how to weave a story together. They have taken a storytelling method that has worked so well for them (the flashback) and adapted and evolved it into the flashforward and now the flashsideways. As always, the flashes serve to enrich and inform the action on the island while grounding the show in the real world, not just the abstract environment of the island.
There was some serious mythology being expounded in this episode. I loved the not-so-subtle imagery of Jacob and his enemy’s “inside joke”: a black stone and a white stone on a balance. Clearly that balance has been broken. What else did we learn? Most, if not all, of our Losties are “candidates” to take over the “protection” of the island. It seems that Jacob was looking for a replacement for himself for quite some time considering the number of names written on the walls of the cave. Did he know that he was going to be killed? Was he planning for this for a long time? It was fun to see a callback to the numbers as well as each of the candidates that we knew were assigned one of Hurley’s numbers. I’m concerned that Sawyer is just desperate enough to be tempted by the fake Locke.
And what was with that kid in the jungle? We’ve heard a bit about these rules in the past, between Jacob and his enemy and between Ben and Widmore. I suspect that we are going to be learning more and more about them as the season continues. Who was the kid reminding him that he couldn’t kill? Sawyer? It would explain why the smoke monster killed some people it encountered (Ecko, the pilot, all those folks in the statue and spared others (Kate, Locke, and Juliet). Was it only killing those who were not candidates?
There are so many questions left, and I can’t wait for all the answers!
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Feb 16, 2010 @ 22:22 EST5EDT
Unless I missed something, I don’t remember seeing Kate’s name written in the cave; maybe that’s a hint she’s going to die or didn’t qualify. Perhaps they just didn’t see a reason to show her name in this episode. I keep coming up with more questions and very few answers, but I still love Lost!
This episode rather boring, only the last 10 minutes meant anything right now. The black-white thing was fun, and the numbers with the names is interesting.
I also like how Jack Shepard is 23…
The Lord Is My SHEPHERD
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the
Lord forever.
Psalm 23
Oreo: On catching the Psalm 23 reference, **Darth Vader voice on** Impressive.
Am I remembering Kate annoyed at some point that she was not special enough for the others to want her?
Numbers and names written on a wall? Hard to believe Sawyer would be impressed by that.
Looking forward to next week, as always!
My favorite part of Psalm 23 is the last… “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
House of the lord? The cabin?
A Shepard has been living in the cabin last time I remember seeing it. A dead one but a Shepard all the same.
As much as I love the mystery and mythology, I’ve always loved the richness and depth of the characters and the way they are developed. Which is to say, I wasn’t bored for a second during this episode.
I think the kid is Jacob. I don’t know how or why.
I don’t trust Smokey’s “answers” in this episode, but they still provide food for thought.
Going back to the kid, whom I assume is Jacob – he tells Locke that he can’t kill Sawyer. This is reminiscent of the story in the Book of Job, where Satan and God have a challenge/wager of sorts going over whether Job will remain faithful to God even if Satan is allowed to torment him. And one of the rules of the wager was that Satan could torment Job in any way except he wasn’t allowed to kill Job.
Right there with you Ruby, I think the kid’s Jacob.
Being able to see Jacob (or the kid) is what saved Sawyer. He’s a candidate, and Locke tries to corrupt him to win the game.
Like I said last week, it’s a proxy war/fight Un-Locke and Jacob are fighting and the only rule is that they can’t kill the figures – the figures have to kill each other or themselves.
Wow, great episode. The Locke episodes were always my favorites, though (well, those and Charlie’s).
So each Oceanic passenger who survived the crash was assigned a number on a cave wall by Jacob, and there’s some cause/effect relationship between them being ruled out as “candidates” and their deaths. It’s no coincidence, then, that we’ve got 6 survivors of everything that Lost has thrown at them – No.’s 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42; Locke, Hurley, Sawyer, Sayid, Jack, and Jin/Sun, who apparently count as one (this goes back to many mythologies of dual identity that the show has toyed with over the years, and the Biblical idea of two being one in marriage) – and left over is Kate, who as someone mentioned doesn’t seem to be all that special. (She’s always been my least favorite character and I wouldn’t mine seeing her gone.) Perhaps her crimes and unwillingness to grow as a person have ruled her out as a candidate, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. Love the catch of Jack the Shepherd’s #23 for Psalm 23, and I’m sure that’s not a coincidence either. This would clearly point to him being the new Jacob, if Smokey doesn’t derail this plan, and would also make sense because he was the leader of the survivors from day one. I also like the idea of Sawyer as Smokey’s new tool, because Sawyer opposed Jack from day one. Everything has a great symmetry.
I have no idea what’s going on with the kid yet. I’m sure it will become clear in time. If Jacob and Smokey are gods, they’re clearly not all-powerful ones.
As for the flashsideways…es, it was great to see some role reversal with Hurley telling Locke that everything would be okay. We got to see the alternate fates of Rose and Ben (creepiest teacher ever?), and even Helen and Randy the Jerk Boss are in place, though the former’s has changed significantly. What does this say about Locke’s relationship with his father, that he didn’t drive Helen away? I’m still eager to see what happened to Sawyer in this non-crash world.
I still need to see how it all works out, but based on the first few episodes of this final season, there’s a good chance Lost will become my Favorite Show of All Time.
Oh, and two other things I forgot:
-Richard came to John Locke when he was young to see if he was a “candidate”. Apparently on direct orders from Jacob.
-Anybody else notice #20 – Troup crossed out above Jack’s name on the cave wall? I love these writers.
About the things I noticed:
Jacob and Smokey are good and evil. It doesn’t matter who they look like, they are just entities. It’s as if the island is the battlefield of good vs. evil, with Jacob presenting the good side.
Now about Donnie Darko. I hope you guys did your homework because I’m going to call the rest of the season now.
DD starts with Donnie not dying because a jet engine falls on his house. 80% of the movie revolves around Donnie living his life, seeing a Bunny every once in a while – and a time saying the world will end in a couple of days, with a backwards counter. The pivotal scene in the movie is Donnie realizing that he should’ve died that day when the jet engine hit his house – otherwise the whole Universe will cease to exist. Once he does the altruistic thing and goes back to bed, dying, everything changes. The last 15 minutes of the movie we witness how things have turned out or better – not have turned out. Everything has changed extremely because Donnie wasn’t there.
What happened with the Jet Engine was that it dropped off the plane (bad maintenance, material fatigue – who knows). The engine dropped through a wormhole to the past and on Donnies house who woke up and left his bedroom.
Anyway. My idea about this last Season of Lost is this: everything that has happened on the show will be changed. Something altruistic will happen, somebody will chose to die for the rest of them all. I think it’ll be somebody who’s not in the new timeline who’s not yet been shown OR they pull something extremely thought-out out of their hats to make it so that the people who die on the island also live in the new timeline. But where’s the altruismn in that? Somebody has to do the altruistic thing and dies at the end. Sawyer would be a great choice but he’s been on the new timeline. Juliet already died. Christian’s dead, Claire lives, Kate lives… maybe we’ll see Faraday again but he’s not one of the central characters. Charlie also lives. So currently I’m kinda at a loss for somebody ready to off himself/herself we’d really care about. Any suggestions?
The former past will be erased. Just like we see it now in the “parallel timeline”.
Anyway – Cuse/Lindelof do this because nobody would want to watch what happens once the epic fight between good and evil ended. They show us what will happen once the epic fight ends right here, right now, as a “parallel” story. They reveal the payoff now without us noticing. If the finale is two hours I guess we’ll get half an hour to an hour of final exposition of the stuff that matters once the final fight is over. Stuff that can only be told once we know the new timeline “is it”.
Maybe I’m wrong but I guess this is it.
what if the jin/sun thing is their kid?