War Of Ages was one of the first introductions to a musical genre called “metalcore” that I actually loved. I’ve been a huge metal and thrash fan since I was a teen-ager, but metalcore was a different beast. The drum beat was fast, and there was lots of screaming, but the music was made of dissonance and melancholy, with no melody or guitar solos!
Enter War of Ages. My first listen was 2006′s Pride Of The Wicked, which to this day, is still in my top 10 best albums ever made.
Then came Fire From The Tomb, which was a re-recording of WOA’s first self titled album. It was good, but no where near the caliber of Pride of the Wicked. 2008 saw the release of Arise And Conquer. A fine musical piece, but still not as good as Pride of the Wicked.
Last week, WOA released Eternal, a brand new album! How does it stack up to the fabled Pride of the Wicked? Let us take a listen and compare notes.
01 Collapse
Pretty good song. Starts out with the strong “dirty vocal” contrasted by the cleaner singing from As I Lay Dying’s lead singer. Good fast pace…the guitar work is pretty good.
02 Desire
This song starts off like it is from Pride of the Wicked. I gotta say that the growling vocal kind of grates on my ears…but wait, there’s the chorus with a nice change up. Again, the melodic guitar is very good.
03 Failure
Starts with that layered melodic guitar, and the galloping fast drums are great. A very good WOA song.
04 My Resting Place
War of Ages does doom metal? oh wait, there’s the pickup. Man, Leroy Hamp’s vocals are just a one note show. I’d like just a little variety. The guitar really shreds around the 1:41 mark!
05 Eternal
What? Is that Sonny from P.O.D.? Yep, sure is! Very cool. Sounds like a very heavy P.O.D. song. Five songs into the album, and it all is starting to sound the same. Not a good sign.
06 Indecision
There we go…some heavy chugga chugga chugga of the guitars sounds good to my ears. Unfortunately, Leroy Hamp can only scream in one note. As a stand alone song, this is probably the best song on the record so far.
07 Lack Of Clarity
Huh? Is this Dokken? Gone is the ultra-heavy sound of guitar from the previous song. If you listen to just the guitar, it doesn’t fit with the hardcore vocal. I don’t like the sound of the chorus either.
08 The Fallen
I’m not sure what kind of song this is supposed to be. Starts out super fast thrashy, then devolves into a very slow, sludgy doom metal beat. The juxtaposition isn’t a good one.
09 Your Betrayal
These vocals are really starting to get on my nerves. I hate to say it, but I’m not digging this album so much!
10 Instrumental
A soft instrumental ballad? It’s good as far as instrumental songs go, but instantly forgettable as soon as the record is done.
Over all, I’d say that Eternal falls a long way short of Pride of the Wicked. I honestly feel no compunction to listen to this album so much. The vocals are all the same, even though there are two guest vocalists on the album.
“The Last Recruit” is the 13th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 116th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was broadcast on April 20, 2010. As Jack and Locke’s camps merge, alliances are forged and broken. (Lostpedia.com)
Christian in “White Rabbit” was actually Smokey. However, we don’t have an explanation for who Christian was in the hospital, since Smokey can’t travel off the island. Was it the same guy? What about the other dead people? Ilana said that Smokey can only look like one person at a time so was he able to also be Yemi, or was he only able to be Christian? What allows him to slough off one body for the other?
Sun recognizes Smokey in the SW… how did she recognize him? Was the gunshot a jolt? If it was, why didn’t she see the life she had with Jin in the other world, too?
Interesting that Zoe gives Smokey until nightfall to turn over Des, just as he gave everyone in the Temple until nightfall to get out.
I was convinced the lawyer would be Ana Lucia. Didn’t see Ilana coming. She did look rather, ahem, dynamite, though, didn’t she? Ha. Ha. I mean, she really… blew them away with her, erm, explosive beauty? OK. I’ll stop now.
“He’s the only one that didn’t abandon me.” No, he’s just the one who drew you away from everyone else so they wouldn’t know where you’d gotten to, and completely brainwashed you into thinking it was totally awesome that Aaron was with them and not her, and then they were forced to leave without her because they couldn’t find her. Of course, Claire presumably doesn’t remember any of this; I’m thinking it’s part of Smokey’s mindwipe of her. I felt terrible as she stood by the tree and watched them abandon her… again. Poor Claire.
WHO IS DAVID’S MOM?! Possibles that are left: Sarah again. Juliet. Kate’s twin sister she never knew about (Skaters and Jaters are both happy in the end!). Cassidy. Ana Lucia (1-6 from Nik at Nite)
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As crazy as Jack was for turning back and going to the Island, I think he was right. It’s not that I have any reason for thinking he’s right, I just can’t imagine how Sawyer’s plan could be right. So anything against his plan must be in the general direction of rightness.
I wish Jack had had a talk with Hurley before he went back. Hurley and Jack should probably stay together, I like that dynamic they were developing.
”Locke” and Jack’s conversation in the jungle is very similar to the one back in White Rabbit. Except last time Locke was trying to inspire Jack’s faith in the Island, this time “Locke”’s trying to destroy Jack’s faith.
Back in that original scene Jack asks Locke what would happen when he caught up with Christian. Now we know.
Our theory about “Locke”’s cadaver rule was right. “Locke” needs an actual body in order to possess them. It was really obvious, but at least it was said out loud.
Wait a second. “Locke” tells Jack that he was trapped on this Island because Jacob chose him. Then he continues on, “But now Jacob’s dead. We don’t have to be trapped anymore.” It was pretty subtle but he implies, slightly, that he was trapped on the Island just like Jack, so that might mean that he was chosen by Jacob too. Maybe “Locke”, or rather Esau, was the first Candidate.
…Or perhaps “Locke” is Cain! oh yeah, I just brought Adam and Eve back into the discussion.
This refers more to the last episode, but whatever. Desmond was more than willing to talk to Ben and then hit Locke. I think he has nothing to lose. He must have a deadline or something that really matters.
Has anyone not talked to “Locke” yet? Maybe Miles. I don’t know if “Locke” has ever directly talked to Frank, but he’s been around when he’s talked. The overwhelming theory is that if you talk to “Locke” then you’re powerless against him. If that’s right then we need to find a loophole. That loophole could be someone he’s never talked to, or maybe there’s some other way. So far all we have to go on is the no talking rule. But everyone’s talked to him except Miles. Maybe that’s why he’s survived for so long, to take “Locke” down… that would be weird. (7-12 from Not Confused Just Lost)
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To me this episode felt like The End, Part I of VI. It moved things along, got a lot of pieces into place (especially in the Alt, which I really dug) and set things up for the final stretch. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), it felt kinda slow to me. Yeah, a lot of stuff happened, but the end result was just to shuffle a bunch of people around. Not a whole lot of big reveals and the ones we got (like Smokey finally admitting to Jack he was one impersonating Christian) weren’t really earth-shattering.
As far as the Alt goes, Desmond is acting as chessmaster, setting up the board for some grand design. I loved every moment of the Alt and now we have a plan to get just about everyone together at the same time. Jack’s at the hospital with Locke, Ben, Sun and Jin. Presumably Miles and Sawyer will be coming to interview Jin (and Ben for that matter, since he saw Desmond). Sayid and Kate will probably be sharing a jail cell at some point and Claire and Ilana will have at least one more meeting with Jack. It’s all coming together, the only question now is “For what?”
If they really are both (Claire and Sayid) dead and resurrected by Smokey’s black magic, they’re probably not getting off the Island. But perhaps their souls can be redeemed by sacrificing themselves for the others. I’m guessing Sayid in particular is going to sacrifice himself to save Jack or one of the other candidates at some point.
Locke’s going to walk again, for certain. And now it seems that the sole purpose of Desmond running Locke over was so that Jack could operate on him. Will this merely help both Jack and Locke remember or is it something more powerful than that. In the first few seasons, Locke’s wheelchair came to represent everything that was pathetic and futile about his life. Does it also carry a greater significance here?
But all of these “don’t talk to him” instances seem to indicate it might be something more. Can Smokey plant the seeds of infection through his voice? Is that how the evil spreads throughout the world? If so, Jack might be in a world of trouble if he’s going to be buddy-buddy with Smokey for the rest of the show.
Judging from Tina Fey’s actions this episode, Widmore seems just a wee bit desperate to get Desmond back. Now this implies either 1) that Widmore doesn’t think Desmond knows what he has to do yet or 2) Widmore thinks he has no chance of stopping Smokey without Desmond.
And I think we’re going to see a Smokey rampage in an episode or two. But ironically, there is someone on Hydra Island with a weapon that might be able to hold Smokey at bay: Hurley, and his pouch of Jacob’s ashes. Widmore might have been unwittingly handed the best weapon remaining on the Island… if he doesn’t shoot Hurley first.
he real question is where did Desmond go, since I imagine Sayid also helped him out of the well.Presuming he knows what Widmore needs him to do, I imagine he’s heading towards one of the pockets of EM on the Island. If he doesn’t know, he heading back to Widmore… on Hydra Island… where Smokey’s heading. That would be bad. Methinks Desmond knows better than that. I expect to see Desmond at a new DHARMA station in an episode or two and I’m guessing Charles is going to try and meet him there.
Jack is now a full-on island convert. In a conversation with Sawyer, Jack whips out all of Locke’s old talking points: “the island isn’t done with us” and “we have a purpose” and destiny and fate and “hey, those Apollo Bars aren’t so bad,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, most interesting, Jack also understand that Flocke should not leave the island. I imagine that’ll hinder their budding bromance.
Last week it seemed, at least for a moment, that Desmond actually thought he was talking to John Locke. But when he asks Sayid in this episode what he was offered in return for being Flocke’s wet work guy, it was clear to me that Des is fully aware Locke isn’t Locke anymore. And that casts some interesting perspective on Desmond’s alternate universe actions. I’m guessing vengeance was not his motivation for running down Alt Locke
The alternate timeline was labyrinthine in this episode, but the chess pieces are clearly moving into place for some sort of cross-timeline reveal. Here’s where the players currently stand:Jack and Claire — He briefly crossed paths with Claire at Ilana’s law office, but he had to run off to repair Locke’s dural sac. And we know Jack’s a dural sac master thanks to his history of nicking and fixing those buggers.Locke — On the operating table with Jack hovering over him.
Sun and Jin — When Sun was closest to death (thanks to the bullet in her gut) she actually recognized Locke. But now that she and her unborn child are both safe, her knowledge of the alternate timeline appears to have subsided. But if she follows the trajectory established with Alt Charlie, Alt Desmond, Alt Hurley and Alt Libby, she’ll have residual memories of the island. Jin, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to have any island knowledge at this point.
Sawyer, Miles and Sayid — The grisly doings in that restaurant kitchen catch the attention of Sawyer and Miles. They track down Sayid and use guns and a garden hose to snatch him.
Kate — Sawyer arrested her, then he flirted with her, then he left her handcuffed to a chair in the police station.
Desmond — His cupid act is getting a little creepy, now. He somehow lures Claire to his attorney’s office, which is super convenient because Ilana (Des’ lawyer) was looking for her. I’m not sure what Desmond’s next move will be, but he might want to tone the act down a bit.
Missing / unaccounted for — Charlie, Faraday, Charlotte, Penny, Minkowski, Boone, Hurley and Libby aren’t seen in this episode’s alt-timeline scenes. Ben makes a brief cameo in Locke’s ambulance, and it would seem he’s at or near the hospital where Locke was taken.
The mystery of Juliet’s outrigger victim remains unsolved. It initially seemed like someone on Sawyer’s crew would take a time bullet en route to Hydra island, but that theory fizzled when the sailboat came into play. Now, I’m concerned we’ll never know who was firing / fired upon or we’ll see Bernard take one right between the eyes. (22-25 from the Lost Blog)
“Everybody Loves Hugo” is the 12th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 115th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on April 13, 2010. Hurley agonizes over what the group’s next move should be, while Locke deals with a new arrival in his camp.
So the BIG reveal of the episode was that the whispers are actually the ghosts of people who are stuck on the island and are unable to move on to Heaven because of something they did. Which means… THE ISLAND IS A PURGATORY. Not for those on the plane, but it’s a purgatory nonetheless.
I posted something last night about how so much of Lost comes down to love, but I also believe that entwined with the notion of love is the idea of connection, as I said in that post. Connections are so vital to Lost – the connections people had before they go on the plane; connections to each other on the island that they created there; connections that they failed to actually make because they didn’t talk to one another; connections that were lost when the groups split up – and it’s when these four men have a real, definite connection to the other person that they’re able to break through.
Speaking of which, now Miles, Charlotte, and Daniel are all connected to the museum. Will it actually play a role in anything in this sideways world? Will we have an episode where we actually see this museum? Will there be any ancient relics of anything like, oh, I don’t know, a Tawaret statue?
Smokey is becoming more and more like Locke every day. His “oh, this old piece of wood? Why… I’m just a-gonna whittle this baby until it speaks to me and tells me if I need to make a spear or a tiny wooden ornament of an old lady in a rocking chair that I can put on my mantle” was something Locke would have said.
Who was the other boy that Smokey saw in the jungle with Des? It’s interesting that both Sawyer and Desmond have also seen the boys with him. Could THAT one be the Man in Black when he was a kid, and the blonde one was Jacob? Or vice versa? Smokey tried to chase down the blonde one, but just waved this one off with a dismissive flick of his hand, which was interesting. (1-5 from Nik at Nite)
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The ending of the episode totally shocked me. At first I thought Desmond was simply trying to shake Locke’s memory loose, but 1) Desmond hit Locke a wee bit too hard to just be trying to jog his memory and 2) he certainly didn’t have to do that to Hurley to get his brain moving. So why kill Locke?The most obvious answer is that Alt Locke is really Alt Smokey who, like all of the other Losties, has lost his memory in this pocket universe as well. If this is true (which it very well may not be – maybe Locke needs to die to collapse the pocket universe or something)
And Desmond was almost certainly lying when he told Smokey he was “John Locke” – I think Desmond knew exactly what Smokey really was. In fact, since Desmond’s Alt trip, both versions of Desmond seem to have complete awareness of what’s going on, which partially makes me think Desmond wanted to get thrown down the well knowing that 1) he’d survive and 2) there may be a pocket of EM energy down there. Note that the well Smokey threw Locke down was not the Orchid well. There’s no Donkey Wheel down there for Desmond to turn.
Looking back at some of Lostpedia’s whisper transcripts, it does seem that the spirits can interact somewhat, talking to each other while they observe the living people on the Island. But it’s kinda weird that Michael told Hurley to tell Libby he’s sorry if he sees her. After all, if Hurley sees her wouldn’t that suggest she’s trapped on the Island just like Michael?
When Hurley went through Ilana’s belongings, he grabbed a drawstring bag, which is probably the one Ilana filled with Jacob’s ashes back in LA X. Is the reason Hurley suggested that everyone go see Smokey because he’s planning to try and trap him a different way? If so, suddenly Hurley’s decision to travel to Locke makes a lot more sense. I do kinda wish he had said to Jack “I have a plan” or something, but I’m betting we’ll see those ashes in action sometime in the near future. (6-9 from Mistaking Confidence For Fate)
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The whispers are very similar. I think they appear right before the Others and the Smoke Monster because the dead people wish to warn the heroes of the coming danger.
Flocke intended to get rid of Desmond. He recognizes the potential for Mr. Electromagnetism to be a thorn in his side, possibly because MIB has something to do with the electromagnetism. Long have I thought that the Smoke Monster form might be a sort of energy pocket in and of itself. But because Desmond is special, the only way to dispose of him is to throw him into a pocket.
Desmond meets up with Hurley at Mr. Clucks, trying to nudge him to pursue Libby. We of course already know that Desmond has a hidden agenda of getting the 815 passengers to remember their other lives. Wasn’t it funny that he was order number 42? In addition to being one of the numbers, 42 is the answer to “Life, the Universe, and Everything” in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy universe.
I’m assuming John will pull through, and that the accident might trigger John’s other memories, as it did for Charlie and Desmond during near-death experiences. I also wonder if Desmond could have planned the accident enough to know that John would be taken to Jack’s hospital, and that the two of them interacting might bring on the flashes. So I’m excited to see what comes next for John, but come on Desmond, did you have to run him over that hard?
He’ll probably die on the operating table. Or better yet, Jack will revive him just long enough to tell him that his life is a lie. Then the alternate reality will disappear, and John will go back to being a dead failure whose form is possessed by a mocking, evil entity. (10-14 from Robz888 at DarkUFO)
Remember how happy Tom Hanks was in the movie Castaway after he finally made fire on the beach? He pranced around saying “FIRE! I HAVE MADE FIRE!!” You remember, you know you do! That’s how I felt on a cold, rainy, windy Sunday morning after running my first 1/2 marathon! I wanted to prance around yelling “I JUST RAN 13.1 MILES! IN THE WIND! AND IN THE RAIN! ON THE OCEAN!”, but my legs were a little too wobbly to be doing any prancing!
I started seriously running last summer and set the Santa Cruz 1/2 Marathon as my main goal. I can’t believe it has already come and gone! I have to say it was pretty awesome, right up there with climbing Half Dome in Yosemite. The route was AMAZINGLY spectacular. I’d say that about 9 of those 13 miles were right along the coast line, with the ocean right below you, hitting the rocks and spraying you as you ran by. There were some pretty knarly hills as well, but those didn’t dominate the course.
I was a little surprised at how many people were there to run the race! The announcers said that there were over 4600 people registered. I think half of the runners ran the 1/2 marathon and the other half ran the 10K. The start line was right next to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and then went west towards UC Santa Cruz
The weather was a chilly 40 degrees as the race started at 8am. I quickly warmed up as I started to run. The first 5 miles just flew by, as the scenery was just so beautiful. I didn’t have a camera, so I can’t post any pictures. By miles 6 and 7, I was ready to take off my long sleeve shirt but had a feeling I should just leave it on in case it rained. And rain it did! Right when I hit the 10 mile marker, it started pouring down little tiny drops of water which the wind whipped at a 45 degree angle right into our faces! As you come up the hill at 10.5 miles, you come back to the bluff right by the ocean, where the wind was fierce and of course blowing the opposite way of which I wanted to run.
I don’t think I could have made it to the finish line without having some great music to pump up the adrenaline. Thankfully, I had spent a few hours crafting the perfect 2 gigabyte playlist for my iPod Nano. I love the fact that Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger started playing right at the 6 mile marker! Couldn’t have planned that any better if I had tried!
The last 200 feet or so lead right onto the beach. Those were the best 200 feet I have ever run! I just want to say thank you to my family who stood out in the cold rain waiting for me to finish! I know it couldn’t have been very comfortable!
I didn’t come in last, for which I’m very grateful! Honestly, my goal was just to finish! Finish I did, with about a 12 minute mile average. My total time was 2 hours and 38 minutes from the time I crossed the start line until I crossed the finish line.
My next race is running the first half of the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July. I’m hoping to actually train for this one and get my time down to 2 hours and 15 minutes. I just can’t wait to run across the Golden Gate Bridge!
Again, thanks for all the encouragement, especially from my family. I couldn’t have done it without you!
I was going through my iTunes library trying to mix the perfect playlist for my upcoming first Half Marathon and ran across this song by Christian rockers, Disciple. It is simply entitled, Easter Bunny. It is from their “My Daddy Can Whip Your Daddy” album.
Guess I’m filled with the Christmas spirit
Celebrate a jolly man in red
Hope my kids don’t find out Santa Clause isn’t real
Maybe I should have told them about Jesus instead
Last time I heard about it He didn’t come in a Santa outfit
Santa Clause is dead!
Guess it’s time to thank the easter bunny again
For doing absolutely nothing in my life
What the heck do a bunch of colored eggs
have to do with the Son of God being raised back to life
Last time I heard about it He didn’t rise in an easter outfit
The easter bunny is dead!
Christmas is when I celebrate Jesus’ birth
Easter’s when I celebrate Jesus’ resurrection
Jesus is alive!
“The Package” is the 10th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 113th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 30, 2010. While Jin and Sun continue to search for each other, Locke meets with Charles Widmore. (Lostpedia.com)
I really liked how this subplot tied in Jin’s time travel as well. Charles kidnapped Jin because he wanted some questions answered on where DHARMA was investigating pockets of electromagnetism on the Island back in the 70′s. But why is Widmore interested? Will this help him stop Smokey?Electromagnetism has always been the blanket explanation for just about everything mysterious happening on the Island: Healing properties, why it’s hard to locate, why it’s hard to leave, time travel, etc. And EM was a major interest of DHARMA which constructed stations to investigate two such pockets of energy: The Swan and The Orchid.
Now if you remember, Smokey seemed to have a very vested interest in keeping the button in the Swan pushed and the energy there contained. He appeared to Eko in a dream and told him that Locke had “lost his way” and that the button had to be pushed. Then, when the Swan was destroyed, Smokey went ballistic and killed Eko.
At first, I thought all of this was part of Smokey’s grand plan to find a loophole – i.e. his original plan involved the Swan staying intact, but its destruction forced him to turn to Plan B (The Orchid). But now I’m thinking that maybe there’s something more going on here. Perhaps the reason Smokey got so mad when the Swan’s energy was released is because if all the Island’s energy is released with him still on it, he can die!
Now we know that the Swan energy is gone, but the Orchid’s energy still seems to be there, at least it was when Locke put the wheel back on its axis and stopped the Island from skipping through time. But looking at Jin’s map, we can see at least three distinct areas on the Island with electromagnetism that DHARMA was interested in. Take a look:
The catch? I’m betting the third and final pocket of energy is going to have to be destroyed manually, meaning someone’s going to have to stay behind to get the job done and that someone is going to have to die. Welcome to your destiny, Jack.
do wonder if Infected People count as someone else? If so, Smokey could simply unleash Claire and Sayid on them. If not, he’s going to have to manipulate someone else into killing recalcitrant candidates, and there aren’t too many of those left. Thus methinks Smokey’s going to have really turn on the charm the next several episodes.But the downside of all this is that it’s really easy to stop Smokey from leaving. For all Richard’s huffing and puffing about going to Hydra Island to stop Smokey, all he really has to do is keep one of Hurley or Jack away from Smokey (Sun may not be an actual candidate). Probably the worst thing they can do is take them to Hydra Island… where Smokey’s going… where the plane is.
Let’s go back in time for a moment. Daniel, traveling through time himself, arrives at the Swan sometime between 2001 and 2004. Desmond leaps out of the Swan in his biohazard suit and holds him at gunpoint. Daniel says to him:
What is important, Desmond, is what I’m about to say to you. I need you to listen. You’re the only person who can help us because, Desmond… the rules… the rules don’t apply to you. You’re special. You’re uniquely and miraculously special.
He was, at that time, obviously referring to Desmond’s time travel abilities. But I think there’s something more to that. Widmore brought Desmond along for a very specific purpose. Could it be time travel? Could Charles want Desmond to try and change the past – prevent Jack’s phone call or prevent the Incident altogether? Possibly?
But what if Desmond has some mysterious rapport with the electromagnetism on the Island? Remember that Isaac of Uluru told Rose some people are specifically attuned to energies in the Earth. Maybe Widmore plans to use Desmond as a dowsing rod to try and find the final pocket of energy on the Island. This could also explain how Desmond’s boat ended up on the Island in the first place – maybe he was drawn there by the electromagnetism
Smokey’s certainly convinced that Kate’s not a candidate, but I’m still not so sure since her name clearly wasn’t crossed off the lighthouse list. If Smokey is indeed wrong about Kate being a candidate, wouldn’t it be amusing to see him turn her over to Infected Claire only to have to later save her after he realizes he can’t leave the Island without her? (1-7 from Mistaking Confidence For Fate)
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But let’s back up just a second. When checking into the hotel, Jin and Sun make sure to clear their respective last names with the front desk. Jin is a Kwon and Sun is a Paik. Of course, the last name issue is very critical to on-island Jin and Sun. Was this a hint that the candidate is Jin? I would have guessed Sun, since she’s typically been the more “main” character of the two, but Jin’s star has been rising for the last two seasons, so we’ll see.
Sun is accidentally shot, and as Jin carries her away, she reveals that she is pregnant. Sun, I believe, is the first main character in mortal peril in the ATL. Maybe things can only end happily in one reality and not the other? Maybe this bodes well for the on-island couple? Well, I expect Sun to pull through. A checkup with Dr. Jack Shephard should fix her, right?
I also thought it was noteworthy that Sun cut herself just before Flock appeared.
I couldn’t shake the idea that Flocke’s very proximity to Sun caused it. Randall Flagg/Walter, the Stephen King archvillian to whom MIB is often compared, would inadvertently kill small animals and cause headaches in the young and the elderly (I think) just by being around them.
Flocke soon causes Sun a more serious injury. Admittedly, the effect was a little difficult to believe for just a bump on the head: she can’t speak in English anymore, though she can still understand it. This has happened before – to John Locke in “Further Instructions”, interestingly enough. In that instance, it was caused by John’s proximity to the implosion of the Swan. Does this mean electromagnetism is involved in the loss of speech? Maybe the Man in Black is really just a walking, talking, pocket of electromagnetic black smoke, and encountering him can have such an effect
We know that electromagnetism can cause consciousness teleportation. Perhaps Flocke was able to force her to channel herself in the other reality, where she doesn’t know English. If Flocke has that power, we might have just seen our first glimpse of how the ATL could ultimately factor in to the MTL. Flocke might be the link between these two realities
It’s also conceivable that Sun’s weird loss of English was caused by a variety of other things. Maybe Flocke has that power because it happened to John Locke, and he can use aspects of John Locke’s personality and memories. Maybe it was caused by a subconscious connection to her flash-sideways character (whose inability to understand English was placing her in mortal peril), and Flocke wasn’t involved
Finally, Sun chooses to go with Jack. Interestingly enough, he reaches his hand out to her just as Flocke did. Jack is also “talking destiny” just like his old enemy, John Locke. And the character inhabiting John Locke, is definitively anti-destiny
I think it is significant that Widmore didn’t bring the usual crowd to the island this time. Ever since his conversation with Desmond in “Jughead”, Charles has seemed to me like a sort of reformed bad guy who genuinely regretted the consequences of putting Keamy on the island. In many ways, Charles’s plan seems to be a repeat of his Season Four plan – bring scientists to the island to investigate strange properties – but with less violence
I think the electromagnetic energy might correspond to Flocke, the other reality, or both, and I think that sort of explains Widmore’s interest. Also, now that we know a certain Scotsman with a special connection to electromagnetism is back on the island, Jin’s knowledge of the location of the pockets could be especially important.
Flocke demonstrates once again that he has access to John’s memories by quoting Widmore’s speech to John: “a war is coming.”
ever since Desmond kept Charlie alive long enough to shut down the Looking Glass station, I’ve thought that Desmond and Desmond alone has the power to change things, to operate outside the “whatever happened, happened” framework. Remember in “Because You Left” when the Swan hatch version of himself was able to send a message to his post-island self? Only Desmond can do that. It will be interesting to see if such powers extend not only through time, but through reality itself.
Recall that 108, the number to which Hurley was supposed to turn the wheel in the lighthouse, bore the crossed out name, “Wallace”. According to Lostpedia, the novel A Wrinkle in Time (which appears on Sawyer’s dresser in “Recon”) has a character named Charles Wallace. This Wallace is psychic, messes with time, and appears as an evil cloud called The Black Thing (7-19 from Robz888 at DarkUFO)
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We confirm that Flocke can’t travel to the Hydra island in his far-more-convenient Smokey form. And — this is just a guess — he may need to go there in the company of a candidate. That would explain why he recruits Zombie Sayid for “Operation: Recover Jin.”
Jin is briefly locked in Room 23, the subliminal-message cell once used by the Dharma denizens (and Ben’s Others) to keep horny teenagers in line. But here’s a question: remember how the subliminal messaging Karl endured featured the line “God loves you as He loved Jacob“? Was that line added by the Others or was it part of Dharma’s material? These questions dovetail with something I’ve been mulling lately: were all of the island’s inhabitants lured there by Jacob? Or, was it a smattering of Jacob’s candidates and anyone else who happened to stumble across the place? Put another way: Was Dharma Jacob’s attempt at a massive recruitment effort?
Richard’s big plan is to destroy Ajira 316. Now, I don’t mean to be callous, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to destroy the one guy who can fly that plane? Everyone knows I’m Frank Lapidus’ biggest fan. Love that guy. “We’re not going to Guam, are we?” still ranks as one of my all-time favorite lines. But, you know, if we’re talking life-death-future-of-the-universe stuff, I could see how Lapidus’ survival could at least surface as a discussion point.
It’s never a good sign when an adversary quotes you back to you (the “wise man” Flocke referenced was Widmore himself). So I’m guessing Flocke and Widmore aren’t on the same team, and that opens up the really intriguing possibility of Widmore and Ben working together.
Sun’s inability to speak English sure feels like a groan-worthy soap opera twist, but what if — and this is a big if — it actually represents a “leak” from the alternate timeline? Could this be evidence of Alt Sun and Island Sun meshing? Alt Sun doesn’t know English, after all. Is that a reach? Sure. But we already saw Juliet mumble something about “going dutch” just before she died, so I think there’s a hint of precedent for this leak theory. And, from a storytelling perspective, I could see the “Lost” crew using what initially appears to be a cliched plot device (Amnesia? Really?) in a unique and twisty way. (20-24 from The Lost Blog)
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The smoke monster may seem all powerful, but there’s one thing he hasn’t had to do in the last few centuries: lead anyone. It’s all well and good to be ripping trees out by the roots and judging people when the mood strikes, but getting human beings to do what you want while giving them the choice to do something else isn’t as easy as just promising puppy dogs and ice cream. “You’ll get answers” can only take you so far, and this is why people keep slipping through Flocke’s fingers. It’s also why he doesn’t notice a whole team of Widmore’s people surrounding his camp with night vision goggles, even though he has Sayid on his team
It’s important to point out Sayid’s motivations for joining the MIB: he wanted to see Nadia again. This was back when he had feelings, however. Without such emotions, Sayid’s motivations for continuing on will rapidly disintegrate… and along with that, his loyalty as well. The smoke monster is too busy to see this right now, but as six-year veterans of LOST we all know what happens when Sayid gets restless
Flat out, we learn the ultimate purpose of Flocke’s army: the man in black needs to collect all six candidates before he can leave the island. If he’s really going to fly off into the sunset the dark man obviously need Lapidus too, but I’m of the opinion the Ajira plane probably means squat in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know about you guys, but I for one do NOT want to see a heroic last-second takeoff as that plane screams down a dirt runway… Hurley helping Frank yank back on the control wheel as Ajira’s landing gear skims the jungle treetops. I can totally picture Frank wiping the sweat from his grimy brow: “Whew! That was a close one!” Yikes.
With each passing episode, the dark man continues to lose control. He’s unused to people not doing what he wants. In the past he’s killed whenever he needed to, but things are now different. Here, he’s forced to try and finesse certain people into doing what he wants without being able to bash them against the nearest tree when they refuse. This is taxing on him – it’s wearing him down, and his frustration is growing. The dark man is unable to disguise his impatience with “Something wrong, Claire?” and answering to an increasingly sarcastic Sawyer is taking its toll. His camp is rapidly coming apart, just as John Locke’s own perfect little community began unraveling when he lead half the cast to New Otherton
Okay, hang on a second. Before we talk about what happens here, we have to examine the circumstances leading up to this flash-sideways. On-island Sun is knocked out cold, and off-island Sun is just waking up. We’ve seen this happen time and time again, most noticeably when Jack gets put under for his on-island appendectomy and immediately wakes up in the Oceanic Six timeline.How many times does this have to happen before it becomes more than just a convenient plot device? Unconsciousness has always been associated with enlightenment. It’s always worked as a transition between scenes and storylines… but what if it also acts as a transition between worlds? Remember sleeping Claire waking up in her flashback car crash during Par Avion? Remember Desmond hitting his head on the freighter and waking up in one of his flashes? I could list dozens and dozens of examples here, but there’s really no need. The link between unconsciousness and making these journeys is as plain as the big frosty glass of Orange Julius they made Desmond drink on the sub-ride over
We’re seeing LAX_Sun’s non-English speaking skills carrying over to island_Sun, and at this point there shouldn’t be much of a debate about that. The more important question to ask is this: how long has stuff like this been going on? Is Sun losing English the same thing as season one Claire losing her memories? As post-Swan Locke losing his ability to speak? As Desmond losing his clothes? Is this what’s been happening to characters we’ve seen reset or rebooted, and if so, when did it start?
So many questions get potential answers here, it’s actually kind of frightening. Were Desmond’s “flashes” really just him experiencing the ALT timeline, but we were thrown off by this because he was visiting a past version of it? And while we’re at it, exactly how many different timelines exist? Just because our LAX characters seem to have blasted themselves into the “Jughead” universe, it would be ignorant to assume there’s only one. Was the Oceanic Six season nothing more than another alternate timeline, one in which Flight 815 really did hit the Indian ocean? Did Ben/Jacob really cure Juliet’s sister’s cancer, or was Mikhail pointing the Flame’s monitor at a different timeline, in a different universe, on a different playground where that cancer didn’t exist?
And if the two timelines merge, will it go both ways? Will the LAX characters gain sudden knowledge of their on-island experiences, and use them to move on with their lives? Is this where everyone’s consciousness ends up when they die? Is this how on-island Juliet and on-island Sawyer can eventually go out for off-island coffee?
These are all tremendous questions. The floodgates have been opened here, starting with Sun smashing her head into that tree branch. The possibilities are endless. The stories can wind in any virtually direction. The merging of character consciousness allows for both timelines to remain relevant, and for both timelines to mean something. It seems to be the answer as to where everything is going, and yet at the same time it also seems to be something that’s always been there.
Let’s go to the walk-in fridge, where Omar bangs Jin’s head on the way in. “C’mon Omar, you gotta be more careful than that…” For a guy about to ‘pop’ someone, didn’t Keamy seem overly concerned about what happened here? Was he just looking to keep things neat and tidy, or was Keamy concerned that Jin might go unconscious on them? Remember, unconsciousness = enlightenment. As far as I’m concerned, Keamy seems to somehow know this. He puts a wet cloth to Jin’s head too, not out of caring or kindness but to wake him up. Before even talking to Jin, Keamy prefaces his speech by making sure he can’t comprehend him, asking: “You don’t understand what I’m sayin’ to you right now? Nothing?”This is, of course, when Keamy mentions THE ISLAND. Yeah, that’s right – the island. There’s no possible way you can convince me that Keamy didn’t say “Just in case you figure out what’s about to happen TO THE ISLAND…” here. Closed captioning can kiss my ass, that’s what the man said. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, and the writers tossed it in as a joke to get us talking about it. Or maybe it means everything, and Jin – still in a daze from hitting his skull against a metal doorframe – heard Keamy correctly. Either way, we know something is going to happen to the island, back in the regular timeline anyway. Something that sinks it to the bottom of the ocean… probably something we’ll see at the end of the show.
‘d be lying if I didn’t say I asked myself a question: was Sayid fully himself? The carefree way he said “Good luck” (and with an almost evil smirk) belied a character who seemed so committed to caring for his niece and nephew a few episodes ago. It made me wonder if on-island Sayid’s ‘emptiness’ was bleeding through to his LAX life. We already started to see this the moment he shot Keamy, and now we continue to see it in the following scene. Accepting this as fact, the merging of consciousness seems to go in both directions, and this is another huge piece of the puzzle.
Here, bleeding all over Keamy’s immaculate kitchen, Sun reveals that she’s pregnant. For me, this one small moment changes everything. It lends tremendous evidence in favor of the LAX universe turning out to be the final timeline, because now this story has an ending. Ji-Yeon’s place is established in both worlds, providing a satisfying conclusion to that whole story arc.
Being unable to cross the ocean, the island makes the perfect jail for the man in black. This could easily be why he’s been imprisoned here, of all places. The fact that he can’t cross bodies of water (without a boat, anyway) also gives us an answer to another long-standing question, although indirectly:
The Christian we saw in the cabin? Yes. The Christian we saw on the freighter, talking to Michael? No way. Because of the dark man’s aversion to water, this particular incarnation of Jack’s father had to have been someone (or something) else.But wait, there’s more. Think about the Christian Shephard we saw in the Oceanic Six timeline, where Jack saw him at the hospital. This is when the smoke detector went off, prompting everyone (me included) to think we were looking at the smoke monster. Could this have been the man in black taking Christian’s form? Not if we believe what the MIB tells us this episode.
It’s interesting how Flocke reaches out to touch Claire, just as she’s questioning his motives. Maybe his “I need you” speech isn’t enough – he needs to physically touch her in order to keep Claire on his team right now. It’s a good thing Richard, Ben, Kate, and now Sun have all refused the dark man’s hand when it was offered to them.
The Charles Widmore scenes told us a hell of a lot this episode. We learned that Widmore is indeed looking to stop the man in black, if not defeat him altogether. He’s on some sort of timetable, and although seizing Jin seemed to be part of his overall plan, it was a part he wasn’t yet ready for. He made the best of it though, and did a good job deflecting Jin’s angry questions by leading off with photos of Ji-Yeon. Cool scene. (25-40 by Vozzek69 from DarkUFO)
“Ab Aeterno” is the 9th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 112th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 23, 2010. Richard changes his allegiance before having an unexpected meeting. (Lostpedia.com)
I’m gathering that many of you interpreted this episode as concrete proof that Jacob is the good entity and the Man in Black is the evil one. I beg to differ. Both are capable of good and evil, of forgiveness and condemnation, of violence and mercy. And both manipulate others for their own ends. The “good” people are those who have the courage and determination to follow them, not because they believe Jacob and the Man in Black are gods, but in order to protect their loved ones.
And so we go back. Not ALL the way back – not to ancient Egypt – but back to the Canary Islands in 1867. As it turns out, the Canary Islands actually have a connection to ancient Egypt. It’s tenuous, but it’s there. The Canary Islands are named after ‘canaari’, which means, in Latin, “the ones who worship dogs.” Apparently, the indigenous people worshiped dogs as their gods. The other most famous dog-worshipers are in fact the ancient Egyptians, whose god of the afterlife, Anubis (pictured in the hieroglyphics under the Temple wall where Ben encounters the Smoke Monster), is associated with dogs. Historians don’t know whether the people of the Canary Islands were in contact with the Egyptians, though ancient Greek texts establish that the Greeks knew of them.
The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands were Roman Catholic in the 19th century, so Richard’s spirituality makes sense. While nearly all forms of Christianity (most all religions, probably) have significant views on hell, the Roman Catholic position on hell is different from other branches of Christianity in a few important ways. Most relevant here is that God’s forgiveness – which is what saves one’s soul from hell – needs to be granted through an intermediary. In many other Christian sects, a person is sent to heaven or hell based on what’s in their heart, on “faith alone”. But Roman Catholics, at least until recent times, had to be absolved by priests in order to have their sins cleansed, and absolution was granted only if the person was truly sorry and if they made up for their mistakes by doing good works.
Let’s do a little fact-checking here. As many of you pointed out in the comments on the episode poll, America wasn’t exactly “new” in the 1860s. However, that’s not conclusive enough for me to definitively rule out America as the Black Rock’s destination. I think it likely that Richard was referring to America when he mentioned wanting to start a family with Isabella in the “new world”. A huge number of people from the Canary Islands emigrated to South America during the mid-to-late 19th century, to places like Venezuela. With so many of his countrymen leaving, Richard could have easily wanted to go there
But I don’t know if Jonas Whitfield was referring to America when he mentioned the “new world”. It’s 1867, the Civil War has just ended and slavery is illegal in the United States. As for South America, it’s possible that varying degrees of indentured servitude were still taking place, so Hanso could have been heading there to sell his captives. I do want to mention another possibility, however. Australia is very much still a “new world” in the 1860s. Gold had been discovered in the 50s, and certain Australian colonies were experiencing gold rushes. I couldn’t find out whether Australia had indentured servitude at the time, but it was still partly a prison colony for the British, so it seems plausible to me that Hanso was headed to Australia to get rich working his slaves in the mines
This would of course also explain how the Black Rock crashed on an island we know to be in the middle of the Pacific (if you sailed from the Canary Islands to America, you wouldn’t cross the Pacific, but you would if your destination was Australia). This also links Richard’s journey, thematically speaking, to the Oceanic 815 survivors.
MIB confesses to being the Smoke Monster, confirms that the island is hell and says that the Devil has Richard’s wife. He presents Richard with a dagger and instructs him to go to the statue and kill him without letting him speak. These were of course the exact same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid in “Sundown”. It may have even been the same dagger. But unlike Dogen, it seemed that MIB thought, or at least hoped, that Richard had a chance at succeeding.
Since MIB seems to be a generally honest, though manipulative, entity, I’m not sure, “this is hell and Jacob is the Devil” was actually an outright lie. From MIB’s perspective, the island is hell. It’s his eternal prison. And Jacob, his prison keeper, is the Devil, a devil that has robbed MIB of his humanity and identity. This speech played right into the Esau and Jacob theories, as Esau stole Jacob’s birth right and inheritance by tricking him with a bowl of soup. “He can be very persuasive,” MIB warns. That’s certainly coming from someone who was once fooled by Jacob, and now regrets it.
Richard asks why Jacob doesn’t just tell them what to do himself. He’s a Catholic, remember, so he’s used to intermediaries assigning tasks. Jacob then invites Richard to become his intermediary, communicating instructions to future island inhabitants. Interestingly enough, Jacob rewards Richard by giving him something he almost certainly does not want – eternal life. This was totally a con: Jacob made Richard think that was what he wanted and tricked him into accepting it. Unwittingly, Richard promises to assist Jacob as a protector of the island.
In person, the Man in Black begs Jacob to just let him leave the island. Jacob retorts that as long as he lives, MIB will never leave. And Jacob is the good guy? He could be, but he could easily be the bad guy. Maybe Jacob loses his power if MIB leaves the island, and whereas MIB only wants to be free, Jacob is obsessed with the religion he has built up around himself, and must hold onto his power. If MIB is malevolence incarnate, as the pro-Jacob forces claim, how was he once human? He wasn’t always this way, then
As I’ve said before, I’m inclined to believe that Jacob and the Man in Black are simply different entities with some differing philosophies but many of the same operating procedures. Both are expert con men, both murder or allow murders to take place, both have lied to the people who were following them, etc. There are faith and science, destiny and free will questions built up around both of these characters. But good and evil? If anything, MIB is the more sympathetic one, based on the fragments of his history we’ve learned. And for that matter, Jacob’s philosophy seems flawed. He doesn’t want to tell people what to do, but telling Richard to tell people is almost exactly the same thing.
So where does all this leave us? We have Jacob. We have the Man in Black. Hopefully they’ll be getting their own centric episodes soon. Learning more about MIB’s childhood will likely shed some light on how we are supposed to interpret his character.
As for the deeply religious undertones in this episode, I don’t think the island is actually hell in the Catholic or religious sense. It’s a hell for those who want to leave, who have lost loved ones or suffered greatly during their time there. But it’s also a place where miracles happen, where people are given second chances, can be healed of their pains, both physical and otherwise, where scientific research can be conducted. Hell is a matter of interpretation. After all, in another tale named Lost – Paradise Lost, that is – John Milton’s Devil declares “Tis better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.”
I’ll end this recap with one final connection between Lost and the Canary Islands. Over the course of the Canary Islands’ history, people claimed to have seen a vanishing and reappearing eighth island. So there you go, the number 8, and a mysterious island. Oh, and the Canary Islands were the location of a famous plane crash in 1977, the year of the Incident in the Lost universe. Thanks to Lostpedia for the info. (1-14 from Robz888 at Darkufo)
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In addition to getting a story that revealed how Richard Alpert got to The Island, we got a story that revealed more of the historical relationship between Jacob and the Man In Black. Indeed, we got the sense that the battle these two angels/demons/whatchamacallums waged over Alpert’s soul was actually the first phase of Man In Black’s 240-years-in-the-making Smoke-man from Alcatraz escape plan. The episode used a corked, half-empty jug of wine as a metaphor for The Island as a never-to-be-opened holding container for hell and assorted analogous concepts: malevolence, evil, darkness, more. Jacob said all those words were functional words to characterize the archetype embodied by the Man In Black. (No doubt Smokey’s own interpretation of Jacob’s symbols would have been be more charitable and ”glass half full.”)
Father Black tipped off a fellow named Mr. Jonas Whitfield, an officer in the employ of Magnus Hanso, a shipping merchant and slave owner, that Ricardo was basically the kind of guy who’d do anything to stay alive — even suffer dehumanization. Ricardo got a new lease on life by accepting a leash, and he soon found himself in manacles and anklets in the bowels of Hanso’s ship: The Black Rock. According an apocryphal quasi-canon texts of Lost, Magnus Hanso was an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, the financier behind The Dharma Initiative. I encourage you to peruse his deets at Lostpedia at your leisure on another occasion.
(P.S.: I know many of you are wondering if Lost made a continuity error regarding the time of day of The Black Rock’s arrival. The error assumes that the ship that Jacob and the Man In Black saw last season during the sunny breakfast talk was The Black Rock. I was among those who assumed it was The Black Rock; I am now going to assume that I was simply wrong to have assumed that. See? Error resolved!)
As Ricardo chomped, MIB said some interesting things about himself. He claimed that ”the devil” had ”betrayed” him. ”He took my body. My humanity.” My guess is that hard-core theorists will spend the next week factoring that bit of info into their ”Who is Smokey?” conjectures. Some ideas I’m mulling over? Cain and Abel, the world’s first CSI murder case. Cain was punished to wander the world as an immortal entity because he murdered his brother. He was also given a dark mark to scare away anyone who’d want to do him harm. I’d dare say that Earth-bound immortality qualifies as a kind of body-nullifying, dehumanizing curse — and that being able to convert into black smoke and change shape can qualify as some kind of protective-spooky defensive mechanism. Abel’s final fate is more on-the-nose with Lost: Wikipedia cites an apocryphal Biblical text that says that Abel now resides in a ”netherworld,” an ”awful man” who is tasked with judging all creatures, and examining the righteous and the sinners.”
‘My friend, you and I can talk all day long about what is right and what is wrong but the question before you remains the same: Do you ever want to see your wife again?” His utilitarian logic is located in the broad, contentious body of thought known as ”Consequentialism.” As you might glean from MIB’s sentiment, a weaknesses of ”Consequentialism” is its shaky, nebulous definition of justice. A major egghead in this field? Jeremy Bentham, the name Charles Widmore gave John Locke before his death. He had at least one thing in common with MIB/Fake Locke: Bentham was an abolitionist.
He eyeballed the shadowy entrance to Jacob’s crypt-HQ, then got his ass kicked three different ways by the sunny blonde demigod, new and improved with action hero powers. He interrogated Ricardo with a mix of indignation and glibness that was both terrifying and funny. I loved the way he was framed against the blue sky, bright and elemental, a morning star. The Latin word for ”morning star”? That’s right: Lucifer. Which brings us to the semiotic cipher that is Mark Pellegrino. The actor is marvelous as Jacob. But Pellegrino also appears on Supernatural, playing… Lucifer
Interesting: MIB’s m.o. was all about helping people to their feet. Jacob’s m.o. was all about making people do it themselves. Physician, heal thyself!
Let us note two things. If Jacob really was some kind of God/Jesus figure, you’d think he would have been able to grant Ricardo’s first two requests. Moreover, Jacob’s rejection of Original Sin is provocative for anyone whose theory of a Christ-like Jacob has been informed by Christian theology, as many Christians do believe in Original Sin. Maybe Jacob-Jesus is trying to prove that spiritually renewed people can truly ”go and sin no more” (John 8:11)? Perhaps The Island isn’t a place where people are spiritually tested, but rather where religions are tested for relevancy and truthfulness. Jacob and Smokey are basically quality control experts — Inspectors 1 and 2 — of Fruit of the Loom holy underwear. And right now, Christianity’s up.
Put another way: Hurley and Richard basically switched roles last night, with Hurley playing Island advisor and Richard playing castaway spiritual seeker. Isabella asked Ricardo why he had buried her cross — her soul; her love; his compass. It was a gentle indictment of Ricardo’s misplaced values — of finding treasure in the material, not spiritual, in what he can hold in the moment, not carry forever in his heart.
But the rest Ricardo either heard or felt: ”As much as you wanted to save me, it was my time. You’ve suffered enough.” He replied: ”I’ve missed you. I would do anything for us to be together again.” She said, ”My love. We are already together.” Translation: It’s what Michael Landon said in that Little House on the Prairie clip from last week: It’s about ”knowin’ that people aren’t really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see ‘em again.” Alpert’s real life namesake, Hindu guru Richard Alpert/Ram Dass, advocates the idea that everything is suffused spirit. With an assist from Hurley, Ricardo/Richard finally earned the eyes to see that, and to recognize that we can let go of Hell and move into Heaven whenever we want. What Ricardo/Richard got was huge whollop of ”Amazing Grace,” the hymn written by a former slaver during a harrowing night at sea: ”Amazing grace/how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me/I once was lost/but now am found/was blind but now I see.”?
Nonetheless, I’m not sold on MIB being ”bad” and Jacob being ”good.” Neither sold me as wholly trustworthy last night — which is fitting. My other big theory of late has been that each episode of Lost this year has been linked to one of The Ten Commandments. This was the 9th hour, so we should have gotten the 9th Commandment, and we did: Do not bare false witness against your neighbor. Translation: Don’t lie; don’t break a promise. I’m willing to cede that Jacob did right by Richard, fulfilling his promise of giving him purpose and clarity over the course of the episode. But I’m not sure he was telling us the truth about his wine bottle. I accept The Cork. The Cork makes sense. But I wonder if Jacob is wrong about the wine. I get the sense that Jacob isn’t keen on death. His only super-power is the one that Satan has: Fall into his clutches, and he gets to keep you forever. I’m not saying he’s evil. But I am saying that in so many heroic stories, the real, necessary reality of death is often mistaken for evil. So what if the wine in Jacob’s bottle = all the souls that have come to The Island and lost the wager with Smokey? What if all those souls are trapped on The Island because Jacob refuses to let them go? In fact, what if the terms of the wager are akin to one of those Old Testament bets that God would make with his prophets, whereby a while wicked city can be saved if one ”good soul” can be found? Maybe Jacob has been holding onto all those souls who’ve lost the wager because he’s holding out to find that one good man that can give them all a second chance at life? And maybe Smokey thinks that’s fundamentally wrong or unnatural, which is why he’s so desperate to just end this whole damn redemption game, so everyone can move on to whatever afterlife they deserve — including himself. Breaking the bottle doesn’t release a toxic cloud of evil — it just sets the prisoners of Jacob’s purgatory free. (15-25 by Doc Jensen at EW.com)
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After his brief conversation with Richard on the beach, it seemed like Jacob learned something important: that the very act of illumination or explanation might be influencing the decisions his subjects make. Direct interference has been inadvertently corrupting the point he’s been trying to make, marking the whole experiment null and void. This may be why everyone else is dead, and nothing has so far has worked to prove the dark man wrong.Want to go a step further? Richard’s own conversation with him is what exactly made Jacob realize the need for an impartial go-between. Jacob creates Richard’s job because, after realizing Richard’s point, he recognizes the necessity of giving orders without handing out answers. Alpert essentially creates his own position. In that respect, Richard becomes the cause of his own suffering. He wanders the island for the next 150 years as an ancient adviser with very little real knowledge to share, he himself nothing more than a middle man kept in the dark about most things
So no, I don’t think everyone is dead. I don’t think everyone’s in hell. I will however, say this: the way Richard looked specifically at Jack when he said “You’re dead”? I happen to think that was tremendously important. If anyone did die during the plane crash, maybe it was Jack. Maybe that’s why he woke up so far removed from 815′s wreckage. Maybe that’s also why his tattoo says “He walks among us (i.e. ‘the living’), but is not one of us”. Maybe that’s what Achara saw in him back in Thailand that scared the shit out of her. So maybe, just maybe, when Richard said that Jack is dead, he hit the nail right on the head… without even really knowing it.
And if Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, maybe the dark man caused the wreck. Perhaps he’s even responsible for the storm, too. We already know the MIB protests new people being brought to the island, so it would make sense that he’d try to sink or destroy the ship. In a vengeful way, it even makes sense that he’d ram the prow of the Black Rock right into Jacob’s statue… almost as if saying “You want it? HERE!” and shoving the vessel down Jacob’s throat. These two characters definitely revel in sending messages to each other, as indicated later on when Richard brings the dark man a white rock on Jacob’s behalf.
One cool thing we get confirmation on: the dark man can manifest himself based upon other people’s memories. We’ve seen hints that this was possible during The Cost of Living, when he appeared as ghosts of the drug dealers Mr. Eko had killed with his machete. Up until that point we’d only seen the dark man use physical bodies he’d accessed while on the island: Christian Shephard, Yemi, and later on Alex. But just as he plucked those ghosts from Eko’s past after scanning him, the dark man was able to take Isabella’s form after scanning Richard. His abilities to take the shape of people are limited only to what he knows and sees.
It was also cool to see Dogen’s dagger again. Apparently it works the same on Jacob as it does on the MIB, which is yet another nod toward the theory that these characters are nothing but two halves of one whole being. Jacob got the name, identity, and original human form… the dark man got the kickass smoke powers and ability to manifest himself as other people. They’re as opposite as black and white can get, yet still cut from the same mold.
This would seem to go against Jacob’s assertion that progress is being made. On the contrary however, Jacob is actively seeking to prove his point. He flat out explains LOST’s most basic principal as his own philosophy: people need to do good or bad by their own choice. If he has to interfere or influence them in any way, his point is disproved and therefore meaningless. Over and over he’s tried, and over and over he’s failed, ending in the deaths of all those people he’s brought to the island.
It’s here that Richard points out the flaw in Jacob’s logic: just because he’s not influencing the people who come to the island, it doesn’t mean the dark man isn’t corrupting them himself. If you watch as Jacob first encounters Richard he actually seems frustrated that he’s already been reached, or even touched, by the man in black. At this point Jacob realizes the need to protect his subjects from such outside influence, and that’s where Richard’s job as adviser comes in. Through the use of obscure lists and direction, Jacob’s people can help those who arrive on the island’s shores make their own choices without directly interfering in those choices themselves. That, in essence, is the crux of LOST
Make no mistake about it: Richard was seconds away from joining team Flocke. Hugo arrived in the nick of time to turn Richard around, preventing the dark man from gaining a valuable recruit. The biggest question however, becomes this: did we really see Isabella speaking to her husband? Or did we see Jacob’s own version of Isabella, strategically placed there to sway Richard back to his own team?
Just as the Swan hatch acted as a cork for unlimited magnetic energies, the island acts as a cork to keep corruption and wickedness at bay. This explains why Ms. Hawking (and probably Charles Widmore) understand the gloomy ramifications should the island fail to contain this wellspring of darkness. In fact, it might even explain Widmore’s return to the island: he’s always fancied himself as Jacob’s replacement. I could totally see Widmore’s fanatical devotion lending him a sense of entitlement to Jacob’s position, with the very desire for that power corrupting him and disqualifying him from assuming the role. All other explanations for Widmore’s motives don’t seem to make any sense, at least not right now. (26-34 by Vozzek69 at DarkUFO)
“Recon” is the 8th episode of Season 6 of Lost and the 111th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 16, 2010. The Man in Black tasks Sawyer with a mission. (Lostpedia.com)
Ok, I’m going to start this post a little differently! I found this video recapping last night’s episode, and it is hilarious!
Now, on to our regular analysis!
We’ve actually seen Mr. Ford working with police before. There were his Dharma days as Head of Security, of course. But, also, remember his flashback in Every Man for Himself? That situation was somewhat similar to this one – he was conning on behalf of the police. This time, of course, he IS the police. The woman remarks that he is a lousy con man, but man is she wrong. Though Lost has offered up no shortage of con men, Sawyer is without a doubt the best, as Flocke points out later in the episode.
Back at the station, Miles informs Sawyer that he’s going on a date with a “friend of mine – works with my dad at the museum.” I actually missed this upon my first viewing, but it’s pretty key. It would make sense for Pierre Chang and Charlotte to work together at a museum. We know based on what Roger told us in “Dr. Linus” that in the ATL, the Dharma Initiative and the island still existed at some point. If Roger and Ben were there, most of the rest of the Dharma crowd probably was, too. Chang was probably friends with Charlotte’s parents, and it would make sense for them to work together, and for Miles to know her (them both being Dharma babies and all).
This of course means that Miles was indeed born on the island in the ATL. Since we’ve never discovered how exactly Miles gained his power, my best guess is that it’s the result of some funky island electromagnetism. Since he wasn’t actually on the island for very long in the MTL, maybe whatever caused his powers happened very near his birth, or was even passed onto him at birth or conception from one or both of his parents being exposed to electromagnetism. This leads me to believe that Miles will still talk to dead people in this reality.
One more word on Miles – he mentions that he has a girlfriend. Want to guess who? Since it basically has to be someone we know, there are only a couple good guesses. It can’t be Kate, Claire or Sun, Shannon is still in Australia, if Libby shows up she’ll be with Hurley, Danielle is too old, Alex too young, Juliet will end up with Sawyer (getting coffee) if she appears at all, and we know it’s not Charlotte. You know who that leaves? Ana Lucia! Come on, that makes sense! She’s an LA cop, her bad attitude can match Miles… they’d be perfect for each other. I’m not spoiled or anything, this is just a guess. But really, who else could it be? (Second best option – Juliet’s sister, Rachel Carlson, as a way of introducing Sawyer to Juliet in the ATL).
The fact that he never wrote the letter might mean that Jacob never existed in this reality (or died much earlier). It was, after all, Jacob who pushed him to finish it after his uncle warned him not to. Jacob pushed James down the path of obsessive vengeance, of becoming a con man rather than a law man. Are we seeing a world without Jacob? A world where our characters are free to live their own lives without this meddlesome entity and his damned island? I must say, Jacob isn’t exactly looking like the good guy at this point (I actually don’t think Jacob or the Man in Black are all good or all bad, but I’ll discuss that in the Flocke section).
The fact that Anthony Cooper is still responsible for the deaths of Sawyer’s parents in the ATL raises some interesting questions, because it appears inconsistent with other information we have on Anthony Cooper. John Locke seemed to be on good terms with his father in “The Substitute” – he had a picture of them together on his desk and Helen mentioned that Cooper was invited to the wedding.
My honest guess – and that’s all this is – is that Cooper did cause Mr. Ford to kill Mrs. Ford, but he later came to feel bad about it/his con man ways. I’m also going to bet that Sawyer meets him, finds him to be apologetic, and forgives him. Wouldn’t that be a fitting way for ATL Saywer to find redemption
Flocke, however, is a much more effective leader than John Locke, because he knows when to be soft and he knows when to punch people in the face. After Sawyer raises his voice, Flocke privately scolds him and then says, “I forgive you.” This struck me as something a very powerful, important person would do. Flocke is kind of like a mob boss, isn’t he? He offers his protection to some people, he wipes out others.
Do we believe him, at this point? I myself have gone back and forth. After “The Substitute” I wrote extensively on the parallels between Flocke and Walter, the villain of Stephen King’s books, noting Walter’s use of rationality while simultaneously being full of deceit and evil. But last week, I changed my tune and discussed the notion that Jacob and MIB are not good and evil, they are merely personifications of faith vs. science and destiny vs. free will, previously identified by Jack vs. John. Now Jack is a man of faith and destiny, and John is dead, his body inhabited by a seemingly logical, free will-supporting entity.
Later, as Kate attempts a frustratingly difficult conversation with Zombie Sayid, Claire tackles her and attempts to stab her as Sayid watches, doing nothing. But Flocke comes to the rescue and even hits Claire in the face. Eventually, he apologizes to Kate and confesses to confusing Claire with his “the Others have your baby” nonsense. He was only trying to give her a sense of purpose. “Have you ever had an enemy?” he asks. “Someone that you needed to hate? Very powerful, isn’t?” We know of course that Flocke’s hatred for Jacob may very well have been his motivation for many of his actions. Perhaps it was the thing that kept him going when he was a prisoner for possibly years or decades or centuries.
We soon learn that Jacob may not be the only person whom the Man in Black hated. In what was undoubtedly the biggest reveal of the episode, Flocke tells Kate that he had a mother who was crazy. The craziest thing, though, is the way he tells it – with extreme hesitation/uncertainty. He struggled to form his sentences, and could only say that his mother was crazy, it caused him “growing pains”, and things could have been different. I can draw 3 different conclusions.
1) He struggles to tell the story because he’s making it up on the spot. So far there have been several cases where we’re not sure whether he’s telling somebody the truth or simply what they’d like to hear. This might have simply been an on-the-spot attempt to recruit Kate. Even so, I don’t like this explanation, because Flocke seems fairly bright. He may have been trying to recruit Kate, but I’d expect him to rehearse his story first.
2) He struggles to tell the story because it’s true, and it’s painful for him. This is highly plausible. If you believe the Jacob and Esau Biblical connection, there should be a mother named Rebekah. Rebekah preferred Jacob whereas the father, Isaac, preferred Esau. But thanks to the machinations of Jacob and Rebekah, Esau was cheated out of his inheritance. If MIB is supposed to be Esau, he might very well think his mother was crazy. This could also account for a host of other things, including the inability of women to survive childbirth on the island. Perhaps Esau took revenge against all mothers in his domain by initiating such a curse (by toppling the Statue of Tawaret, maybe?)
3) He struggles to tell the story because he’s reaching into his subconscious and stealing it from John. John, after all, had a crazy mother who made his life difficult. While I think the parallel exists regardless, Flocke seemed to be taking on more and more of John’s better traits this episode. I still hold the view that the real John might be buried in his subconscious somewhere, available to be mined for information and mannerisms. How else could Flocke know what John was thinking when he died?
Anyway, I couldn’t help but wonder why Widmore was still in the sub. I think it’s possible that he can’t set foot on the island yet. Perhaps he needs MIB contained in order to do that, or something (his team is setting up a sonic fence-like border). Also, what do you think is in the locked compartment on the sub? Yeah, I’m rooting for it to be Desmond, but doesn’t some sort of explosive seem more likely, given the history of things that Widmore brings to the island? But if it were Desmond, that would be awesome.
But you know what? They might still have been working together. Sure, Sawyer seems like Lost’s greatest con man, but Flocke might be better. What if he is working with Widmore, and this whole reconnaissance mission was only Flocke’s test to see if Sawyer was loyal to him? This could be why Widmore almost seemed to be expecting Sawyer. Flocke could have told him – after murdering the Ajira folk – that he was going to send Sawyer over. “Tell him you want to kill me,” Flocke may have said, “and see how he reacts.” The pylons could have been part of the con to convince Sawyer of false enmity between MIB and Widmore.
Also, think about “Dr. Linus”. Remember when Flocke told Ben to head to the Hydra Station? Well, he told his group that they might not leave their present camp for a couple days, whereas he told Ben to ditch (and kill) Ilana and head for the Hydra right then and now. If Ben had shot Ilana and made his way to the Hydra, he would have fallen right into Charles Widmore’s clutches. Since I’m guessing that killing Ben might still be Widmore’s top priority, Flocke may have agreed to deliver Ben to him in exchange for help. (1-14 by Robz888 at Darkufo.com)
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This ”set-up” episode was all about set-ups, from its opening sequence fake-out that seemed to present Sideways James Ford as every bit the slutty, soul-numbed vengeance-questing criminal as his Island iteration, but then revealed himself to be a… slutty, soul-numbed vengeance-questing cop. No doubt the happy sunflower glory days of his previous life as Dharma Initiative security chief had prepared him for the gig. But alas, there was no Juliet in this sad sunflower’s life, and we were made to ponder if that made all the difference
And you know what, kids? I think I do know. Because it seemed to me that Fake Locke was pulling another con, too, one that may have revealed his true character. The episode was called ”Recon,” which itself was a con. We were clearly supposed to assume it was short for ”reconnaissance mission.” But ”Recon” was also a pun for ”Re-con” — as in ”a previously executed con, done again.” The story flicked at all of Sawyer’s classic con man stories, from ”Confidence Man” to ”LaFleur.” I think FrankenLocke picked one of those scams to repeat anew — and I think I’m pretty creeped out by the implications.
Regardless, my guess is that Sideways Ford will get a chance to prove his moral metal when he finally tracks down Sideways Anthony Cooper at… Sideways John Locke’s wedding.
But thinking through ”Recon,” I realized that looking at the forest was more valuable than examining the trees. This was a story about an authority figure — a lawman — who was working the system and abusing his position with it to pursue a self-serving, possibly evil agenda. I hope that sounds like the Man In Black to you, because it sure does to me. Until the events of ”The Incident,” what role did he serve on the Island? Rousseau: ”Security system.” Eko and Ben: Judge.
Like Detective Ford’s botched ”Pigeon Drop” sting, when Ford told the grifter woman that the cops wanted her husband, not her. The woman was a dead ringer for Charlotte Lewis, who during her brief time on Lost was romantically linked with… Daniel Faraday. Then there was time on the clock: 8:42. Back in ”The Substitute,” we learned that 8 = Hurley Reyes and 42 = Kwon, which could either be Jin or Sun. Interesting that as of last night’s episode, Hurley and the Kwons were the only Jacob candidates who have not gotten a Sideways episode yet. BTW: Jin is the only husband on the show — even if his wedding ring is currently in Sun’s pocket.
Sawyer fetched refreshment, while Charlotte searched for a T-shirt. Clever Lost. Charlotte: archeologist. What do archaeologists do? Dig up the past. What does Indiana Jonesette find buried in Ford’s sock drawer? The ruins of past. The ”Sawyer” folder, plus the wrinkled family photo. Together, a complex symbol of… the Law, broken justice, judgment/vengeance (Raiders); stolen childhood (Temple of Doom); a dark knight grail quest (The Last Crusade); a dream of family reunion that violence and ”answers” will never fulfill (Crystal Skull). We’ve seen Charlotte dig one other time on Lost — the season 4 episode ”Confirmed Dead,” in which she found a polar bear skeleton and a Hydra Station collar in the sands of Tunisia. And what happened later in ”Recon”? Island Sawyer went to Hydra Island, returned to the polar bear cage where he had been held captive, found Kate’s dress, and recalled their intimacy — a pivotal turning point in his heroic journey on Lost.
My theory that the 18 hours of Lost 6.0 are analogous to the long weekend of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is holding. ”Recon” — which took place the day after ”Sundown”/Good Friday — conformed to the part of the Easter story known as The Harrowing of Hell, wherein Christ descended into the underworld. Some traditions say Jesus confronted Satan; others say he liberated captives, especially prophets, leaders, and ”holy fathers” of the faith whom God had exiled to Hades because of Original Sin. The word ”harrowing” comes from a Greek word pertaining to a military mission — you know, like a ”recon.” The ”Hydra” in Hydra Island pertains to a six-headed female snake demon that guards the entrance of Hades. And what did we spy on Hydra Island last night? Cages. Dead people. And the former ”holy father”/chief prophet/leader of The Others, the exiled Charles Widmore.
I’d also use Abominable Faux Bunny as one more proof that Fake Locke really is some kind rotten apple, because he surely must have indulged this f’d up fantasy. I appeal again to The Great Divorce, which gives us a scene where a mother is denied entrance into heaven because she has no desire for God or truthful living. For her, belief in ”God” is just the means to an end — to be reunited with her young son, who had died 10 years before. Her idolatrous relationship to the memory of her boy is such that she never packed away his old room and refused to move out of the house, despite the wishes of her husband and daughter. She is told that her morbid fixations are ”the wrong way to deal with sorrow.” The mother snaps: ”You are heartless. Everyone is pitiless. The past was all I had.” This is why the Anti-Locke is the Anti-Christ: He keeps the castaways shackled to the past, to their demons, to their infernal affairs; he’s using the castaways as means to an end. And worst of all: it appears he sincerely thinks he’s doing right by them.
Almost immediately upon arriving on Hydra Island, Sawyer found himself at the polar bear cages where he had once dined on fish biscuits, received a brutal beat down by Ben, and got busy with Kate. The sight of the cages knotted his guts. He found Kate’s dress — the one that Ben made her wear to breakfast with him on the beach. Sawyer picked up the dress. He felt the dress. Memories surely must have flooded his mind. What did this moment mean for Sawyer? The pessimist might say: heartbreak, pain, despair, damnation. The optimist might say: renewal; resurrection; reconstitution. The affair of the polar bear cage was a turning point for Sawyer. This wasn’t miserable-con-man sex. This was heart-full-of-love sex! Maybe it didn’t mean much to Kate. But it definitely meant something to him. He loved her. He wanted her to love him. He chased after her. She would never have said ”I do.” Still, he sacrificed himself for her, and when he thought she had died, he was heartbroken… but he grieved the loss
Then, the Hydraville Massacre. Sawyer followed a swath of trail formed by the drag of dead bodies to a pile of corpses hidden in the underbrush. Insects swarmed. He gagged, nauseated. Who killed these people? My chief suspect is Smokey. He’s demonstrated a proclivity for mass murder; see: the Temple. His motive? Among many options, including some kind of vampiric binge on human souls for some kind of demonic power-boost? I think Smokey killed these folks just so Sawyer would find them. Just like Ben wanted Jack to watch Kate and Sawyer hump in the cage to break and control him, I think Smokey wanted Sawyer to see the pile of death to better manage the threat Sawyer represents. The message Smokey was trying to impart: Don’t f— with me. You know Kate? You know your friends? You know all those people I took out of the Temple, including those little kids? I’ll kill ‘em. Especially the kids. I’ll kill ‘em all if you get in my way. And we are reminded: Thou shall not steal. And we remember why bad men kidnap kids: extortion.
We were left to wonder what exactly Kate was supposed to make of that story, and what she actually took away from it. To me, it sounded like FLocke was trying to convince Kate that Claire was an unfit mother. To me, it sounded like he wanted Kate to move off the dream of reuniting Clair and Aaron. To me, it sounded like he wanted Kate to think about saving Aaron from Claire lest he become a scary super-monster like FLocke. To me, it sounded like FLocke was… setting Kate up to murder Claire
Not the Daniel Faraday who was shot and killed by his crazy mother in 1977. And not the fetal Daniel Faraday who was growing inside his pregnant mother when she shot and killed adult Daniel Faraday back in 1977. I’m saying: It’s a freaky fusion of both, a disembodied mutant hybrid soul, essentially left behind on the Island as a consequence of the Jughead time reboot that also rebooted pregnant Eloise Hawking. It’s possible that this entity may have been grafted onto an eternal supernatural being that has lived on the Island performing some great spiritual function that it has now tired of. Or it could just be a feral supernatural force that’s been left to develop and grow haphazardly on its own, possessed by the dream of one day becoming a real human being again. Either way, Smokey Faraday is all kinds of wrong — and I think that’s why his father, Charles Widmore, has come to the Island. To take responsibility for his own Abominable Faux Son, and put it/him out of its/his misery. What does Charles have locked up in his submarine? A secret weapon. A weapon more powerful than the dream of vengeance that possessed Sawyer and Claire for so long: It’s the toxic brew of guilt and love, damnation and redemption. Her name was Theresa Spencer. She’s the woman that Daniel Faraday once loved, but whose mind he broke as a result of his time travel experiments that his psycho mom spurred him toward, a woman that Charles Widmore kept alive on his own dime for years, just so he could use her for this very moment. (15-26 by Doc Jensen at EW.com)
That’s it for today boys and girls. Next weeks episode looks amazing! Finally, we learn Richard Alpert’s back story!
The sun is shining brightly and the wind is blowing coolly, so today is a perfect day to work outside. That makes today a pretty good day.
I was able to attend Nathan’s last basketball game and see him crash the boards mightily (get rebounds for all you non-basketball people). That made today really, really good.
Today is also the last day of the mega-all-consuming overtime that has literally ruled my life for the last 5 months!! Tomorrow is my first day off in a month! That makes today a great day!
Dave Ramsey was right. If you live like nobody else, then you can finally live like no one else! All that overtime went to paying off quite a bit of debt I’ve accumulated over the years. Probably since I had my first credit card at 17. I’m sure I’ll post a blog entry about getting out of debt at a later date.
I just want to say a huge thank you to my wife for holding down the family fort all this time. I think your work was harder than mine!
“Dr. Linus” is the 7th episode of Season 6 of Lost and the 110th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 9, 2010. Ben and Ilana deal with the consequences of an uncovered lie. Meanwhile, Jack and Hurleystumble across Richard in the jungle. (from Lostpedia.com)
In ”Dr. Linus,” Ben Linus was exposed as a soul who only has himself to blame for his woe-is-me bad self, whose corrupt nature is an accumulation of freely made choices. Which also means that Ben is also fully capable of resisting evil and selecting virtue, as well. His Sideways story was the proof. We were presented with a new version of Ben that was a truly decent man — a smart, idealistic teacher who cared for his students; a devoted son who cared for his ailing father, Roger Linus — but also one who yearned for a grander station in life
But then Ben made another choice: He bared his soul. He told the truth about killing Jacob, shared his rage over feeling betrayed by his Island god andhis shame for choosing Island power over his daughter, and then offered this heartbreaking explanation for why he was joining Mr. Evil Incarnate (Allegedly): ”Because he’s the only one that will have me!” Then Ilana did something that left Ben gobsmacked: She forgave him. ”I’ll have you,” she said, and walked away. Ben shuffled after her, as if sucked in by the undertow of her grace. He came to the outskirts of the Beach camp, then stopped and considered his options. Stay and serve in this humble little patch of heaven, or join Devil Locke and coldly play for a shot at living the ”Vida La Vida” once again. You always have a choice. This time, Ben made the right one — fulfilling, perhaps, Jacob’s dying thought hope that Ben had the capacity for change
Sideways Roger presented himself as a sad old soul who viewed his son as an underachieving talent but only blamed his own bad parenting choices for Ben’s fate. An improvement over Island world Roger? Yes. But I was left to wonder what it must have been like for Sideways Ben to grow up burdened by his father’s ambition for him. Regardless, we saw the result: Ben the Overeducated, Overqualified High School Teacher, dogged by enough feelings of inadequacy to deem himself a loser. I got the sense Ben saw his father clearly — clearly enough to feel a little resentment, but not so much that he hated him, or, like, wanted to drive him out into the jungle and gas him to death. In a clever flick at ”The Man Behind The Curtain,” we got a scene where the Good Son changed his ailing father’s oxygen tank and doted on his comfort. Bottom line: Sideways Ben was more like Florence Nightingale, less like Heinrich Himmler.
Categories: Sideways Island Sinkage; Parallel World Historical Discrepancies. Analysis: Until last night, it had been safe to assume that both the Island and Sideways worlds shared the same history until 1977, which is when the time-traveling castaways detonated Jughead. But the Linus men of the Sideways world blew up that thinking. I took the story to mean that Sideways Roger and Ben left the Island prior to its sinking. But Island Roger and Ben were still on the Island when Juliet banged the bomb. Implication: If the two worlds share a common history, the fork in the road is sometime before 1977. Rebooted Theory: The divergence begins on that fateful night when some phantom stranger struck John Locke’s teenage mother, causing her to give birth three months early. That phantom stranger? I’m saying it’s Charles Widmore.
We got a reference to Napoleon in exile on Elba, neutered by the loss of his power. Island Ben would later link himself to the reference. But CharlesWidmore and Smokey also fit into Napoleon’s pantaloons. After all, Napoleon ultimately escaped from his Island prison and reclaimed France (if only for 100 days) — and both Widmore and Smokey are exiles wanting to get back to their respective kingdoms/homes. (Something to also think about: after Napoleon got booted out of power again, he was exiled to another, less desirable island, Saint Helena, where he would die of stomach cancer/ulcer/poisoning. Foreshadowing for Smokey or Widmore’s final fate?) (I’m telling you, that knife Sayid stabbed Smokey with last week? Dogen poisoned it.) (And didn’t Alex last night mention she was nursing a stomach ache while the principal and the nurse were… you know… ”doing it”?) Dr. Linus also spoke of the East India Trading Company, the powerful British business entity that was established to execute trade with India, but wound up ruling much of it. And we recall that Ben has long alleged that all Widmore wants to do is exploit the Island for his material gain… although I personally suspect what Widmore wants most the Island is to use it to cheat death.
Ben’s Sideways story mirrored his entire Island arc and even suggested many possibilities for the entire saga. You might even say Ben’s parallel world yarn works as a theory of Lost
Shortly after Rousseau had finished off the rest of her fellow French scientists and given birth to Baby Alex, Chief Executive Other Widmore ordered Ben to ”exterminate” both of them from the Island. He coldly dismissed baby Alex as an ”it,” as if she were an animal that would just be a drain on Island resources that needed to be devoted elsewhere. Yep: definitely sounds like a guy that ain’t about ”taking care of the kids.” So Ben balked. He couldn’t bring himself to murder. Ben clearly had developed a different vision for how the Others should be managing the Island and living their lives. Widmore dismissed Ben’s ”idealism” as sentimental and self-serving — about him needing to feel needed. But he didn’t stop Ben from taking on the project of raising Alex alone. Ben’s victory inspired him to dream bigger. And when he uncovered the truth about Widmore’s off-Island slick willying, he staged his coup and forced him into exile. He also moved the nomadic Others out of the wild and into Dharmaville. But Ben’s dream of settling down and playing house — modifying Others culture in such a way to service and fulfill his own desires and needs — was surely antithetical to the Others’ true purpose, and was most likely what earned the Others’ their baby-making curse from the Island/Jacob. Richard Alpert said as much when he encouraged Locke to make a play for Ben’s job. ”Ben has been wasting our time with novelties like fertility problems,” Richard said. ”We’re looking for someone to remind us that we’re here for more important reasons.”
While Ben and Arzt ate lunch and griped about Reynolds, it was the Substitute who spoke up and encouraged Ben to act on his dissatisfaction. ”Maybe you should be principal. It just sounds like you care about this place,” Locke said. ”And if the man in charge doesn’t, then maybe it’s time for a change.” When Ben wondered who, if anyone, would listen to someone like him, Locke raised his hand and flashed either his warm smile or mischievous, baiting one. ”I’m listening,” he said. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING! I have no doubt the burning question that’ll be making the rounds in the Lost fan culture is going to be this: Is Sideways Locke actually… THE MAN IN BLACK/SMOKEY/FAKE LOCKE…
Throughout his Others reign, Ben insisted he was hearing the voice of Jacob and heeding his will. He justified everything by putting it all on his Island god. But the time has come to begin wondering how attuned to Jacob that Ben has been — if he’s been attuned to him at all. In our real world, there are those who claim to know God and hear God’s voice in their lives, but they could be wrong. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a God, just that God ain’t talking to them. I suspect Ben is one of those people. ”What about you?” Jacob asked Ben last season. It sounded so dismissive. But Jacob could have also been challenging Ben on his self-deception, or basically saying, ”I’m sorry. Do I know you?” Ben’s either been faking his rapport with Jacob, or (and this is my theory) the supernatural entity that’s been speaking to him all along has been the Man In Black. Ben thought he was serving Jacob the Christ, but he was most likely the victim of a long con perpetrated by a snake oil-selling false messiah, Smokenstein the Anti-Christ, who was just using Ben in his master plan to escape the Island and live anew as a man in a separate reality, one with no Island and no Jacob to trap him: the Sideways world.
She called Jacob the closest thing she ever had to a father. Which means only one thing for certain: Jacob wasn’t her real father. He could have been her father in the God sense of father — a supernatural entity responsible for her existence and purpose. Maybe it’s more of a Godfather thing; she could beJacob’s consigliore (like Tom Hagen, a Ben-esque stray/outsider taken off the street and groomed into a top assistant), maybe his Luca Brasi. We have a few missing years on the Island — the three years between when the castaways began time traveling (late 2004/early 2005) and 2007. We also know that Ilana spent some time in the hospital with bandages wrapped around her face and Jacob visited her and tasked her anew with a mission. How did she get injured? I’m guessing she was on the Island during those missing three years fighting a battle that went badly, possible trying to keep Smokey bottled up. She is now charged with protecting the candidates to replace Jacob. Don’t ask her what it means: she doesn’t know or isn’t telling us. She was asked how many were left, she said six. Was she counting John Locke? Fake Locke? Jin and Sun twice?
While Ilana brooded and nibbled on mangoes, Fake Locke appeared to Ben and made him one of his Faustian offers: future management of the Island. I couldn’t tell if Smokey was being sincere; this promise would be the easiest to keep, but I was kinda getting the sense — or maybe just making the assumption — that the Monster had no desire to see the Island continue existing. Fake Locke’s screen time here was about equal to the amount of time Sideways Locke got with Sideways Ben. He also presented to Ben as a sympathetic, supportive ally. Ben’s survival instinct — and Somebody Wants Me!! instinct — kicked in. He ran to where Smocke had said he’d find a rifle. He got the drop on Ilana, but instead of shooting her, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to explain himself — as if realizing for the first time what he really wanted: to be known, understood, and not rejected, even though he was about to reveal his ugliest inner bits. His confession was part self-laceration, part rage against the Jacob/Island machine: ”I watched my daughter Alex die in front of me and it was my fault. I had a chance to save her. I chose the Island over her. All in the name of Jacob. I sacrificed everything for him, and he didn’t even care. I stabbed him. I was so angry. Confused. I was terrified I was about to lose the only thing that ever happened to me, my power. But the thing that really mattered was already gone. …I can never forgive myself.”
Saved, the once-lost, now-found wretch made the first of two heroic choices that represent the proper response to such a gift. The first: renouncing evil. Ben became the first person this season to turn down a FrankenLocke bargain. That’s going to have consequences. The second: sacrifice. He entered the beach camp and offered Sun his help putting up the tarp, just as his Sideways version would have easily, effortlessly offered assistance to one of his students.
It was hard to hear the line and not think Lost was saying something about its two-track, parallel world structure. Then Richard showed up and offered a third path. Jack followed. When Hurley asked if Richard could be trusted, Jack said, ”At least he’s not stallin’.” It was another wink at the audience in an episode full of them. Combined with the line about Napoleon’s Elba being the place where ”everything became clear,” I wondered if Lost was addressing anyone griping about the pace of ”answers” and saying, Don’t worry. Trust us. Okay?
Ironically, then, Richard’s path ended with… a lie. He took them to the Black Rock, which was not where he said was taking them, although it was where we’ve been wanting Alpert to go for a couple years now as we’ve wondered if the ageless Others came to the Island via the slave ship. (Another reading of Richard’s third way as a metaphor for Lost’s storytelling: We won’t lead you astray, but we’re not going the way you expect. We’ll be doing this ”answer” thing our way. ‘Kay?)
But I remain suspicious of Jack. When we last saw him, he was furious over the Lighthouse revelations. Now, after a long gaze out over the beach, it seemed Jack had thought over a few things and was totally activated to chase after all of the Island’s magic white rabbits — whether they look like his father or wear eyeliner — and see where they lead. Does Jack want to know Jacob’s purpose so he can faithfully fulfill it… or so he can angrily subvert it? He crackles with so much crazy mania, it’s hard to know if he’s a true believer or a great deceiver. Is it possible the title of the episode hints at an even more provocative possibility: that Ben, a.k.a. ”Dr. Linus,” has replaced Dr. Shephard as the story’s hero, while Jack has replaced Ben as its villain? Consider that sentimental slow-mo reunion sequence that ended the episode. We saw everyone in their huts and tents — including Miles, inspecting the diamonds he purloined from Nikki and Paulo’s grave (all $8 million of it? No going dutch on coffee with him!) — as Jack, Hurley and Richard approached. This moment was staged to deliberately echo the scene from the season 3 episode ”One Of Us,” when Jack, Kate, and Sayid returned from New Otherton, bringing Juliet with them. When the beach crew saw her, the happy-huggy moment abruptly ended, and everyone gave her the stink-eye (especially, ironically, Sawyer) — just like Jack and Ben traded suspicious looks in last night’s episode. We learned at the very end of ”One Of Us” that newbie Juliet was indeed shady; she had been sent by Ben to spy on the camp. (The moment was mirrored, I think, by having ”Dr. Linus” end with Widmore’s submarine spying on the castaways.)
Why might Jack be so angry? Oh, I don’t know. The same reason Sally Brown was so angry after spending all night in a pumpkin patch with Linus Van Pelt waiting for transcendent revelation to arrive. This Island thing — Jacob, Ben, everything — has made a big mess of his life, and he wants someone to take responsibility for it. He wants payback. Sally’s cry is his cry: ”YOU OWE ME RESTITUTION!” (1-15 from Doc Jensen at EW.com)
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But hey, we get our first real reference to the island here – and that’s big. Roger Linus confirms what bad CGI has already told us this season: Dharma does exist (or at least did exist) in the alternate timeline. Not only that, but both Ben and his father have spent some time on the island. What made them leave is unclear, but Roger goes extra-crazy-special out of his way to pointedly wonder (aloud and for our benefit) just what life would’ve been like if they’d “stayed on the island”.
When Miles approaches Ben with bananas and beanpods, the subject of Jacob comes up again. Here, Ben echoes what many of us have already thought: that Jacob didn’t really care about being killed at all. Miles immediately corrects him however, telling Ben: “No, he cared. He was hoping he was wrong about you.”This is highly interesting, because it seems to go against the original theory of Jacob knowingly accepting his own demise. If what Miles says is true, Jacob’s last words to Ben about ‘having a choice’ now carry a lot more weight. At the same time however, I find it difficult to believe Jacob’s not still pushing Ben from beyond the grave. Through the use of Miles, maybe Jacob is allowing Ben to know his disappointment for a very specific reason. Perhaps Jacob is trying to appeal to the good within Benjamin Linus, because bringing that good back to the surface again is the only way to successfully recruit him.
Illana is as confused about ‘Kwon’ as we are. Whether the name of the candidate 42 refers to Sun or Jin, Illana explains she plans to protect them both. How she’ll do this with a single rifle is beyond me, but maybe she’s got a sick dagger buried somewhere that we don’t know about.I also found it interesting that Illana said there were “six candidates left”. She already knows John Locke is dead AND occupied by the man in black, which would leave five at most. It left me wondering if Illana knew of a sixth candidate, and whether or not that candidate was Kate.
From our standpoint, replacing Jacob’s role seems to be a piss-poor job. Maybe Illana doesn’t see it that way, which is why she talks about it so openly. Later on this episode, we see the MIB talking about enlisting a replacement as well. So does the island need two replacements? A ying and a yang? Or are Jacob and the MIB really just two halves of the same entity, waging an internal, Tyler Durden-like war of fate vs. free will? Great question. But sorry, not this episode
Perhaps it’s because Ben was so far disconnected from the island’s roots (again, the barracks), or maybe it’s because the MIB just assumes every leader of The Others is as inherently power-hungry as Charles Widmore… but it turns out the dark man doesn’t really know Benjamin Linus. Because of this, he mistakenly assumes Ben’s greatest wish is to rule the island. Just as Sawyer’s biggest desire was to leave, and Sayid’s only wish was to be with Nadia again, the dark man approached Ben offering the one thing he figured a deposed leader would certainly want most: to regain his power.
The beach camp is a sacred place for us, and with very good reason. It represents the origins of the show we love so much, and memories of a more mysterious yet simpler time. It makes sense that LOST would begin and end in the same place, especially with all the circle and loop references scattered throughout the show. So when everyone ended up back here, including Jack and Hurley (and even Richard?) – it wasn’t all that shocking. Cue dramatic montage, and bring on the hugging.
Standing just outside the circle of trust, Richard and Ben are the newcomers. They’re fallen defenders of the island who’ve finally come to the realization that everyone’s been pretty much on the same team all along. The sides are being chosen up very quickly, and they’d better be… because here comes the periscope of Widmore’s sneaky sub. What havoc will he wreak? What shenanigans will he be up to? Not really sure, but having been off-island for so long he’d better be damned good at playing catch up.
Okay, here’s a guess: Widmore will unknowingly end up following the wrong side. As leader of The Others, let’s assume he’d been doing Jacob’s will (or thought he was) for the entire time he was on the island. But what if he was actually listening to the MIB, without even realizing it? What if he were taking baby-killing direction not from Jacob, but from his nemesis instead?Knowing what we know now, Widmore’s words to John Locke about the upcoming war now contain a more sinister connotation: “If you’re not back there, the wrong side will win”. It’s as if he knew (or was coached) that John Locke’s body was necessary to the dark man’s ultimate plan. In a way, Widmore participated in the MIB’s long con, whether he knew it or not. (16-21 by Vozzek69 at Darkufo)
And unfortunately, I have to cut this post a little short. Only 9 more episodes left!
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