With 2 hours to rehash, we’ll get right to it: our last LOST recap of 2009. (tear wells up in corner of eye)
The opening sequence was worth the price of admission for me. We finally got to see Jacob; we discovered what the rest of the statue looked like (a crocodile head? Taweret?); we see what I believe to be the arrival of the Black Rock to the Island circa 1845 (I’m willing to bet our boy Richard Alpert is on board); and I believe we were introduced to the ultimate villain in the show, the man in black, Jacob’s Adversary. The dialogue between Jacob and Adversary hearkened back to the pilot episode. Remember when Locke was teaching Walt how to play backgammon? “Two sides. One light, one dark.” Now we see these two beings, two forces, pitted against one another with the Island as the playing ground in some sort of cosmic game of destiny vs. free will. Once again, this is why I love this show.
From Doc Jensen’s column (bold emphasis mine):
“The dialogue between these two rivals dripped with tension and subtext. Nameless accused Jacob of bringing the boat to the Island. Jacob didn’t deny it. The man in black sighed deeply and oozed a deeply cynical perspective on the drama that the ship was about to trigger on the Island:
NAMELESS: You’re trying to prove me wrong.
JACOB: You are wrong.
NAMELESS: They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
JACOB: It can only end once. Everything before that is progress.That exchange blew my mind. The conversational shorthand between these two familiars made for much interpretive obliqueness. Nameless seemed to see history — or at least, history on the Island — as an endless cycle of darkness and despair. You also got the sense he was weary of playing whatever role it is he plays in this drama. Jacob, on the other hand, seemed to see history/just Island history as a forward moving saga marked by incremental progress. These castaway dramas he stages on the Island are building upon each other and leading toward something that he desires very, very much. Nameless, on the other hand, expressed homicidal contempt for Jacob and his ambitions. ”Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?” The line reading chilled me to the bone. So did Jacob’s response: ”Yes.”
I think I agree. It seems that Jacob’s whole thing has been to bring people to the Island. This is implied in the opening exchange when the Adversary says he doesn’t need to ask how the Black Rock came to the Island. “You brought them here,” he scowls. And the flashbacks give us insight into how Jacob has been at work to shape the destiny of these characters. Did you notice how he touched each character? Go back and watch it, but the common denominator is that each of our flashbacks (excepting Juliet, who wasn’t on Oceanic 815 anyway) depict Jacob interacting with, and physically touching, each of our castaways. With that touch, it seems that Jacob was exerting his own magnetism, drawing these individuals to a shared destiny on the Island. And I’m pretty sure we even witnessed Jacob resurrecting John Locke immediately following his eight story fall. Awesome.
As for why Adversary wants to kill Jacob, I suspect they’re simply playing out the age old metaphorical roles of God and Satan. But it seems that something is keeping Adversary from slaying Jacob himself. He has to find a “loophole”, a proxy, someone willing to commit the crime for him. By playing on Ben’s insecurities, Adversary accomplishes exactly what he wanted to do.
Nameless Adversary of Jacob = The Monster. Put it down now. The Monster “judged” Ben, convincing him (via an appearance of Alex) that he had to do anything Locke told him to do. But what Smokey / Alex didn’t tell Ben was that Locke wasn’t really Locke. Instead, Locke 2.0 is really Nameless Adversary of Jacob.
What lies in the shadow of the statue? Jacob’s crib, apparently. When asked this cryptic question, Richard Alpert responds in Latin. Translated, he said “He who will save us all” or “He who will protect us.” I think this is another obvious reference to Jacob as some sort of benevolent being. His death should spell very bad things for Season 6.
Rose and Bernard! And Vincent! Finally! Glad to know they’re alive. I still think they’re the best candidates for Adam and Eve, at least to date.
As for that ending, as cool as it was, I was a bit upset. The whole season has hinged on the question of whether you can or cannot change the past to alter the future. With Juliet detonating the bomb and the screen going to white (a nice touch, I thought), we finally witnessed the much discussed incident, but where’s the payoff? After a season of trippy time-traveling and questions at the meta-level, I guess I expected at least some hint of resolution to our season long question. But the producers warned us to expect a reaction similar to the one we experienced at the end of Season 1, where we waited with bated breath to see what exactly was down in the bottom of that hatch only to find…Boom. LOST. So, the debate rages: Did the castaways change the course of history or not? I’m inclined to say yes, but I’d like some empirical proof to back that claim up. Call me a man of science, I guess.
Best moment of the episode: Juliet’s tearful goodbye to Sawyer. I mean, how could that not top the list. But an equally cool moment for me was Miles leaping into action to save his father, Dr. Chang. Did you catch that heartfelt, “Dad!” that Miles belted out as he raced to save the good doctor? Too bad he’ll have to go all Montand from this point forward. But hey, it beats being dead, right?
Worst moment? Jack’s lame-o line of reasoning for blowing up the Island and resetting the giant timeline in the sky. What? Because your relationship with Kate is in the crapper? Come on, man! Given all we’ve seen this year, I refuse to think this is Jack’s sole motivation. Last episode, he seemed concerned about all the castaways they’d lost and the prospect of resurrecting them in a non-Island timeline seemed heroic to me. Why not go with that as Jack’s motivation? To his credit, Sawyer was asking him what he wanted most, to which he answered, more or less, “Kate”. Will the two of them end up together? The more I think about it, I think yes.
So….if Locke 2.0 really isn’t Locke but rather he’s Alterna-Locke, the bodily host to the spirit of Nameless Adversary Guy, then why did he need Richard Alpert to lead him to Jacob? That whole thing made sense if Locke was really Locke. But are we to believe that Nameless Adversary really doesn’t know where Jacob lives? They’ve been warring all this time and he never thought to look in the foot of that statue?
Whatever the case, I’m thinking Christian is aligned with our Nameless Adversary in the big picture battle of good guys and bad guys. Think about it: Christian is the one who tells Locke to move the Island last year. Christian is the one who helps Locke get off the Island this year. Dead Locke serves as Christian’s proxy on the Ajira flight, which allows Nameless Adversary to somehow become Locke 2.0. I don’t know how all this adds up, but it seems clear to me that Christian is a bad guy here. Am I right?
What did Jacob mean when he said to Adversary, “They’re coming”? I think he has to be referring to our 1977 castaways. As much as Jack thinks his destiny was to detonate the bomb, I don’t buy it. Remember, though, Alpert told Sun that he watched all the ’77ers die. I’m predicting the Others knew all along that the Swan was being built and they had surveillance of the whole project. I’m also predicting that the blast didn’t kill our castaways but either transported them back to 2004 or to the Island present of 2007 (thus Jacob’s cryptic “They’re coming.”). I’ve been wondering this all season: How is it that the Others don’t know anything about the Swan project (which has a massive crew at work with all manner of loud equipment and bells going off and people dying when their fillings go ripping through their brains) but when Ethan’s Mom and her former lover try to slip off to have a quiet picnic on Other-property, they’re nearly killed? Alpert must’ve been watching the bomb detonate and since the castaways were gone after the blast, he assumed they all died when in actuality, they were transported to fulfill their destiny in the present. Or something like that.
Well, this puppy is getting pretty long. I’ll make a season review post tomorrow that I’m sure will have more finale reaction. Chime in here and let me know what you think.
already & not yet 
Like I said, I’m pretty sure that Juliet did indeed change the past. And that makes the finale much more satisfying since it is not just a cliffhanger, but also a REVEAL of the final answer to the question we’ve been asking all season. And that answer to me is a definitive YES.
Dylan,Why don’t you unpack for us your line of thought here. (I know we tried to discuss it via text messages, but that’s hard to do!) How can you be sure Juliet changed the past / future?
Ok. The question we were facing going into the final scenes was the answer to Miles’ question of did the Jughead actually CAUSE “The Incident” in the Swan Station? If it DID, then the survivors were just doing what they were supposed to, and Whatever happened did indeed happen. If they didn’t cause the Incident, then they did something OUTSIDE of the original timeline.So, Jack drops the Jughead down into the hole, and it doesn’t go off. But “The Incident” STILL HAPPENS. The instruments go crazy and all the metal gets pulled down into the hole (along with Juliet). The Jughead did NOT cause “The Incident” like Miles hypothesized it did. (Things like Miles’ statement are not just tossed around lightly on Lost. The writers put it in there so that we would specifically ask the same question and the answer to that question will determine the answer to the season 5 past changing question).So, when Juliet triggers the nuke, then it means that she HAS altered the original timeline. She is THE VARIABLE that has specifically changed the past, because she has done something that was NOT in the original timeline.Does that make any sense?
It makes sense, and I think you may be right. In fact, I hope you are. However, for argument’s sake, how do we know that hitting the pocket of energy was “The Incident” and not Jughead going off? What I’m saying is that Faraday’s plan to detonate the bomb to negate the Island’s energy (and thus negating “The Incident”) could in fact be what caused The Incident in the first place. The only reference to The Incident has been in the Orientation film by Chang. And he only cryptically refers to The Incident that leads to certain Dharma protocol. So, we don’t have any reason to solely equate The Incident with hitting the pocket of electromagnetic energy, other than Daniel’s assumption that The Incident WAS hitting the pocket of energy. But as we’ve seen, Dan can be wrong. May he rest in peace. Don’t you love debates of causality?
Fair point. I’m wondering whether the writers wanted the question to be definitively answered by the final scene or to leave the question hanging for the next 8 months. If it is like the season 1 finale, then it is left hanging. However, I’m choosing to believe it was answered and the cliffhanger is simply, “What happens next?”To add further praise to the season 5 finale; if you had told me before the episode that not only would we definitively see Jacob in the FIRST scene, but he would play a prominent role through the whole show, I would have been jumping for joy. Too bad he’s dead now though. We barely knew ye Jacob.
maybe i’m off here…but what if Adversary guy IS Christian? after all, he figured out how to become Locke 2.0, right, why couldn’t he also be/have been Christian- (his body was “deposited” on the island due to a crash just like Locke’s)if this is the case (and even if it is not), he is quite the mastermind- playing Ben and exploiting his weaknesses.Question: why didn’t Jacob tell Richard (or anyone else) about Adversary? I assume that Adversary has been laying low b/c he wanted nothing to do with human life (mortal life, that is) on the island, that is until he found his loophole…..but why wouldn’t Jacob mention to him to someone? also- is this why Jacob stays hidden in his “crib”- because he knows that a mortal can kill him if they please? also- why didn’t Jacob fight back…or run….could it be because he can be brought back to life?one last point: anyone else find it interesting that Adversary didn’t want mortal humans because of the fighting and corruption…and yet- He was right in the middle of it! depending on how far back you think he began to “play” Ben, it could be argued that he was responsible for a large portion of the fighting and corruption that took place on the island.however, it also could be argued that he only observed and showed up at the “last minute” and simply took advantage of a mortal’s tendency to fight and corrupt in order to fulfill his promise to Jacob……
When we see Jacob and black-shirt dude (for lack of a better term, I will call him Esau), we see Jacob in white, Esau in black. Juliet has been sporting a red tee for some time now. If I had to choose a color “between” white and black, I’d choose red. I think Juliet has the potential to change things up unlike any of the other folks. I’m not entirely sure why. But we also see she wasn’t “touched” by Jacob at any point in her life like some of the others were. So perhaps she’s playing on a different destiny/fate-playing-field. I do believe Locke 2.0 is actually Esau. I also believe Esau took on the form of Christian– that it isn’t actually Christian, just like Locke 2.0 isn’t actually Locke. I think Esau has the power to take on the forms of dead people– people who died on the island or who came to the island already dead. So he’s been Christian 2.0, Locke 2.0, and Alex 2.0. (And perhaps Miles or Hurley will be the key to unlock the actually identities of Locke 2.0, Christian 2.0, etc., if they encounter them since they possess unique abilities to “understand” dead people– and while we’re at it, perhaps all the dead people, like Charlie, who have visited Hurley are actually Esau).Locke 2.0 acts like he doesn’t know where Jacob is b/c he doesn’t want the others (particularly Ben and Richard) to know he isn’t Locke. He needs Ben to kill Jacob, and he’s only able to do that when he’s playing the part of Locke.
Something else I just realized:In “Follow the Leader” it wasn’t Locke telling Alpert to tell 2004-Locke that he had to get the Oceanic 6 back and to do so he had to die. It was the man in black incarnate in Locke!So, the man in black set the entire plan in motion that Locke would die, the Oceanic 6 would come back to the island, and bring dead Locke back with them so that the man in black could take the incarnate form of Locke!And Christian helps Locke complete this plan by helping him turn the Orchid wheel! So does Christian work for the man in black?Plus Llana says that “someone else has been using” Jacob’s cabin. We know that whoever flashed for a moment in Cabin Fever was not Jacob. Has the man in black been using Jacob’s cabin, and since Christian was in Jacob’s cabin, does that give further evidence that Christian is with the Man in Black?But we know from the Mobisode “So it begins” that Christian told Vincent to go wake up Jack, which appears to be a good thing. And Christian says he can speak for Jacob. But is he lying? And where does Claire fit into all this?
Or maybe you’re right R-Liz, and Christian IS the man in black
what about claire??????? any theories? it’s SO good i don’t know how i am going to wait until 2010!
And what about Widmore, too? Where does he fit in to this whole thing? This season, he shows that he’s very interested in getting Locke back to the Island, even going so far as to fund his “let’s get the band back together” tour. Does that put him on the side of Adversary / Esau? Trey, we don’t know that Alpert doesn’t know about Adversary. In fact, when Sun asks the question “If this is Locke, then who is in there?” the camera cuts to a shot of Ilana and Richard, each of whom has a look of terror. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but the fact that Richard knew the answer to “What lies in the shadow of hte statue?” makes me think he knows a thing or two about the feud between Jacob and Adversary.
R-Liz, that’s a great point about Juliet being one of the variables in the equation. It’s interesting, though, that the episode would overtly emphasize her choice / free will in detonating the bomb, considering that hers was the only flashback that didn’t feature the touch of Jacob. In each of the other flashbacks, Jacob emphasizes the characters ability to choose (although I don’t remember him saying anything like this to Sayid – who makes the comment “Nothing can save me.” Hmmm.). Anyway, it’s interesting that Juliet would be the key variable here when she didn’t receive a visit from Jacob. Does this mean it was always her fate / destiny to detonate the bomb? Her decision to spring herself, Kate, and Sawyer from the sub sets all of this in motion. Really interesting stuff. I think we’re on the right track to connect Christian with Esau / Adversary. With him now inhabiting Locke’s body or whatever, I’m wondering if we’ll even see Christian on the Island anymore. I have no idea what this means for Claire. But Esau / Adversary may have also been Yemi incarnate back in Season 3 (Eko’s brother). Maybe the on-Island apparitions that are of a more redemptive nature (like Kate’s black horse, for instance) are manifestations of Jacob and these other appearances we’ve mentioned are connected to Adversary.
my first question: did the bomb actually go off or not? I’m not yet convinced.