* Alright, another very good episode, intriguing in both timelines, lots of juicy mythology, fun performances, action, hieroglyphics, dead people, the whole nine. So far the only false note for me this season has been the Great Kate Escape episode. Three out of four ain’t bad.
* During one of the initial segments of Jack’s flashsideways, he seemed as taken aback by his appendectomy scar as he seemed to be on the plane by the cut on his neck and just the general way he looked in the mirror. They made a nice big deal of this this time, complete with a call to Mom asking when he had the operation, so methinks there’s something fishy going on with this whole alternate timeline, that it’s not as simple as “what would have happened if the Island had been nuked in the ’70s.”
* And I’m glad of that, because it’s only now occurring to me why some part of me never quite believed that was where they were headed in the first place: I never consciously made this connection, but the idea that we’re seeing what life would be like if something bad had never happened to them and they lived happy lives instead is straight-up The Last Temptation of Christ and/or “For the Man Who Has Everything.” Obviously the Lost writers aren’t above riffing on or referencing other big genre works–The Dark Tower, The Stand, Watchmen, we can all rattle off another half-dozen major touchstones easy. But never do they simply lift storylines wholesale. This ain’t Heroes, and Jeph Loeb hasn’t worked on the show since Season One. So while I had speculated that maybe this would all lead to Jack or Sawyer or whoever seeing how much better their life would be without the Island but somehow sacrificing it all for the greater good, I don’t think that’s where we’re headed anymore, at least not in the “Christ still chooses to die on the cross/Superman decides to rip off the psychic plant and kick Mongul’s ass” way I was kicking around.
* So, in each flashsideways, our protagonist character will bump into an Other? Kate and Claire met Ethan, Locke met Ben, and Jack met Dogen. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. Or to use Ian Fleming’s formulation, three times is enemy action. Dun dun DUNNNNNN! Anyway, I like this because it means we’ll probably see big Tom again. Speaking of which, did you notice the last name “Friendly” on Jacob’s lighthouse wheel? He really was “Mr. Friendly”! Oh, Lindelof & Cuse, you kidders.
* We’ve learned, if it wasn’t clear already, that the Man in Black is an out-and-out liar. Obviously he was pretending to be Jack’s dad. Obviously as such he only pretended to be speaking on behalf of Jacob. Claire tells us “her dad” told her that the Others stole her baby, which isn’t true. Thus one can assume he was seriously fudging the truth for Sawyer too. My brother Ryan pointed out that a cave hollowed out of a sheer cliff wall over the ocean seemed like an odd place for Jacob to hang out, making him skeptical that that was ever Jacob’s place to begin with. The moment I saw those 360 names written out in an orderly fashion next to each degree on the wheel, I thought, “Well, I guess there was probably no need for Jacob to have scrawled them all over the roof of a cave someplace else on the Island.” Particularly if the wheel is a magic portal into all their lives, right?
* Who’s the momma? Juliet?
* I loved all the callbacks to Season One. Shannon’s asthma inhaler, the caves, going on a jungle quest, Jack recalling his vision of his dad…Thinking back, it really did seem like that was just a vision, for a long long time after that episode aired. Maybe an Island-inspired vision, but a vision nonetheless. I wonder how long it took for the writers to decide “You know what? That really was his dad!” Then again, the body was missing from the coffin all along, so who knows.
* I would say that Hurley’s speculation that the skeletons in the cave are two of their own, as a result of time travel, shoots down the possibility that that’s actually the case. But remember back in the day when they got “Moonlight Serenade” by Glenn Miller to play on the radio and Hurley said it could be coming from anywhere “or any time?” He added a quick “just kidding,” and at the time I thought that was the creators’ signal to us that we didn’t need to bother with spacetime continuum theorizing. Whoops!
* Jacob’s a manipulator too. Important to remember. What I really want to know is whether the Others’ rather barbaric conduct over the seasons are a result of a more-or-less faithful interpretation of his orders, or if things are way off base due to either a communication breakdown or deliberate malfeasance by Ben or Richard or Widmore or Dogen or whoever the relevant person is.
* With Jacob looking on approvingly, newly minted leadership-position Hurley opts to be cryptic and not answer Dogen’s question. So THAT’S how they learn it!
* The animal-corpse baby in Claire’s basinet was the most disturbing thing the show has served up in a long time. Like, it made me really uncomfortable for the brief few seconds we saw it. That is Texas Chain Saw Massacre shit right there. I’ve said this before, but as we’ve learned more about the Others, the Dharma Initiative, the Monster, and so on, a lot of the sense of fear and horror that these things presented in the earlier seasons, when the show was often one of the scariest on television, gradually dissipated. It’s nice to see them try to inject it back in.
* And hey, an axe murder! Alright.
* I don’t know if this was something they thought of, but of all the characters they could have left to the tender mercies of crazy Claire and evil Locke, Jin was an excellent choice because he spent years trying to stay one step ahead of the wishes of a vicious gangster. I believe that he’s someone capable of thinking on his feet and staying alive around the homicidally violent, longer probably than any other character except maybe inveterate conmen like Sawyer or Ben.
* Here’s the thing, though: Fake Locke knows that Jin knows that they’re both lying about who has Claire’s baby. Sawyer, who’s with Fake Locke, will know it too. How’s all that gonna work?
* Back to the Lighthouse for a second: I thought this was a fine scene, because it delivered something we haven’t seen…mmmmmmaybe since Locke refused to press the button at the end of Season Two? Which was someone getting so fed up with the way the Island’s phenomena have used and abused him that he snaps. There was an interesting new dynamic in play here as well: In the Hatch, Locke really had no evidence about whether what he was doing was extraordinary or bull, he just didn’t buy it anymore. Jack, on the other hand, just got a glimpse of his childhood house, and someplace in Japan, and maybe Oxford or something, in the mirrors of a magic lighthouse to which he’d been led by someone who got his directions from a dead man only he could see or talk to. Jack knows damn well that something really astonishing is happening on the Island, in reference to him specifically–and it’s precisely that knowledge that’s driving him crazy, not the lack of knowledge that so tormented Locke. Jack smashing the mirror (did he hear or fear or…?) was six seasons of not knowing what the hell is going on exploding into action. Good stuff. (I sort of wish the smashing hadn’t been spoiled by the stupid network’s next episode teaser last week, but oh well. It was at least nice of them to try to avoid making that mistake again this week.)
* I loved seeing all the hieroglyphics on the temple hallway wall, just ‘cuz you know they threw that in there so that the Lostpedia folks would translate it. And translate the Japanese dialogue, and freezeframe every glimpse of the wheel, and so on and so forth.
* Who’s coming to the Island? I’m pulling for Walt. I can barely fathom how satisfying that would be.
–I’m pretty sure the other two locations in Jacob’s magic mirror were Sun & Jin’s wedding site and the church where Sawyer’s parents’ funeral was held.
–Claire says, re: the location of her baby, “first my father told me, and then my friend told me.” While the simplest and most probable answer is still that Smokey was impersonating Christian, this statement doesn’t conclusively prove that. If Claire recognizes that Fake Locke is “her friend” and not Locke, wouldn’t she recognize that her dad wasn’t actually her dad?
–I’d assumed that David’s mom was Sarah, but I support the theory that it’s Juliet.
–I still think the cave on the cliff really was Jacob’s. Dude’s been on the island at least 150 years–he’s probably got little hideaways all over the place. Plus it’s always a good idea to back up your really important data, like the names of potential candidates.
–Speaking of which, I can’t believe Hurley didn’t stop for a second to see whose name was written next to 108.
–Walt would be good. Maybe Widmore? The whole Ben vs. Widmore thing kind of fell by the wayside there–surely that’s coming back before it’s all over?
–The pacing felt kind of off in the first half of this episode, like they were speeding through what should have been bigger emotional or mind-fucking moments (I always liked the extremely deliberate pace of the early seasons), but the second half really delivered with the caves and the magic mirror and good father-son stuff and the horrific realization that Claire has gone COMPLETELY BONKERS.
Still suspect that island was nuked earlier than ’70s. Daniel Faraday disarmed the big nuke in the ’50s. Without the crash, none of the time-skipping would have taken place, so every event caused in those skips didn’t happen, including preventing the detonation in ’50s.
I wasn’t entirely sure what Jin’s game was at the end of the episode. It seems like it is a guarantee that he’s going to have to spend more time with crazy Claire. Is he just hoping that if he can get her to the temple, that the people there will be able to protect him? And then maybe treat him, or help him search for Sun?
Also, it strikes me that if the Island gets submerged in 1977, that predates only most, but not all, of Jacob’s interactions with the Losties. Given the ages and the timeframes involved, it would permit him to still give Sawyer the pen, and still dispatch Richard to meet Locke. Meaningful, then, that those are the first two Losties we see join Nemesis?
Concerning the lighthouse vs. the cave, it definitely seems like the lighthouse is Jacob’s hangout, and the cave belongs to the MIB. I get the feeling that the smoke monster has been forced to do Jacob’s bidding, so it’s entirely likely that he would’ve have scribbled the names on his wall and crossed them off when they were no longer viable.
Also, the whole black and white rocks on the scale, doesn’t seem like something Jacob would have. He’s got bigger things to worry about than a petty feud with his minion. That really seems like something the MIB would have sitting around and would rack his brain every night trying to figure out how to beat Jacob and get free.
And I’m really pissed at Jack for smashing the lighthouse mirrors. That thing was super cool! I wanted to see more. Oh well.
Gardner:
* Nice guesses on the other two locations, but then Jack’s childhood house wouldn’t fit, since Jacob made contact with him in the hospital.
* I’m assuming Claire’s “friend” revealed his true nature when he was in other forms, but maintained the Dad ruse pretty strictly every time he appeared to her as Christian, hence the dichotomy.
* Todd VanDerWerff’s post this week treated it as super-obvious that DESMOND’s the one who’s coming back to the Island. My mind went straight to Walt, though.
Brett: Good point about the time-frame of the explosion. Of course, then you get into all sorts of time-travel paradoxes about how if the Island didn’t exist, then how did Daniel, Jack et al travel back in time to set off the bomb on it and change the timeline in the first place. Also, the one problem with the “it blew up in the ’50s” theory is that when we saw the four-toed statue foot underwater, a Dharma-branded shark swam past.
Simon: I thought Jin had realized that Claire was sure to kill Kate unless he shifted the blame back to the Others.
Sam: Yeah, I’m with you on the cave.
I was wondering the other day about The Incident. Because what happens happens, and all the other stuff the time travelling survivors did in the 70’s carried over, so them setting off probably did, too. So even if it was the cause of the split timeline, it was also the much reputed Incident all along.
I know Claire is seemingly batshit crazy, but I wish Jin (before he saw her murder the Other, obviously) had been upfront and said Kate took your baby because you disappeared and we had a chance to get off the island. Alot of the times, these characters get really self righteous and vindicative with each other over the other characters doing totally sensible things, and it gets annoying.
And my advice to all of you is to not watch the next episode teasers at the end of the episode. I don’t, and the result is that I have no idea at all what any episode is going to be about when I sit down to watch it. It makes things alot more interesting. You don’t skim the next chapter in a book before you start reading it, right?
So saying that, I have no idea if next week is goign to be an all out assault on the Temple, but I think it is, and that’s exciting. It’s cool, too, how it looks like it’s gonna be a war of the survivors. Sawyer, Sayid, & Claire, vs Jack, Hurley, and the rest. I hope Miles makes it out okay, and has some important part to play yet.
And my bet is Desmond being the one Jacob is signalling back to the island. Or maybe the alternate timeline survivors. “They’re coming” indeed.
Sam:
I could not be more with you on the light house thing. I was pretty much digging the whole episode right up until that point.
This was just moronic in that “We gotta give the viewers some plot stuff, but make sure one/some/all of the characters act like idiots so we don’t have to give away too much.”
That remains the #1 thing that bothers me about the show.
David’s mother’s house address started with 23. spookytheramin.wav
I’m finding the alternate universe stuff weirdly sad. There is something tragic about the way these people get their shit together when they’re not being affected by the island – Locke realises he can’t do everything, Jack breaks the cycle of daddy issues, Kate stops being so Kate for a bit.
Of course, the fact that the Others keep showing up and pushing them along slightly does suggest they’ll never escape those island connections.
The lighthouse was a nice bit of metaphysical spookiness. But the refusal to get some answers from the names written down, or what could be seen in the mirrors, seemed to be mainly because they’re just not quite ready to reveal that information yet. That was a bit blatant.
And weren’t Jacob’s last words “they are coming”?
Regarding Claire’s “friend” vs. her dad, didn’t they say in a previous episode that now that the MIB has become Locke, he can’t take on any other forms? (aside from the smoke monster) It’s possible Claire hasn’t seen her dad since unLocke showed up, but if not, that would suggest the dad isn’t just another manifestation of MIB. They also made a point to remind us in this episode that back in season 1 Jack had found his dad’s coffin empty and smashed it up…if the dad was just a manifestation of the MIB I don’t know what the point of that would be, since the MIB didn’t need to remove Locke’s body from its coffin to take on his form.
In Doc Jensen’s recap of this episode at EW he theorizes something I kinda like: that the consciousnesses of the castaways beside the exploding bomb in 1977 filtered out into the consciousnesses of their other-selves in that same time. So when the bomb went off the mind of Adult Time-Traveling Jack went into his young 1977 self where ever he was. And only now that the so-called Sideways timeline is catching up with the time where the other stuff happened, or never happened as it were, now these two consciousnesses are merging. So the Sideways timeline is the real timeline, only the characters within in are gonna maybe start to remember what happened in the alternate plane-crashing Island-hopping bomb-exploding reality.
If any of that made any sense I am so proud of myself.
And I’m not sure that’s what’s happening of course, but I think it is an interesting theory.
Oh and also, I guess Kate’s name was at #51 on the lighthouse wheel, and the name at #108 was Wallace.
Obviously Fake Locke, a.k.a. Claire’s “Friend” is the bad guy from 20th Century Boys. Apocalyptic, flash-backing-forwarding, Stephen King-influenced fiction unite!
Sean: “…then Jack’s childhood house wouldn’t fit, since Jacob made contact with him in the hospital.”
Or else, assuming the lighthouse is showing the points where Jacob made contact with those people, it means Jacob has been messing with Jack’s life for longer than we thought – that the hospital scene was a red herring (or something the writers changed their minds about). Maybe that’s the point of the appendectomy thing, to point out that alt-Jack’s differences go all the way back to childhood.
Charles: Heh, I barely even notice it anymore when simple honesty rather than prevarication or calculation could have averted a bad situation on this show. These people lie like it’s oxygen.
Also, I think you’re right: I’m OUT on the next-week previews for the duration. Enough of this nonsense.
Sam, Fake Pat, Bob: I’m not sure what answers Jack could have gotten out of the magic mirror. What would any of it have meant to him? In fact I never even thought along those lines at all when he broke it, though from what I’ve seen around the Internet, that move frustrated a lot of people. I was right there with him in terms of what he thought was going to happen–Jacob was going to show up and tell him what was up–and right there with him when that failed to happen and he reacted the way he did, by losing it. I didn’t think he was throwing away the chance to get any further information.
Sam H: Trust me, I never miss a good 23 enigma.
Jesse: It’s true that the MIB apparently didn’t need to utilize Locke’s corpse. But Christian’s body wasn’t the only one that disappeared only for the character to manifest mysteriously later in a seemingly Monster-connected fashion: The same thing happened to the skeleton of Eko’s brother Yemi. So there’s something going on there.
Jason: I refuse to entertain a single word out of Doc Jensen’s mouth. This is, what, his 90th theory of the show? Watching him construct elaborate narrative and philosophical edifices out of snippets, suggestions, and pure conjecture is about as interesting to me as watching people from evangelical universities debate what God really meant in 1 Corinthians.
Also: Who the hell is Wallace? Pulling hard for that being Walt’s grandma’s last name or something.
Is there any in-show numerological significance to 51, other than it being 15 backwards?
Jon: Uncle Steve is everywhere these days.
Eli: Yeah, I thought of that immediately after I wrote that.
For the group, here’s a full listing of every name visible on the Lighthouse wheel, crossreferenced with the names visible in the cave:
http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Candidates
Sean, love your thoughts about Jin being the perfect character cornered by Claire and what that could mean for the rest of the season. Jin is a proper bad ass in a way that is very different than, say, Locke or Sawyer. We haven’t see that in awhile.
Simon, I interpreted Jin’s reversal as a survival tactic. If Jin is the only person who can get the amoral maniac (Claire) to her main, and possibly only concern (the baby), she’s less likely to snap and kill him.
Is anyone else slowly getting a gnostic vibe from Jacob and the MIB? The island is a prison designed to trap the MIB and Jacob is the caretaker, or something like that. (The island is the MIB’s bear cage!) If that’s where they’re going with this, it calls into question who is the real sympathetic character of the two, in spite of the white tunics and monstery stuff. After all, we don’t know the true motivations of either of them.
If so, I hope it doesn’t become the Da Vinchi Code.
totally forgot about the Dharma shark!
not bothered by the seeming contradiction of time travel, because i’m assuming the explosion event creates of a parallel universe/timeline, instead of a solitary timeline that changes.
However, the Dharma branded shark pretty much ruins that embryo of a theory, unless there’s some cockamamie story about the shark being blown into the alternate universe.
The other two locations in the mirror were definitely the temple where Sun & Jin were married, and the church where Sawyer’s parents’ funeral was held.
I’m doubling down on my theory that the sideways timeline happens after whatever we’re leading up to on the island. Those damn others keep popping up in every episode to push our characters along.
Maybe MIB gets off the island, there’s another reset, and the final confrontation with him happens off-island in the sideways timeline.
Bonus points for crazy creepy ax-murderin’ Claire. I like her much better than regular Claire.
Sean:
Was the lighthouse gonna give up all the secrets of the island? Nah, probably not. But neither us nor the characters know for sure, and we never will because Jack had a tantrum.
Seems to me that a magic mirror that spits up glimpses of the outside world deserved more than a cursory glance before smashing the crap out of it. By doing so he absolutely gave up the chance to get further information (at least for the time being), even if that further information was just gonna be a few more looks at seemingly random locations. World-shaking? I doubt it, but it could have been something.
Great blog by the way.
Was there any possible use left for the lighthouse once it was revealed? If you were playing LOST as a videogame or RPG, yeah, you’d want to keep it around. Dramatically speaking however, once you reveal that little bit of backstory and mythology, it’s pretty useless. What were they gonna do with it, contact the mainland? That’s so first season.
So let one of the man characters express frustration by smashing it.
(Homer voice) Hurley is their leader… (end Homer voice)
Sam: Thanks! And yes, for me, where the show comes down on Jacob being good bad or indifferent is one of the most interesting questions yet to be answered. “A pox on both your houses” would be in keeping with the show’s history.
COOP: Do you mean that the characters consciousness, and perhaps even their physical bodies, take the place of what had existed in 2004 in the original timeline?
I would LOVE for the MIB to show up and be defeated in the alternate timeline. I love it when the monsters persist like that.
Fake Pat: I see what you’re saying. But at the same time, I think freaking the fuck out that some magic man has been spying on you from his magic lighthouse since you were a kid and has since basically ruined your life for his own mysterious purposes could make you snap just as easily as make you think “hmm, let me examine this magic lighthouse to find out more.” Basically I’m with COOP on this.
Also, thanks for the kind words! I now like you better than Real Pat.
I think COOP’s right on in regards to the alternate timeline thing. It’s not that the castaways would have gotten their lives together if they hadn’t gone to the island; it’s that whatever is about to happen on the island is what makes it possible for them to get their lives together. This is why it makes sense that everyone (so far) has their breakthrough after the plane lands at LAX.
Sean:
I see where you’re coming from, but at the same time it’s tough for me to buy a freak out over being spied on after already living through plane crashes, smoke monsters, time travel, friends dying, friends coming back to life, etc along with having been aware for some time that there’s a pretty good chance you’ve been manipulated.
Particularly a freak out that seems to go against his own interests.
BW: Ah, that’s a great read of why what’s happening in the alternate timeline is happening. Oooh, really great read. Love it!
Fake Pat: Straw that broke the camel’s back? Or maybe he knows it’s the final season?
Where to begin? I guess I will just throw out some of my opinions on the various topics above.
Claire, her father and her “friend” – My fiance had pretty much the same exact take on her statements as Gardner (see above). Gardner’s quote about why she feels the Others in the temple took Aaron is exactly correct. First, Claire’s father told her and then her friend, MIB, told her. That statement doesn’t seem to prove that Christian (as appearing to Claire) and Claire’s new friend, MIB, are one in the same. My fiance and Gardner also said the same exact thing. If Claire can recognize fake Locke and her friend right away, why wouldn’t she be able to make a distinction between her father and MIB? I had a little bit of a different take on it though. I thought the statement (as quoted by Gardner above) clearly shows a chronology of, first, meeting her father (or an image of her father on the Island) and then later having the same information that her father (or image of her father) relayed to her confirmed by her new friend, MIB. To me, that implies that the father, as referred to by Claire, could easily be one in the same as her friend MIB.
We don’t know yet how MIB begins to influence Claire. So, in my opinion, it is very likely that when Claire is first being influenced by MIB, she is probably very confused and possibly injured and not in her right mind. Perhaps, it was, in this state, that MIB was able to pass himself off as Christian to Claire. Then, at some point, Claire was obviously captured by the Others in the temple as she states when she describes how they tortured her much in the same way they did to Sayid Jarrah when they were diagnosing him in the temple. Obviously, when Claire escapes, it is then that in my opinion MIB reveals himself to her in possibly a different form and helps her survive and escape the Other for three years. MIB, during this time, is the friend she is referring too.
In other words, I agree with my brother that Christian, as he appears to Claire, is really MIB. Also, the friend that Clair refers to is also, obviously, MIB. However, I don’t think that this means that every single time Christian appears on the Island throughout the history of the show that he is MIB. I think it is conceivable that at some points, Christian is a ghost or apparition of himself. At other points, I think that Christian could even be Jacob. Lastly, I do believe that Christian (specifically as he appears to Locke and Claire) is MIB.
If you recall, when MIB is fake Locke when speaking to Jacob in the foot statue, he states something like, ‘you would not believe what I have been through to get here.’ That is not the exact quote but you get the jist. I believe he is referring to the way he influenced the actual John Locke to leave the Island and then, how he manipulate Ben and even Richard into gaining access into the foot statue and, consequently, having Ben kill Jacob. All of this brings credence to MIB, at some point, taking the form of Christian Sheppard.
In regards to Jin changing his story about Aaron after Claire commits axe murder, I agree with some of the posters above. Jin was 1) in survival mode. He had just seen Claire, whom he know as a kind, caring woman, kill a man in cold blood. If he continues to assert his story that Kate took Aaron off of the Island, not only does he endanger the life of Kate, but what is his value to Claire if he continues to tell the truth? She can easily kill Jin and continue the search for Kate and Aaron (as well as exact revenge on the Others). Jin also knows that Claire has (if you can believe what she says) at least some allies on the Island that would help her if he was dead. So again, what value would Jin have to Claire if he continues to tell the truth? 2) If Jin is able to get Claire to go back to him to the Temple, he will have help in subduing her if he believes her to be a threat to him and his search for Sun. Jin I believe says that he knows a secret entrance to the Temple but he was allowed to leave the temple with Kate and the two Others that Claire consequently murders. Unless he is referring to the hole that the smoke Monster (MIB) drags members of Rousseau’s team into, he is clearly lying to try to save his own hide and convince Claire that he is of use to her alive.
How great was Hurley’s line about Jacob and Obi-Wan Kenobi? As a life-long Star Wars fanatic (much like my brother), this comparison of Jacob to a Jedi Master was absolutely awesome. It just goes to show that great stories about good and evil, no matter how they are told or who is telling them, always share similar undertones.
Cave vs. Lighthouse – To me, I just personally do not feel like the cave (with the list of candidates on the wall) was another hide out for Jacob. This is just my opinion and I obviously acknowledge that I may very well be proven wrong. However, I concur with some of the points above and some of the points I have made in previous threads. Jacob, as we have seen him, has pretty much only been seen by either the foot statue or the Lighthouse (though he appears to Hurley in other places). In fact, when the Man In Black asks Jacob, “Do you know how badly I want to kill you?” And states that he will eventually find a loophole to the rule, Jacob replies, “When you do, I will be right here.” Considering they are both usually on the Island, I don’t take right here to be general and just describing the Island. I find it to be more specific, i.e., his lair in the foot statue. As portrayed in the show, Jacob, as of now, seems to represent “good” and MIB, “evil.” I ask again, why would Jacob have a lair in the side of a cliff that can only be reached by the ladders of doom. Also, haven’t we seem Jacob meticulously creating tapestries at some point? He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to scribble candidates names on the walls of a dark cave. His M.O. seems much more consistent with the Lighthouse and the mirror/wheel contraption which is more organized and orderly. The scale in the cave also kind of illustrates my point about this. MIB has described himself as “trapped” on the Island and we have known him to be stuck in underground passage ways and even confined to cabins that he cannot escape from without circles of ashes being broken. So when MIB tosses the white rock from the scale in the cave and describes it as an inside joke, it leads me to believe that there has always been some kind of balance between MIB and Jacob on the Island. MIB had the scale to remind him of this balance in hopes that some day he would be able to tilt the scale in his favor. It’s been his goal for centuries. When Ben kills Jacob, he can now finally tip the balance on the Island into his favor. I almost look at the candidates names on the walls of the cave as almost a hit list (or intelligence) gathered by MIB over his time on the Island and he is now eliminating candidates one by one.
SPOILER?!?! Do not read the following if you do not want to…
Ilana – I am going to assert that, perhaps, Ilana is Jacob’s daughter. She seems to have quite an emotional tie to Jacob, even more than most. When she introduces herself to Richard, I believe she speaks in Latin and almost conveys to Richard that SHE is very important to Jacob and know him more intimately than perhaps anyone else! This is just a theory. Perhaps it will prove to be true.
I don’t have a solid theory of the identity of 108. Wallace? The name doesn’t ring a bell in anyway. I will lean towards Sean’s opinion that this could be Walt. Obviously, we all know that Walt has powers and is “special.” Beatrice, the mysterious female Other that gives up her life once questioned Michael and asked him if Walt ever showed up somewhere that he shouldn’t have been. Walt seems to be able to influence certain events and outcomes on the Island. It is arguable that Walt has been able to predict events on the Island, influence weather on the Island, influence physical objects on the Island to do what he wants (knives, game pieces, etc.) When Walt leave the Island with Michael, Tom, the friendly Other, implies that Michael was guilty about murdering Libby and Anna Lucia and eventually confesses it to Walt. Walt becomes estranged from his father and lives with his Grandmother. From my research, the name of Walt’s grandmother has not been revealed. Could Walt’s grandma’s name be somehow related to Wallace? You have to believe that Walt’s backgammon scene with John Locke had a purpose. “There are two players. One side is light, and one side is dark.” Locke explained this to Walt in one of the very early episodes. Could the light side be Jacob and Walt and possibly Hurley and Jack? The dark side obviously being MIB and anyone that he infects. Just a thought that both my brother and I have noticed.
Widmore or Desmond being 108 – Some have asserted that 108 could be either Widmore or Desmond. I don’t know. It seems that the candidates, as listed in the caves and in the Lighthouse, don’t usually go by aliases. Why would Wallace correspond to Demond or Widmore? I mean, I know that Wallace is a Scottish name by origin but, other than that, what connection would Desmond or Widmore have to the name of Wallace?
I find in too early and confusing to have a good grip on the alternate timeline. That being said, I do like the thoughts of Coop and BW Costello about it.
Well that is all I have for now. Cannot wait until Tuesday!
Another thing:
Now this is not something I came up with on my own, I have read it elsewhere to be quite honest.
We all believe that Ben murdered Jacob. Hell, MIB manipulated Ben into doing so and also stated the sole reason he was bringing Ben along to see Jacob was so that Ben could kill him. Then, obviously, Ben stabs Jacob twice in the chest.
However, as he is “dying”, Jacob says to MIB, “They’re coming.” This statement seems to visibly shake MIB. Next, MIB kicks Jacob into the fire. Hence, did Ben really murder Jacob? Or was it the act of MIB kicking Jacob into the fire that really dooms Jacob after all?
So when Ben tells Ilana that “John Locke” (meaning MIB) killed Jacob, maybe he wasn’t lying after all?!?
Could this be what the little boy was referring to when he tells MIB that he can’t kill “him”? Maybe MIB broke the rules by killing Jacob himself?
Perhaps Ilana already know this. Maybe it is why MIB is actively recruiting for some type of showdown?
I still believe Ben killed Jacob but the above post is just a theory I wanted to kick around.
Ryan:
* Re: MIB/Christian/Fake Locke/”My Friend”–Right, I think that’s dead on. I think the MIB came to her as Christian when she was in a vulnerable state, and moreover never revealed that he was someone else taking Christian’s form, which I assume he did when appearing to her in other bodies like Locke’s.
I really do wonder if Christian has ever been anything other than MIB when we’ve seen him on the show. He’s seemed friendly enough from time to time…Then again, it can’t be a coincidence that they used this episode to remind us how Christian led Jack to the caves–an episode chock full of the MIB manipulating Claire.
* I agree that Jin was probably motivated in part by thinking that if he got Claire to the temple, the Others could subdue her and maybe Jack and the rest of the gang could help her in some way. Good point.
* Re: the Cave vs. the Lighthouse–
Also, haven’t we seem Jacob meticulously creating tapestries at some point? He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to scribble candidates names on the walls of a dark cave. His M.O. seems much more consistent with the Lighthouse and the mirror/wheel contraption which is more organized and orderly…I almost look at the candidates names on the walls of the cave as almost a hit list (or intelligence) gathered by MIB over his time on the Island and he is now eliminating candidates one by one.
Bingo. I hadn’t thought of the fact that a Cave headquarters fits with the Monster’s underground passageways he apparently traveled through. That’s a good point too.
* Interesting Ilana theory. I just hope they come up with something interesting for her–I don’t find her all that intriguing.
* Obviously I’m with you about Walt.
* I’ve wondered about whether the MIB struck the killing blow against Jacob by kicking him into the fire myself. Maybe Jacob rattled him and he acted rashly, as you say.
Re: Christian/MIB: Ryan’s theory about the “spirits” of Christian having multiple operators seems the most likely with the evidence we have now.
One thing about the MIB controlling Christian never sat right with me was the scene in the frozen donkey wheel room with Locke. John is on the ground with a leg wound, and Christian appears to pretty much rah-rah-rah him until he turns the wheel.
Later on, the MIB seems to indicate that he put a lot of work scheming to get Locke back onto the island (as Ryan cites). And in his conversation with Sawyer in the cave hideout playset, the MIB seems to pooh pooh the whole “island must be saved” fanaticism exhibited by Ben.
So if the MIB was controlling Christian, why would he encourage Locke to escape the island for a cause the MIB doesn’t believe in? If indeed the MIB occupied Christian, he didn’t seem to at that time.
Walt — this may be a fuzzy memory red herring. But didn’t someone (I want to say Locke or Eko) have a vision of Walt while engulfed by the smoke monster? I can’t find reference of it on Lostpedia. If the writers meant to follow it up, it could mean a connection between MIB and Walt that will see him working with, not against, Fake Locke.