Locke, explained

The End

So it's been a week since the series finale. There are two reasons why I haven't written an episode recap before now. One is that I feel like there are 300,000 different people out there who have posted their thoughts already and I'd just add to the noise.

The second is that I'm not quite sure how I feel about said finale yet. Before the last episode aired, Cruse and Lindelof essentially said that if you like Lost for the people and the relationships, you'd like the finale, but if you liked Lost for the mystery and you're expecting every single question to be answered, you'd be disappointed.

Put me in both camps. I loved the show for both of these aspects, and I feel if that Lost was missing either one it would be inferior to what it was.

Immediately following the finale, I felt that I liked it. As time has gone on, however, I've become more annoyed at certain mysteries were never addressed, let alone resolved. But then that annoyance is calmed as I realize that some of these questions just don't matter. And then I get annoyed because I feel like I'm being manipulated into thinking that.

This makes it hard for me to cohesively put down my thoughts on Lost as a whole. But today I figured I might as well give it a shot, so here goes.

Reality A

1. Desmond's ability to withstand electromagnetic power means he can remove the plug at the bottom of the Light well. Esau wanted him to do this so Esau could leave the Island. Jack wanted Desmond to this so that Esau could be killed. Turns out both were correct.

2. Kate kills Esau.

3. Lapidus is able to fly himself, Miles, Sawyer, Claire, Kate and Richard off the Island. They probably make it.

4. Jack is injured during his fight with Esau and is dying. He passes the Guardian position on to Hurley, and then replaces the plug in the Light well.

5. The ensuing electromagnetic energy shoots him out of the Light well, where he stumbles back to the bamboo thicket and dies. Vincent is there.

6. Hurley guards the Island for an unspecified amount of time. Ben is his second in command for a while. It's a good time.

Reality B

1. This entire reality is a place in the afterlife constructed by certain of the Losties so that they could find each other after they'd died. There is absolutely no precedence set in the Lost universe that deals with anything related to this concept.

2. Desmond gets the ball rolling for most of his buddies to realize where they are and get them prepared to leave the aforementioned construct.

3. Eventually, a lot of characters from the show end up in a multi-denominational church where Christian is in charge. The only three people there that were not on Flight 815 are Penny, Desmond and Juliet.

4. From Lostpedia: "Christian explains that they are real, Jack's life was real, the people in the church are real. Jack becomes upset, but Christian reassures him, explaining that "everyone dies sometime, kiddo. Some before you, some long after you. When Jack asks why everyone is here now, Christian responds that 'There is no now, here', and that this is a place they all made together to find each other, because the most important part of Jack's life was the time spent with these people. They made it so they could find each other, remember, and 'move on."

5. They all move on.

I enjoyed the concept that, in the Lost universe, there is life after death, and you end up with your loved ones eventually. Seeing Penny and Desmond, Sawyer and Juliet, Sun and Jin, etc. was awesome and very touching. (The Sayid and Shannon relationship is dumb and I refuse to accept it.)

So on that front, I liked the finale. I liked that most of the people ended up happy and with the ones who mattered to them (but are we sure no family members were important to these people?).

I also believe that we have been given the answers to many of the mysteries of Lost, in a roundabout way that requires some work to decipher. For example, the Others.

We know the Others were formed as Jacob attempted to actively meddle in the affairs of those on the Island. Richard was his intermediary, and for a while, things may have been good. But eventually, the Others lost their way. Jacob's list of candidates were used to target new arrivals to the Island for kidnap, torture and other manipulation. Their actions are merely examples of how arrivals to the Island eventually succumb to evil and kill each other, as Esau and Kidnap Mom believed is inevitable.

Jacob likely became disenfranchised with "his" people and eventually abandoned them altogether, leaving them wide open for guidance and manipulation from Esau. In one way, Jacob caused his own death... as he neglected Ben, he created the conditions whereby Ben became angry and easily able to be controlled by Smokey.

Now, not all mysteries can be solved this way. Christian left Claire a music box in Reality B. This is never referred to again. It's a mystery with no answer.

Other questions in this category: why the infertility issues on the Island? What was the deal with Walt? What exactly was the deal with Sayid and Claire after they die and are "claimed" by Esau?

Now, if I think about it long enough, I become frustrated that the Lost writers clearly introduced mysteries without giving them an accompanying answer. I doubt even Cruse or Lindelof know the answers to the above questions.

Yet, I think I'm okay with this. Creating a network television show is far different from writing a book or filming a movie. The writers dealt with uncertainty as to whether Lost would exist past a single season. They had to work with actors leaving the show and cutting their character's storyline short. They wrote some episodes in as few as two weeks.

Yet, even with all these limitations, they set the bar really high. Higher than any TV show before them. And if they didn't quite clear this bar, they at least created a work that was highly entertaining and engrossing.

I'll take that. It was a good ride, and I don't regret watching a minute.

Over the next few weeks I'll tackle a few of the bigger mysteries that we've only recently been given the means to answer.

As always, feel free to contribute your own thoughts.

ESPN explains Lost

Muppets and Lost? Sign me up.

Kimmell spoofs Across the Sea (kinda)

Thanks to www.docarzt.com.

Across the Sea

Much better, Lost. I admit that my love for backstory probably inflates my opinion of this episode, but even without that, this was a pretty well-done story.

Dragging index: 1 out of 10. I was enthralled pretty much the entire time.

Learning!

Reality A

1. Jacob and Esau are twins, and I feel even more validated calling Esau Esau. Man in Black just makes me feel like Will Smith is around here somewhere, playing a Johnny Cash cover. It's a bad name.

2. Jacob and Esau were born to a Latin-speaking woman who shipwrecked on the Island.

3. Real Mom was unaware she was carrying twins, and only had a name ready for Jacob. After Esau is born, Real Mom asks, "Can I see him?" and not "Can I see them?"

4. Kidnap Mom kills Real Mom and raises Jacob and Esau as her own children. They are kept from even knowing the rest of the world exists, and for around 14 years they only have each other and Kidnap Mom as company.

5. Young boy appearing to Esau/Locke in the jungle? Jacob.

6. Jacob can't lie, and Esau is a natural deceiver.

7. Jacob and Esau discover the rest of their people, wrecked on the Island with Real Mom.

8. Kidnap Mom keeps to her xenophobic ways and asks them not to make contact with the men. She shows them the Light, which she says is the source for all Light in the world. No one can take anything from it, or it will be extinguished. Kidnap Mom has been the Protector of the Light for a long time, and one day she'll bestow that responsibility on one of her kidnapped sons.

9. Esau sees his dead Real Mom; Jacob cannot see her. Real Mom informs Esau that the men are his people, and that Kidnap Mom killed her. Having acquired this new information, he leaves, and wants Jacob to come with him. Jacob refuses, and a fistfight ensues. Jacob wins.

10. It's Kidnap Mom who creates the conditions whereby neither twin can kill the other.

11. Esau lives with the men for 30+ years. Jacob visits, and they play Esau's game, which looks more like checkers than backgammon. Lostpedia says it is Senet.

12. Esau is building the Frozen Donkey Wheel, and plans to harness the Light to get off the Island. The specifics of this plan are fuzzy, but Esau's convinced it will work. He believes he is special.

13. Esau and his people build the wells in the locations of electromagnetic weirdness.

14. Kidnap Mom finds out about Esau's plan to leave, and pleads with him to stay. After it's clear he has every intention of completing the Frozen Donkey Wheel, she knocks him out and somehow kills all of his people, burning the village. She also fills in the well.

15. She bestows the work of Protector of the Light on Jacob, who was under the impression that she wanted the job to go to Esau this whole time. She says it's always been for him, and he complains that he doesn't want it. In the end, he accepts, and drinks some wine that Kidnap Mom has blessed in Latin.

16. Kidnap Mom tells Jacob to never go down the tunnel to the light, and that doing so will bring a fate worse than death on him.

17. Upon discovering his men are all dead and the well is filled in, Esau wrecks Kidnap Mom's camp, destroying the tapestry she was weaving. She arrives at the scene and Esau stabs her in the back, killing her. Kidnap Mom thanks Esau with her dying breath.

18. Jacob arrives, refuses to listen to Esau's explanations, and a fightfight ensues. Jacob wins again. I'm seeing a pattern.

18. Jacob, knowing he can't kill Esau, and also knowing that going down the light tunnel is bad news, determines to subject Esau to this unknown fate. Messing with powers he doesn't fully understand? Great call, buddy.

19. Esau floats into the light. An earthquake happens. Smokey comes roaring out of the tunnel.

20. Jacob finds Esau's body not far away. It is dead for dead.

21. He buries Kidnap Mom and Esau in the caves. Lost explicitly tells us that they are the Adam and Eve Jack and Kate found in the pilot episode of the series. I feel really talked down to.

Reality B

1. Absolutely nothing.

Phew. That's a lot of questions answered. Some of my thoughts:

1. Jacob is really naive and trusting. I imagine this has changed since 1600-something, but it affects my perception of who he is.

2. How messed up are Jacob and Esau psychologically? They're raised by Kidnap Mom, only to find out she killed their real mother. That alone is enough to cause major issues for anyone, but then Esau kills Kidnap Mom and Jacob turns Esau into some smoke monster abomination. Good grief. Any therapist would see either one of these guys as a giant bag of money.

3. Was Smokey created from Esau's soul? Or had Smokey already been in existence, and merely combined with Esau's soul to become what he is now?

4. As Protector of the Light, Jacob is obviously allowed access to the Light to stay alive for a really long time and bestow the same gift on others (Richard). Also might have allowed him to bring Locke back from the dead after getting pushed out the window and falling like 20 stories.

That's it. One more episode before the series finale. My faith is restored, and I feel like these last few hours will be amazing.

Let's do this.

Smokey to star in Lost spin-off series

Ah, The Onion. You are so brilliant.

BURBANK, CA—Executives at ABC announced Monday that the network will premier a new Lost spin-off series this fall based around that show's popular smoke monster character.

Enlarge ImageThe smoke monster, a fan favorite.

The new series, a half-hour family-oriented comedy called Where There's Smoke, is touted by ABC as the new anchor of its Thursday-night lineup.

"Somewhere between the smoke monster's first appearance on Lost— when it was depicted as a strange unseen force uprooting trees—and that episode in season three where it grabbed Mr. Eko and smashed him against the ground until he was dead, this character became the breakout star of the show," said Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment. "And that's exactly why we're so excited about Where There's Smoke. We get to see the monster's light comedic side in a show about life, love, and good friends having good times."

"Because after all, Where There's Smoke, there's laughter," McPherson added.

Just awesome. Captures everything stupid about spin-off shows and ABC comedies in general.

The Candidate

I am annoyed. I was underwhelmed enough with "The Last Recruit" that I didn't even bother writing a post on it, and "The Candidate" was even worse, in my opinion.

Here's what we got from Tuesday's episode:

Reality A

1. Esau maybe really kinda does want to kill the candidates maybe.

2. Maybe he can't kill them directly so perhaps he's kinda hoping to get them to sort of kill each other.

Reality B

1. Locke is responsible for his paralysis and his father's vegetative state. Locke feels really, really guilty about it.

2. Christian left Claire a music box.

That's it? Really? With two episodes to go, that's what they give us?

The whole thing kinda cheapened Sun and Jin's deaths in my view. It's like the writers realized they'd written a crap for crap episode, so they threw in 10 minutes of Sun and Jin tragically dying just hours after being reunited to tug on our heartstrings and make us forget what we'd just watched.

Ugh.

In other news, the Lost series finale will be 2.5 hours long.

I'm hoping these last 4.5 hours of Lost will be mind-blowingly awesome. Abrams, Lindelof, Cruse, etc. all set the bar ridiculously high, and now they have to clear it.

Because no one wants to see this on May 23.

Response to "Everybody Loves Hugo" Post

Ok, I started this as a direct response to Brandon's last post, but it got way too lengthy, so I'm putting it up as a post. Don't have a heart attack, Brandon. I am actually posting. :)

This sounds a little gruesome, but my favorite part of this episode was when Ilana blew up. She totally deserved it, with the way she was treating the dynamite. I saw it coming with her behavior, but was a little surprised when it actually happened.

I think Desmond is still alive in the well because Locke, like everyone else, still needs him for some reason. Just don't know what that is. As noted in an earlier post, though, Desmond seems to be pretty complacent to do what *anyone* asks him to, so maybe Locke's gotta keep him in a place that others perhaps won't find him? I'm kind of wondering if he is keeping him in the well so Widmore will have to search him out (thus allowing Locke to move more freely towards the plane?)... just thinking out loud here. Locke said something about the well making compass needles spin--what would Desmond's ability to withstand massive amounts of electromagnetism (or whatever it was) do to that/because of that? Very interesting stuff going on with Desmond, I think. Actually, now that I think about it, I think he's just hiding Desmond so he can use him if he needs to get past the electro-fence thing into Widmore's camp... doesn't that seem like something Desmond could withstand?

On that note, I think Desmond tried to kill Locke (succeeded? not sure) either because:
A.) He remembers the island, and what a jerk Locke was to him. Also, if Locke were to remember the island, like everyone else seems to be doing, the potential ramifications there are scary.
Or
B.) Maybe Desmond is trying to recreate his own remembrance (remember how Charlie nearly killed him and that's how he remembered?) to get Locke to remember his role? Again, not sure.

I'm confused about why all the candidates need to leave together. They got off before without everyone, and came back (though that time it was claimed that they all needed to be together, too...but Eloise seemed somewhat willing to make an exception?).

It kind of bugs me when questions are answered so bluntly (like the whispers thing)--we've been waiting for years for these answers, and then they just throw them in our faces? Lame. Also--why can everyone hear the whispers, but only Hugo *see* the dead people? Other people have seen the dead in the past, but they've always been the smoke, right? But Locke is stuck in his body now, so the dead people are something else? Also, Miles can hear people's last thoughts--what's with all the dead people gifts?

I don't hate Michael, either. My feelings towards him are similar to those towards Ben. I think part of the show is just the idea of how even the "worst" people aren't necessarily bad, and the good ones can be... Hugo being one of the few exceptions there (he does seem to genuinely be good... though his $$ definitely cursed a lot of people in Reality A). Just lots of shades of gray within the characters.

That being said, it seems like Michael may be working for Esau. Or at least he's working towards getting everyone off the island (since they all have to go together...). Does he maybe get to leave with them? And what would happen if they *did* make it off the island? Their existence is still continuing in Reality B while they're living in Reality A--what if they collided? I'm thinking that's maybe where the cracks in Reality B are coming from--the closer they get to leaving the island in A, the more cracks people are seeing in B. Also, does it seem like the dead (Libby and Charlie, specifically) break through the realities a lot easier? Perhaps because they're not on the island anymore?

Sorry this is so disorganized. I still have a lot of questions. Hope you guys don't mind me thinking out loud.

Go season go.

Everybody Loves Hugo

First things first, and I have to say my favorite part of last night's episode was the 30-second preview for next week's episode. Not that "Everybody Loves Hugo" wasn't any good, but holy smokes was the preview brilliant.

Here it is (and for those of you who avoid these because of spoilers, there really aren't any):

Whoever had the brilliant idea to combine Willy Wonka's creepy tunnel scene with Lost should get a raise. As my wife pointed out last night, we all watched that movie as kids, and we were all terrified of the tunnel incident (and rightly so). Tapping into that part of our shared subconscious was genius.

Dragging index: 3 out of 10. As the episode title implies, I love Hurley and am never bored when he's around. The only problem was that at the end, I realized not much at all had really happened.

The learning:

Reality A

1. Messing with that Black Rock dynamite is never a good idea. Though the way Ilana was tossing stuff into the bag and throwing it around, you'd have thought she was suicidal. At least Arzt was being careful with his when he blew up.

2. The Island IS Purgatory after all! Kind of! Apparently if you did bad stuff on the Island and then died, you're stuck there. That's what the whispers are. Thanks for answering a question we've had since Season 1, writers!

3. Michael appears to Hurley with some unhelpful advice. "I'm here to keep you from getting everyone killed," doesn't do much to clear anything up. Stupid ghosts.

4. Esau ascertains that Widmore wants something from Desmond and promptly chucks Desmond down a well. After establishing that the well isn't deep enough to cause instant death, this plan seems weird for Esau. Why not just kill Des and be done with it?

5. That ghost boy keeps messing with Esau, though Esau is determined to just ignore him. I think this is hilarious. The boy seems to be older than he was the first time we saw him, and his arms are no longer covered in blood. Or it might be a different boy altogether. Who knows?

6. Richard's assertion that "Jacob never tells people what to do," was not entirely accurate. Jacob did appear to Hurley once already this season, and he gave Hurley a very specific set of instructions.

6. Hurley leads a group to join up with Esau's crew. Jack, Sun, Kate and Lapidus join him. Richard, Miles and Ben go off to destroy the Ajira Airways plane. Jack finally comes to terms with his savior complex through following Hurley's lead. Whether this is a good thing or not, we don't know.

7. Esau states that to get off the Island, the candidates all need to leave together. Assuming the plane doesn't blow up anytime soon, Esau is now most of the way there.

Reality B

1. Libby's Matrix is cracked by merely seeing Hurley on TV. Hurley's Matrix is cracked when she kisses him, though he feels something when they first meet.

2. Desmond is actively getting involved in the lives of passengers from flight 815. For some reason he feels pushing Hurley towards Libby is enough to help him see the truth, but Locke needs to get smashed by a car. Maybe this is because Locke doesn't have any romantic relationships in Reality A. Also, he's dead.

In other news, in talking with my wife last night I realized that the writers have done everything in their power to make us really like Hurley and really dislike Michael.

Hurley never does anything remotely cruel. He never hurts anyone, intentionally or otherwise. He only wants what is best for everyone. He is acutely aware of his own shortcomings, but isn't super emo about them. He even forgives Michael for killing Libby. In short, he's borderline unbelievably good.

Meanwhile, Michael's only focus while he's alive is Walt, to the detriment of everyone around him. And he even fails at being a good father. He betrays the Losties, kills two of them, loses his son and then tries to kill himself. Thanks to the direction of Mr. Friendly, he does manage to somewhat redeem himself by freezing the bomb on the Kahana for a while, but when he reappears, he only berates Hurley, further giving us a negative impression of him.

And the thing is, even with all that, I don't see Michael as a bad person. I see him as a good person who is forced to make terrible decisions (terrible as in extremely difficult) and recognizes that fact.

That's enough amateur psychology from me.

Feel free to chime in with anything I've missed. Go Willy Wonka boat go.

Lost fan art!

Lost fans are nothing if not devoted and a little crazy. Here's a bunch of Lost fan art ABC has collected and put on display on the interwebs for all to see.

I'd post a couple here, but the whole thing is in Flash (so you iPad users can't view them).

Random thoughts on Lost in general

Today I listened to Chuck Klosterman discuss Lost with Bill Simmons on a podcast for 20 minutes, and I also read EW.com's Doc Jensen's take on the latest episode. Here are a few disconnected things I learned and/or thought were interesting.

Klosterman is apparently buddies with a few of the writers for Lost, and he said that there are two separate camps in that group: Camp 1 wants to focus on the soap-opera elements of the show, while Camp 2 really likes the sci-fi aspects, including time travel, the Swan Hatch, etc. Apparently Camp 2 won the battle during Seasons 2 and 3, which perfectly explains what the heck was going on with the show spending so much time on love triangles and Hurley getting the Dharma van working and stuff like that.

Simmons heard that Lost was initially created because some ABC exec loved Tom Hanks' Castaway, and wanted the network to produce a show along those lines. Therefore, the pilot was thrown together really, really quickly, and Simmons doesn't believe there's any way the writers/producers planned the entire show, or even important aspects of it, in advance.

Klosterman generally agrees with that premise, and is virtually certain that the writers are reverse engineering stuff now to fit with earlier episodes, which explains continuity issues that occasionally pop up.

That said, Klosterman said he consciously chooses to watch believing they know what they're doing until the end, and that the entire show is written well enough that everything is part of one great whole. He said if the final episodes are crap and don't resolve anything, he may change his mind. :)

And from ew.com:

Jensen notices two discrepancies in Tuesday's episode when you compare them to earlier ones this season.

1. Claire tells Desmond she doesn't know Aaron's sex, when she clearly tells Kate that she's having a boy.

2. Desmond is wearing a wedding ring on Oceanic 815 when he is sitting next to Jack.

So either these are just mistakes the show has made, or there's some weird convergence of realities taking place from the time Oceanic 815 takes off until it lands safely, and maybe even after that. Maybe Reality B is something that is gradually forming, not something that solidly exists. Which kinda goes along with all of my Matrix theories.

In other news, the driver I get creeped out about is George Minkowski, the Kahana's radio operator who got unstuck in time and died last season. In my own defense, the guy was referred to and not pictured about 50 times before we saw him, and he almost immediately died at that point. I'm good, but apparently I'm not that good.

And something else Jensen noticed is that Desmond and Widmore have a meeting in Reality A where Widmore specifically tells Desmond he's not good enough to drink the scotch in his office.

However, [Widmore] only pours whiskey into one glass, saying that one swallow costs more than Desmond would make in a month, and sharing it with him would be a waste because he will never be a great man and as such will never be worthy to marry his daughter.

Just makes the moment when Widmore offers Desmond a drink in Reality B that much better.

Finally, a great find by Jensen:

I was reminded of what Young Daniel Faraday told his mother in the episode entitled ''The Variable'' when she informed him that she wanted him to stop studying piano and start focusing his genius on physics. He could do both, he insisted. ''I can make time,'' he said. Eloise sighed. ''If only you could,'' she said. And it sounds like he did — if you believe Dan's Lost theory.

A good find. I don't agree with many of Jensen's theories, but he's an entertaining read and he does his research.

Happily Ever After

At long last, Reality B starts to have some sort of relevance to the overall plot of the show. Did Tuesday's episode completely destroy my existing theory about what Reality B is? Yes it did. But I'm not upset, because whatever the truth is, it's more interesting than what I previously thought.

Dragging index: An impressive 0 out of 10. Great episode.

Learning!

Reality A:

1. Widmore wants Desmond for Desmond's magical "I can survive a major electromagnetic event" powers. Somehow Widmore found out about the Swan explosion incident and figures if Des can do it once, he can do it again. What usefulness this skill actually has, I have no idea.

2. Widmore is right. The very same experiment that fried poor Redshirt to death leaves Desmond with hardly a scratch, though it's hard to tell which injuries are from being beaten by Widmore's groupies, which are from breaking his chair against the door, and which are possibly from the experiment.

3. Widmore once again says that if his mission fails, everyone will be gone forever. These are some high stakes here.

4. After the experiment, suddenly Desmond is Mr. Cooperative. At first I thought this was because he'd traveled to Reality B and saw what would be missing/different if Esau gets off the Island, but then

5. Infected Sayid opens a can on Widmore's people (sparing Zoe McGeophysist) and tells Desmond to come with him. Desmond responds like a 3-year-old who has been offered ice cream, and happily trundles off into the jungle. What happened to helping Widmore? I argue Desmond is brain damaged thanks to the electromagnetism, at least temporarily.

Reality B:

1. Is the Matrix! Everyone is in a reality that should not exist, and cracks are forming in the "programming." It starts with Charlie's vision of Claire, then Desmond flashes back to Reality A Charlie's death and finally, Faraday (Widmore, whatever) is writing incredibly complex quantum mechanics in a notebook, despite being a musician with no expertise in this area whatsoever.

2. To backtrack a bit, Desmond is best friends with Widmore, but has no friends or family whatsoever. Charlie's accusation that Desmond isn't really happy rings true.

3. Charlie remains Charlie. Bassist for Drive Shaft, heroin addict, etc. etc.

4. Penny and Daniel are aware of each other's existence, though Daniel still refers to her as his half-sister, which is consistent with Reality A. Faraday is living his childhood dream of being a great pianist, while in Reality A, this dream is redirected/quashed by Hawking, who wants Daniel to be a physicist.

5. Eloise Hawking is still Eloise Hawking, except that she is openly married to Widmore. She is still obsessed with the status quo, hearkening back to her "what happened, happened" speech to Desmond in The Constant. She tells Desmond he can't see the guest list because he is not ready yet. More Matrix parallels.

6. And just like in Reality A, Daniel is insistent on proving his mother wrong. He believes he can change the timeline by detonating the nuke, despite Ms. Hawkings arguments that this is impossible. Here in Reality B, he essentially gives Penny to Desmond, in direct conflict with his mother's wishes.

7. From Lostpedia's recap: "[Hawking] says that [Desmond] should not need to look for anything, that he has the perfect life and has attained the thing he wanted more than anything: the approval of Charles Widmore." Major, major Matrix theme, there. The machines created a world to keep the humans happy, even if it wasn't real. Seems that is going on here.

8. Faraday believes he set off an atomic bomb and created this reality. This puts us square into the realm of concurrent realities where one has holes in it and just trying to get my head around the theory at large gives me a headache. I'm just going to wait until more is explained.

9. The major cracks in the Matrix are all centered around relationships. Penny/Desmond, Charlie/Claire, Faraday/Charlotte. Minor cracks exist in Jack's scar and possibly Sawyer letting Kate go at the airport. Major cracks lead to characters trying to learn more, willingly recruiting others, etc. Minor cracks just seem to be like deja vu. Something weird, but not enough for those who experience them to openly question the reality of their reality.

10. Considering Charlie's version of "showing" Desmond the cracks involved driving the car into the ocean, I wonder what Desmond has in plan for the other passengers of 815. I had a conversation with Amy about this last night, and we both thought it'd be humorous if Desmond contacted an 815 passenger who had died in the crash. "So, um, you should be dead. Just thought you should know."

11. I get major trap vibes from George, the driver. It may just be he's kinda sleazy, but I don't trust that guy.

That's it. Can't wait for next week.

The Package

Things are ramping up as of late. Pieces are being moved into place, motivations are becoming more clear, and I hope we're in for eight more incredible episodes to finish off the show.

Dragging index: I rate this episode at 1. Sun's aphasia thing bugs me because I can't see what function it serves. She can still understand English. She can still write English. What's the point?

The learning, mingled with theory:

Reality A:

1. Widmore claims to be at the Island for the express purpose of keeping Esau from leaving the Island. His adversarial relationship with Ben led us to initially believe Widmore was working against Jacob, but more and more it seems he's definitely all about helping him. Apparently the Kahana and other attempts Widmore has made at invading the Island were more about dethroning Ben as leader of the Others.

2. The package is Desmond. Is Desmond somehow destined to do something great on the Island? Ms. Hawking sure thought so. Maybe this is why Widmore tried to keep Penny away from him... he knew Desmond was going to be mixed up in Island stuff (or possible die?) and didn't want Penny to be involved.

3. Widmore's people take Jin because Jin was fixin' to leave the camp. Interesting that Leader McGeophysicist Zoe tells Widmore maybe he should have used mercenaries to work for him, when that's exactly what he did with Keamy, and we all know how well that went, what with the collateral damage and all. Maybe Widmore is willing to sacrifice professionalism for a lower body count, that old softy.

4. Esau intends to use Kate to get others on the plane (translation: Jack and Sawyer. Maybe Hurley). Maybe that love triangle stuff I was bored to death with over the last few seasons did have a purpose, after all.

5. Esau also strongly implied that if Infected Claire wishes to kill Kate once all is said and done, she's free to.

6. Sayid complains that he doesn't feel any emotion whatsoever. Zombie!

7. Richard has a new purpose: to stop Esau from leaving the Island. I'm not sure this is what Jacob meant when he told Ilana Richard would know what to do. Ilana was already aware of Esau and his plans to leave and what that meant, I think. Hmm.

8. Widmore tells Jin that if Esau gets off the Island, "everyone we know and love would simply cease to be." Interesting concept that, if Widmore is telling the truth, might involve some time travel implications.

Reality B

1. Sun and Jin aren't married, but sleeping together. This angers Daddy Paik and

2. Paik sells Sun and Jin out. Is that what Reality A Paik was doing, too, when he sent Jin to LA with that watch?

3. Mikhail works for/with Keamy and speaks "like nine languages," including Korean. He gets shot in the eye.

4. Sun is pregnant, and catches a stray bullet.

A theory about that last one. What if Reality B is what happens if Esau leaves the Island? Somehow this causes some event in the past that adjusts everything to where Kate is still running from the cops, Jack has a son, etc. etc. In that situation, Sun and her baby's lives are at risk and they may die. Perhaps Penny is dead, as well, and Widmore's prophecy about all they (Jin and Widmore?) know and love will cease to exist means Reality B will take over if Esau escapes.

That's all I have. Getting good.

Ab Aeterno - Deleted Scene?

Thanks again, Damon Lindelof's (probably real) Twitter feed (@DamonLindelof).

Ab Aeterno

From Lostpedia:

Ab Aeterno is Latin for "from eternity". The phrase is used to mean "since the beginning" or "for long ages".
The phrase comes from the Latin translation of the Bible found in Proverbs 8:23 : "I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began."

Now that that's out of the way, on to my recap.

Dragging Index: 2 out of 10. They spent way too long on the "Oh no Richard cannot escape his chains" aspect of the episode, but other than that they were fine with the pacing.

Getting the backstory for Richard was very rewarding, in my opinion. We've only wondered where he came from and who he was since Season 3, for goodness sake.

Also, Richard's transformation from serene and confident representative of Jacob to wild-eyed, panicked deserter is pretty good. You can't get away from the Christ/Peter parallels here. I assume Jacob will return and Richard will be as stalwart as ever.

1. Richard's name is Ricardo (or Ricardus?), and he's of Spanish descent.

2. He originally came from the Canary Islands, which are off the northwest coast of Africa.

3. Old-timey Catholicism is great. "You have to pay penance to atone for the murder, but you have no time for that, so you're eternally damned. Have a nice day, my son."

4. Magnus Hanso died in the shipwreck.

5. Richard saw his wife, Isabella, on the ship after the wreck, even though her body is not on the Island. At this point, I believe she was Smokey. The rules as to who he can and cannot impersonate are not very restricted.

6. I think Esau/Smokey spared Richard because he saw the weakness of Isabella in him; she was away to get Richard to do his dirty work for him: namely, killing Jacob.

7. The instructions Esau gave to Richard are exactly the same as the ones Dogan gave to Sayid. "Here's a knife, stick it into his chest before he can say a word. If he speaks, it's too late." However, Jacob was killed by Ben waaaay after Jacob had said a few words, which lends credence to the idea that Jacob let himself die.

8. Esau tells Richard that Jacob is the devil, and that they are all in hell. This was the prevailing theory of Lost in Season 1 until the producers specifically debunked it.

9. Esau also tells Richard that Jacob stole his body and his humanity. There's some good back story there.

10. Jacob is fairly rough with poor Richard; in fact, he's the roughest we've seen him be with anyone so far. And why? It's not like Richard was a threat to him. Maybe it's just sheer frustration, as I discuss later.

11. Jacob says no one goes into his home without his permission. This further indicates he planned on dying.... Ben and Locke/Esau walked in no problem.

12. Jacob explains his philosophy as it relates to free will in a decidedly odd conversation with Richard.

a.) Esau believes all mankind can be corrupted because it is in their nature to be bad.

b.) Jacob wants to prove Esau wrong, so he brings people to the Island for... testing? Observation?

c.) Apparently Esau has a 100% win rate at the point that Richard arrives.

d.) This frustrates Jacob, but he wants people to choose right without him being there to educate them.

e.) Richard astutely points out that while Jacob may not interfere, Esau sure does, and what chance do people have with only evil influencing them?

f.) Jacob offers Richard a job. Whether this is just a way to keep Richard from joining Esau, I don't know. Richard is also the one who asked for immortality, something he curses later.

13. It seems odd Richard goes over to Jacob's side so easily. Esau is offering Isabella, while Jacob can only offer immortality. Hmm... a neverending life without your love, or the chance to be with her again. And Richard goes with Door #1? Maybe he sensed Esau was lying.

14. Esau is the king at finding what people want most and then offering it to them. He offers Nadia to Sayid, Aaron to Claire, leaving the Island to Sawyer. Esau doesn't even have to poke or prod through conversation to discover this desire... he just nails it and uses it as soon as possible. Quite a skill.

15. Esau says he will kill Jacob, AND kill whoever replaces Jacob. It makes me wonder why he isn't offing candidates left and right. Kill Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Sun and Jin, etc. and be done with it. With no candidates for replacement, no one can act as the cork. Yet he allows them all to live for some reason.

16. Hey look, Hurley speaking Spanish for the first time on the show! He relays a Ricardo/Isabella conversation that is very touching and sad. Can we assume he relays the whole thing, and that when suddenly Hurley is not doing so, it's just a mechanic to make the scene more poignant?

"She said you have to stop the Man in Black from leaving the Island. If you don't do that, we all go to hell."

So there ARE some overt religious elements to this show after all!

Also, huh? Literal hell? Is this a figurative statement? Ugh.

Now that Jacob has expressly stated his beliefs and desires for humanity, I have to think the Others are a supreme disappointment to him. Richard is a direct intermediary with them, so you'd think they'd be a.) informed of Jacob's will and b.) interested in doing good a little more.

Instead, they routinely kidnap, torture, brainwash, kill and otherwise terrorize newcomers to the Island. I doubt these actions are in line with Jacob's goals.

Hey, look, if you think of Jacob as God, these are yet more religious overtones.

Get out your Bibles, everyone. If I'm right, we're headed for some serious Armageddon stuff in these final episodes.

Recon

Dragging index on this episode: 6 out of 10. Gave us some stuff, took too long to do it. Seeing as to how they specifically tell us how many episodes of the show are left, they're aware that there's not much time left to explain things, right?

Anyway.

Reality A

1. Widmore and Esau are not buddies. Considering Widmore and Ben are also not buddies, does that mean Ben has been working for Esau for at least since 815 crashed? Does this indicate that Widmore may be aligned with Jacob? Considering Jacob was trying to help someone find the Island and then almost immediately Widmore pulled up to the driveway in a submarine, I'd say the odds are good.

2. Sawyer is pulling the ol' triple-cross. I totally saw this coming, by the way. Leave it to Sawyer to let the two giants slug it out and slip away in the confusion. Or shoot, even if one side wins decisively, he's got a promise from both Charles and Esau of safe passage of the Island. Currently, Sawyer wins either way.

3. The way Locke/Esau reprimanded Claire for her attack on Kate was very father/daughter. Are the Infected essentially his children?

4. Esau had a mother. Or at least he tells Kate he did. Need backstory. Lots of it.

Reality B

1. Sawyer and Miles are detectives. Somewhat odd considering they each have counter-culture tendencies in Reality A, but as my wife pointed out, sometimes those people make the best law enforcement personnel.

2. Sawyer is still hunting Sawyer, though this time around it appears his Australia trip ended in him obtaining Anthony Cooper's name instead of him shooting and killing an innocent man.

3. Charlotte is a friend of Miles' who was rummaging around in Sawyer's dresser looking for something. I think she was looking for his Sawyer file and found it, her protestations of innocence notwithstanding.

4. Sawyer catches Kate, after letting her go at the airport. Him allowing her to escape despite clearly knowing she was in handcuffs is a much more interesting decision now that we know he's a cop.

5. Miles mentions his father, who works at a museum. If this is Pierre, how did he get off the Island before it sank? Was he ever there?

It seems to me that at this point, the object of Reality B is to show us that these individuals are still all being drawn together by some force even though the Island isn't around. There's some higher power at work. Is Jacob running around? If there's no Island, does that mean Esau is free?

So many questions. I might even try to answer them before the next episode. (Richard-centric! Woo!)

Dr. Linus

One of the best episodes of Lost ever, in my opinion. Hopefully this is a harbinger of things to come.

Reality A:

1. Richard was "touched" by Jacob and now cannot die and/or be killed. Was Locke "touched" in the same way? How about Jack, Kate, Sawyer, etc.? Richard is also bitter about his role in Jacob's plans, and views his whole life as virtually meaningless now that Jacob is dead.

2. Christ parallels all over the place. Ben as Judas, but redeemable? Richard as Thomas? Jack as Peter?


Reality B:

1. This Ben has the same thirst for power as the one we're familiar with, but is unwilling to sacrifice an innocent to get it. (That said, Ben totally should have waited a couple weeks before confronting the principal. He knew Alex needed that recommendation.)

2. Arzt is Arzt. Not the most likable character, but he is who he is.

3. Ben's relationship with Uncle Rico his father is infinitely better than it is/was in Reality A. Somehow they both got off the Island before it ended up underwater, which places the submerging somewhere after 1964, at the earliest. Maybe Ben's mother didn't die giving birth to him.

4. Widmore's back! I've missed that guy.

Stuff I liked from this episode:

-Miles was great. From blowing Ben's story apart to retrieving Nikki and Paulo's diamonds, his Ghostbusting powers came into play a lot. His statement that "right up until the second the knife went through his heart, Jacob was hoping he was wrong about you," was powerful.

-Ilana's part was odd, yet I liked it. She reacts in no way when she finds out Ben killed Jacob, then is extremely angry, proclaims she will kill Ben, and has him start digging his own grave. Yet after Ben's pronouncement as to why he killed Jacob, she not only forgives him, she offers him redemption. Logically I don't quite follow that sequence of events, but it was compelling.

-Ben offering to help Sun with the tarp shows that for now, at least, Ben is content to be one of many, and not lead. Even after Esau/Locke offered Ben the thing he wanted most, he chose to go back to the beach. Something may have fundamentally changed in him. Maybe finally coming to terms with Alex's death was the key.

I like where we're going here. Nine more episodes.

Sundown

Better episode than last week's, and hey, improvement is what it's all about, right?

I even cared about the Reality B plotline. But maybe that's just because I think Sayid is a far more compelling character than either Jack or Kate.

Here's what I got from "Sundown."

1. Esau can apparently cross an ash circle if the Others' Temple leader is dead. Or something. This one is fuzzy.

2. Sayid was definitely dead. (Thank you, Miles, for taking so long to mention this fact.) That means Esau brought Sayid back... and this is the essence of "infected." I take this to mean Claire also died (in the barracks during the mercenary attack) and was brought back by Esau.

3. While Esau has a creepy influence over the Infected, he still needs to offer them something they really, really want to exert full control. Hence Claire asks about Aaron before going to the Temple, and Sayid is in after Esau basically promises him Nadia.

4. Dogen's baseball is a memento of his son.

5. Sayid is 100% in the tank for Esau now. His little smile after the temple cleansing said it all.

6. Dogen can beat Sayid in a fight, and rather easily. I was actually wondering this out loud about ten minutes before the rumble started.

And some thoughts:

-Dogen's reveal about why he is on the Island brings me back to the notion that Jacob and Esau are not Good and Evil, but rather two competing powers with different goals. Jacob manipulates just as much as Esau does... though Esau is known to kill people fairly often, so he's got that going for him.

-Things are not looking good for Jacob right now. The only Others on the Island who aren't dead or following Esau are Richard (if he counts), Ben (if he counts), Ilana and whoever is alive from her crew, and Cindy, Zach and Emma, who apparently fled into the jungle. I suppose more could have gone with Cindy, but we don't know for sure. Esau, meanwhile, picked up another minion in Sayid, and whoever of these Others are following him now. Include Sawyer in there and he's doing okay.

-Kate has gotta be freaked out. She finds Claire, and Claire is nutso. Smokey kills a bunch of Others, then Locke, who is dead as far as she knew, shows up.

-Notice that Ben is the only one left at the Temple at this point.

-Unaccounted for: Jin, Sawyer, Richard.

More to come, though I'm traveling for work starting tomorrow and might not get to it. Feel free to add your own.

The Lighthouse

I'm feeling very meh about Lost right now, and here's why:

It's the final season of Lost. We've invested years into this show and have a million questions that need answering before this is all said and done.

And what do the writers do for this, the sixth and final season? They introduce an alternate reality, and spend at least half of every episode delving into this new world where Kate is still on the run and Jack has a son.

And you know what? I DON'T CARE. I don't care that Jack is somehow projecting his daddy issues onto a son I didn't know existed until Tuesday night. I don't care that Locke is working as a substitute teacher and that Ben teaches European History. I don't care that Rose works for Hurley's temp agency. What the heck does any of that have to do with anything? Why are the writers expecting us to put up with 20+ minutes each episode being devoted to a reality that has no meaning or significance to us whatsoever?

I fear the scenario I facetiously played out really happened. That this Reality B was created solely to mess with the Lost fanbase, and now Lindelof and the rest have no idea where they're going with it. Sure, it was kinda fun to see what would have happened if Flight 815 hadn't crashed on the Island, but it's not fun anymore. Now it's just annoying and taking time away from storylines I care about. We don't get anything from Locke and Sawyer in Tuesday night's episode? We don't even see the Temple last week?

In short, watching Dogen and Jack talk about the pressures parents put on their children is a waste of time and I'm a bit riled up about it.

Okay! On to the learning!

Reality A:

-Claire is definitely claimed, and is tight with Not Locke and Not Christian. Interestingly, it seems she knows Not Locke is not Locke. She's also under the impression the Others took Aaron. Apparently the Others got hold of her at one time and branded her like they branded Sayid.

-There's a lighthouse on the Island that none of the survivors had seen until now. Somehow it's used to draw people to the Island? Or spy on them? Or something?

-Jacob needs Jack to do something, but he knows Jack doesn't ever do what he's directly asked.

-Jacob sure loves keeping people in the dark.

Reality B:

-Jack is divorced and has a kid who is a piano genius and who also somehow kept this information from Jack for over a decade. The kid also suffers from the crippling fear of failing in front of Jac, though this fear appears completely and utterly unfounded. In short, this kid is both brilliant and stupid. Maybe he's suffering from savant syndrome.

-Christian left sometime to Claire in his will.

Theories to come.

Things we learned from Lighthouse/theories/random babblings/questions

So, I haven't really had all that much to say in the way of Lost lately. Then this episode hit me and I've got the Lost bug again. And here we go.

Reality B: Jack’s a dad with a middle school-aged-ish son (we don’t know who the mom is) who is a prodigy at piano, basically, but afraid of failing in front of his dad, which is why the son didn’t tell Jack he was still playing piano. Wasn’t there someone else who played the piano amazingly well in a past episode? Was it Juliet? Does that have anything to do with anything? Dogan has a son who says Jack’s son is amazing. Also, Jack’s mom tells him that his son was devastated at his grandfather’s funeral and suggests that he’s scared of Jack which is why they don't communicate. Which, really, he’s not drinking or doing Oxycodone, so what is the basis for that? Afraid he’ll fail in front of him…since Jack’s so demanding. Sorry - I’m just not seeing it.

Reality A: Claire is CRAZY. Literally. I don’t know if it’s because she was blown up - or reinvented by Esau/Locke or whatever…why would she think the Others took her baby? She was the one who left Aaron, didn’t she? What the crackles is Jin doing lying to her? Trying to get back to the temple alive? Also, how does Esau/Locke reinvent/reanimate Claire? He’s in a body himself, so he can‘t be possessing her, can he? We learned that Claire’s “friend” is Esau/Locke and they’ve been living together in the woods. Has he been Locke the entire time? If not, how does Claire reconcile with his changing appearance? Oh, wait. Claire is crazy. Never mind. We also learn that the Temple People branded and tortured Claire the same way as Sayid so she escaped - although one of them tells her that’s not how it played out.

Jacob appears to Hurley and tells him to do a bunch of stuff. When Dogan catches Hurley, Jacob tells him to tell Dogan he’s a candidate and to not bother him. I love Assertive Hurley - he’s so awkward. So, Hurley takes Jack to the lighthouse, where they’re supposed to help someone who’s trying to get to the island. Jack sees places from his past, thinks Jacob’s been watching him and freaks out to the point where he breaks all the mirrors. If I were his son and had seen THAT moment, I think I would be afraid of him.

It seems that although Jacob tells Hurley to not go back for the others at the temple, Sayid’s the only one left there out of the Chosen/Candidates anyway, and he’s already mostly died like twice. So does Jacob want Sayid to die? Is Dogan doing the will of Jacob or himself in trying to kill Sayid? Is that why Jacob’s not so worried if Sayid’s still in the temple? So - was the reason why Jack and Hurley went to the lighthouse to get as far away as possible or to show Jack how important he is or both?

I love when Hurley’s like, “You could’ve just told me what was going to happen” and Jacob’s like, “Meh.”

Kind of like the writers in this show.

Theories on The Substitute

Some great comments on my recap post for Tuesday's episode:

Richard said:

Maybe Kate was brought to the island not to replace Jacob, hence no number, but to manipulate Jack and/or Sawyer. She seems to have had a lot of power over both, though her influence has diminished as of late.

An interesting point. She was the reason Sawyer jumped off the helicopter and stayed on the Island. She was also the reason Jack went through with the plan to blow up the ocean Island. I bet we could find a few other ways she moved Jacob's plans along.

Anna said:

So i thought that the whole knowing the rules can't kill him thing may have been referring to Richard Alpert...because wasn't "Esau" going to try to kill him when he refused to join him and then that little boy appeared?

Excellent thought; I hadn't even considered the boy was talking about Richard. But it did seem like Esau was going to smack Richard around some, if not kill him outright, after Richard refused to go with him. The boy shows up, Esau's attention is diverted, and the boy says Esau cannot kill "him." Works for me.

Though why Esau would be allowed to kill Jacob and not Richard I don't know.

Some theories from the good folk who contribute to the Lostpedia:

1. Kwon is not Sun or Jin, it's Ji Yeon, their daughter. When Jacob touched them on their wedding day, it was at the moment that eventually led Sun and Jin to crash on the Island and Sun to become pregnant, as Jin was sterile off-Island.

2. The cave is not Jacob's, ergo the names are not Jacob's. We've seen where Jacob dwells: in the shadow of the statue. What if the cave is Esau's? What if he wrote those names, and he has plans for everyone?

3. Everyone who has a number but Sayid chose to return to and/or stay on the Island.

4-Locke, always very certain he was staying on the Island instead of going with Jack and other O6.

8-Reyes, Hugo decided after Jacob touched him in the taxi, saying "It's your choice Hugo", it could also be argued that he made a decision to stay when he didn't follow Dave off the cliff in Dave (episode) Season 2 and chose to stay with Libby on the Island

15-Ford, Sawyer chose to stay on the Island by jumping from the O6's helicopter.

16-Jarrah, Although Sayid did return to the Island with Ajira 316, this was not his own choice as he was being escorted by Ilana (Who we are now know was/is working for Jacob). In fact athough initially he appears to have been hell-bent on leaving the Island, he did have the opportunity to leave, but then returned voluntarily on the Kahuna dinghy to save others. Subsequently, when he returned to the island, he has been something of a martyr figure, atempting to change history by killing Ben, then dismantling the bomb, without any regard to his own safety. His motivation in dismantling the bomb for Jack was not to leave, but to save others, as he felt that he himself was not worth saving, and therefore it did not matter if he died.

23-Shephard, Jack decided a lot sooner than the other O6 that he wanted to return to the Island and played a fundamental part in bringing the O6 back to the Island. If Shephard refers to Claire (Which I doubt as she spent her whole life with the name Littleton) she still made a decision to stay on the Island and not search for rescue when she disappeared leaving Aaron, and when she was seen in Jacob's shack with Christian she seemed to be contentedly there by her own choosing.

42-Kwon, as stated above Jin made a conscious decision to stay on the Island when he didn't go with Locke but gave him his wedding ring, however Sun also decided to return to the Island herself to find Jin.

4. When Esau shouted after the boy "Don't tell me what I can't do!" exactly like Locke would do (and has done in the past), it may be evidence that Locke's persona still exists and is influencing Esau. For Esau to show such anger and fear is entirely out of character for him, in our experience, and for him to have the same neurosis as Locke by chance seems unlikely.

Anything else?

The Substitute

While a better episode than last week's, The Substitute still made me feel like the writers are dragging their feet every bit as much as they have since Season 1. Anyway, here's what we found out:

Reality A:

1. According to Esau (a phrase that will be commonly used during this post), Jacob is searching for a successor, and has been for quite some time.

2. Also according to Esau, Jacob protects the Island... from nothing.

3. Jacob's visit to each of the (presumed) six "candidates" set in motion events that pushed them to the Island. Let's take a tangent and look at that a bit more closely:

• Locke (4): Actively brought him back to life? While manipulative, I'm not sure how that convinced John to attempt a walkabout.
• Hugo (8): Appeared to him and told him he needed to go back to the Island.
• Sawyer (15): Gives him a pen to finish writing his letter instead of letting young James let the deaths of his parents go. Sawyer's lifelong quest for revenge brought him to Australia and put him on Flight 815.
• Sayid (16): Essentially saves his life by keeping him from walking into the path of a speeding car that kills Nadia. In doing this, Jacob did not save Nadia, and Sayid ended up joining Ben on an assassination rampage that ultimately led to him being arrested by Ilana and brought back to the Island.
• Jack (23): Gave him a candy bar. Seems insignificant.
  
• Sun and Jin (42): Congratulated them on their marriage. Don't see anything manipulative about that.
• Kate: Prevented her from getting into trouble for stealing the lunchbox. Did that push her into a life of crime (killing her father), while maybe getting busted by the store owner at age eight would have straightened her out, leading to her never running from the FBI and never getting caught in Australia?

Interesting that Kate doesn't get a number, though we specifically see Jacob visit her.

It appears Jacob worked to get these seven people to the Island in order to test them and see who should be his successor. That means every other passenger on 815 was unimportant and expendable.

More discussion on this concept tomorrow.

4. Richard is scared to death of Esau. He's panicky, wild-eyed and generally discombobulated by whatever Esau is.

5. Esau reiterates his desire to go home/get off the Island. He tells Sawyer he's trapped there, and has been trapped for so long he doesn't even remember what it's like to be free. Is Jacob his jailer?

6. A little boy appears to Esau. Richard cannot see the boy, but Sawyer can. The child tells Esau he "knows the rules" and "can't kill him." Whether this "him" refers to the child himself or Jacob... no idea.

7. According to Ilana, Esau is recruiting. He actively recruits Richard to join him, and Richard refuses.

8. Also according to Ilana, Esau is stuck looking like Locke. Is this forever forever?

9. Apparently Richard had no more an idea what Jacob was up to than Ben did. Jacob sure likes keeping people in the dark.

Reality B:

1. Locke is engaged to Helen, who left him in Reality A after Locke couldn't stop obsessing about his father. While Locke is still paralyzed, it apparently was not Sawyer who did it to him, as Helen mentions inviting him to the wedding. Maybe Sawyer isn't a con man at all here.

2. Locke gets fired by everyone's favorite boss, Randy. Hugo then gives Locke another shot at a job through a temp agency owned by Hurley. Hurley is supremely confident and optimistic in Reality B.

3. This Locke doesn't believe in miracles, but Helen sure does.

4. Ben is teaching European History at a high school. He seems like a nice enough guy, albeit somewhat fruity.

5. Rose works for Hugo's temp agency and is still dying of terminal cancer. She seems unchanged, personality-wise.

That's all I've got. Seems fun that most of the major actors on the show are playing essentially two characters these days.

Valentine's Day cards

Maybe for next year.

Theories on What Kate Did

Claimed, infected, possessed. All these terms refer to the idea of a body or person's identity being influenced, appropriated or even directly controlled by an outside force. Here are the instances where this has happened or seems to have happened:

1. Yemi appeared to Eko. Yemi had died years before, and we saw his corpse in the drug smugglers' plane.

2. Christian appeared to Jack, Claire and others. Christian had died recently, and we have never seen his corpse. The coffin carrying his body on Flight 815 is empty.

3. Walt appeared to Shannon, while Walt was off-Island, and alive. Spoke some gibberish stuff and freaked Shannon out.

4. Walt also appeared to Locke after Ben shot John. Again, off-Island, never been dead as far as we know.

5. Locke appeared after the crash of Ajira Airways 316. He had died recently. This is not merely an appearance, as this incarnation of Locke lived with the survivors for at least a day or two. Locke's body is still dead, and lying on the beach. Not Locke appears to be Jacob's Nemesis, taking on Locke's appearance.

6. Charlie, Ana Lucia, Jacob and others have appeared to Hurley after their deaths. All three have died on-screen.

7. Alex appeared to Ben, apparently as a direct apparition stemming from Smokey. Alex had died recently.

8. Horace appeared to Locke in a sweat-lodge-induced dream. Horace had died several years ago.

What does this show us? That there is not one set of rules governing this. All of these examples are not instances of claiming. Nor are they all examples of Jacob's Nemesis taking on the appearance someone else.

There have to be multiple things going on. What happened with Locke's image is not the same as what is happening to Sayid. Apparently what is happening to Sayid already happened to Claire. It took me a bit, but the day after the episode aired, I remembered Claire and Jack are children of Christian, making them half siblings. In the interest of staying current, let's discuss her a bit here:

Claire's situation closely mirrors Danielle Rousseau's. Both arrived on the Island pregnant. The Others tried to take their children. And now Claire has apparently been living in the jungle for the past three years, just like Danielle did. Did she set the bear trap and swinging bag o' rocks thing?

I still maintain she is dead. She was in a Dharma barrack that got clobbered by a direct hit during the mercenary attack and somehow came out of it looking just fine. Afterwards, Miles was very wary of her, and she took off into the jungle after Christian, leaving Aaron behind. No way she's alive and in full control of herself and does that. So apparently she died and came back just like Sayid did, and her soul/body has been "claimed" by the Nemesis.

So what does this mean? Apparently it means she'll shoot Others, and by extension, save Jin. Was the saving an accident? Does she know him? So much will be explained next episode.

Dogan wants to kill Sayid, but can't just shoot him, apparently. He has to willingly take a pill filled with kelp or something, and Jack's not about that.

In Reality B news, Ethan is still a doctor, and his last name has changed from Rom to Goodspeed, Horace's surname. Lot of intimation there, but nothing solid.

And really, isn't that what this show is all about? Watching Dogan stonewall Jack about what was going on with Sayid made me feel like the writers use the Others' reluctance to ever explain themselves as a way to keep the audience in the dark unnecessarily.

But we keep plowing on, even when they're throwing away half the episode on Kate and Sawyer crying. Never mind the fact that they've got 300 questions to answer and their last season is three episodes in.

Urgh.

What Kate Does

After last week's jam-packed, two-part premiere, last night's episode seemed a little sparse in new information. I blame the writers' focus on the love square (Kate-Sawyer-Juliet-Jack).

On to the learning.

Reality A

1. The Others believe that Sayid is "claimed." Probably by Jacob's Nemesis.

2. Sawyer was going to ask Juliet to marry him. This is funny/sad because the only reason Juliet went along with the Faraday plan to blow up the ocean Island was because she thought Sawyer wanted to get with Kate.

3. Claire has been entirely claimed. (Christian is her father, making her Jack's half sister.)

Reality B

1. Ethan is a doctor, just like he was in Reality A before Charlie shot him to death. Is he an Other? Do Others exist, now that the Island is underwater?

2. Claire names Aaron long before she does in Reality A.

3. The husband of the couple that was going to adopt Aaron bugs out. We don't know if this is any different from Reality A.

4. Claire considers keeping Aaron, just like in Reality A.

5. Did the mechanic that helped Kate look familiar to anyone else?

That's it. As always, feel free to add to the list.

Theories up later.

Lost explained by people who have never watched Lost

Thanks again, Damon Lindelof's Twitter feed.

Michael Emerson actually did play a pedophile on an episode of Law and Order: SVU.

Jack and Rose on 815

@DamonLindelof: "Person who made this? You complete me."

Theories on LAX

First off, let me say I can imagine Abrams, Lindelof and Kurtzman sitting at a table laughing their heads off right now.

LINDELOF: "Those saps spend nine months trying to figure out if the bomb reset the timeline or not! Hahahaha!"

KURTZMAN: "There's no way they saw this coming! Two alternate realities, both interweaved throughout the premiere? Stroke of genius, J.J."

ABRAMS: "I just figured if time travel made our fans' heads explode, adding in alternate concepts of the world would be enough to really drive them crazy. How's our stock in Strait Jackets R' Us doing?"

Jerks.

So here we are, experiencing two different realities, both hinging on the single event of Faraday's plan working or not. For all intents and purposes, the two realities are happening at the same time. Flight 815 landed in September of 2004, while Ajira Airways Flight 316 crashed on the Island in 2007. A three-year difference isn't enough to really construe time travel, at least not by Lost's standards.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll refer to the world where 815 crashed as Reality A, and the world where it did not as Reality B. Reality A is essentially the the standard timeline of the show. Flight 815 crashed, Cindy the flight attendant joined the Others, Ben kidnapped and otherwise harassed the Losties, Smokey rampaged throughout the jungle, etc.

As part of this standard timeline, the Oceanic 6 went back to the mainland and then returned to the Island on Flight 316. The ones who were left in 1977 after all the timeshifting madness ended (Sawyer, Jack, Kate, Jin, Hurley, Miles, Juliet, Sayid) are whomped back into 2007 with the regular timeline. What happened, happened. The work they did as part of Dharma is all part of the past. Jacob's nemesis put into motion the plan to kill Jacob, and succeeded.

After this point, things got fuzzy. Were Jack, Kate, etc. on the Island at the same time as Richard, Lapidus, Sun, Ben, etc.? Then Dogan set off the warning rocket, and it was seen at the beach just after Jacob was killed. This is an important event, as it ties the two groups together and establishes that they are sharing the Island at the exact same time. I repeat: that rocket was very important.

So that's the normal. On to Reality B, the abnormal.

Differences:

1. The Island is underwater, complete with the foot of Tawaret's statue, the Dharma barracks and who knows what else? This implies the Island sank after Dharma arrived, which makes its current state a rather new one. Insane.
2. Christian Shepard's body never made it onto Flight 815.
3. Boone was not successful in attempting to bring Shannon home.
4. Desmond is on Flight 815. Assuming everything prior to that is normal, he probably successfully navigated the globe in Libby's ship, passed over the Island instead of crashing into it, and made it home to marry Penny.
   
5. Hurley is the luckiest guy alive.
   
6. Sun and Jin are not married, as neither are wearing wedding rings, and the airport employee in Los Angeles calls Sun "Ms. Paik." Sun also appears to not understand or speak English.
7. Walt and Michael don't appear to be on the plane.

I'm not counting anything that would have normally happened had 815 not crashed, ie. Locke is still paralyzed. However, Rose's cancer is not healed because she never ends up on the Island. Charlie is also still a heroin addict, though presumably he'll get over that in prison or some rehab program. There are countless other examples of how this alternate reality will change things.

But back to Reality A, the reveal that Jacob's Nemesis, Smokey and New Locke are all the same was a big one. It seems to me that if Esau's view of humanity is pessimistic, it makes sense that Smokey would judge new arrivals and kill them if he found them unrepentant or unworthy of redemption.

Now as to what Esau wants, that's a little murkier. He tells Ben that unlike John Locke, he wants to go home. Is he held captive on the Island? Was Jacob his jailer? Esau does cut out a piece of the rug inside the statue. That may be significant.

Esau takes Richard prisoner and starts heading towards the Temple, we can presume. Once Hurley tells Dogan that Jacob is dead, the Others start spreading the ash around the perimeter, sending up the warning rocket, etc. I'm guessing Esau is heading straight for the Temple, with Richard as a hostage, in order to negotiate with them. He needs something they have.

"Hello Richard, it's good to see you without your chains," Esau says. Are these literal or physical chains? Is Richard from the Black Rock? Was he a slave? Are the chains representative of how Richard must serve the leader of the Others, and now that Jacob is dead, that subservience is absolved?

And then there's the Temple; As I wrote earlier today, this is the first time we've seen the Temple, and the first time we've witnessed a healing at the fountain. The murkiness of the water is probably due to Jacob's death... is it possible the water's color signifies who is in control of the Island? Esau: black and murky, Jacob: clear? And considering Sayid is, in fact healed, does that mean Esau saved him?

The Others at the Temple seem to be more multicultural than the Others we've seen before. Some look Indian, Dogan is obviously Japanese, etc. It is apparent that these Others live exclusively at the Temple, or we would have run into them before now. They had no part in Ben's living in the Dharma barracks, and had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Walt, Zach and Emma, etc. I wonder if Ben went rogue and a contingent of Others followed him, leaving the rest loyal to Dogan.

Sayid's death and subsequent resurrection are interesting. He is dead to the world when the Losties arrive at the Temple. After being fully submerged in the water, he wakes up and starts to fight and struggle. I'm not sure he has the strength to do that after losing that much blood... was the healing process working? Does the process require the full body to be immersed for that long in order for a part of Jacob/Esau to enter the person? After he's pronounced dead, Miles is checking him out with a weird look on his face. And then, an hour or so later (?) Sayid revives. Just weird.

Finally, this is the first time we've seen a list as a stamp of approval from Jacob. The Losties at the temple were dead before Dogan read that note and asked them to identify themselves. Since Jacob wrote the note, we can only assume it reads, "Don't kill the following:" And it also told them Sayid needed to be healed, or dire consequences would follow. That'll be interesting to watch.

Phew. Two-hour premieres are hard to tackle. I'll post more later this week as I think of more theories/ideas.

But bottom line, the premiere didn't disappoint me at all. Very interesting, good writing, kept my attention throughout. Here's hoping for an epic sixth season.

LAX

Good to be back writing about new Lost episodes instead of just theorizing and looking back. Without further ado, here's what we learned:

1. The biggest reveal is that the smoke monster, new Locke and Jacob's nemesis are one and the same. Jacob's nemesis killed the pilot of 815. He judged Eko and found him worthy of death. He took the form of Christian, Walt, Yemi and Alex. Everything the smoke monster/nemesis has done so far was in preparation to finally kill Jacob.
   
2. Faraday's plan worked and didn't work. Apparently we're dealing with two distinct realities, and it appears we're done with time travel for now. One reality is September, 2004 and Faraday's theory was correct. Flight 815 lands, none of the Losties remember their experiences on the Island. Jack has some kind of recognition when it comes to Desmond and some other stuff, but he clearly doesn't remember anything. The other reality is January 2005 (or thereabout) and Faraday's theory was wrong. The explosion didn't reset anything; it merely pushed the Losties in 1977 back to their correct time, and in general kept them in their original locations on the island.
3. There is a separate leader of the Others who lives at the Temple. While Dogan speaks and understands English perfectly, he prefers to communicate in his native Japanese and use a translator.
   
4. We see how the healing process in the Temple works... injured individuals are lowered into a baptismal font of some kind, and kept under the water for a specific amount of time. The water is supposed to be clear, but to the surprise of everyone, it was murky when the Others attempted to heal Sayid, I'm guessing because Jacob is dead. The effects of the healing are usually immediate, as evidenced by the Others' surprise when Sayid woke up after an hour or so of being dead. So while we seeing the healing process for the first time, it is far different than the typical experience.
5. Juliet believed Faraday's plan worked. Either that or Miles is lying.
   
6. We see what was in the guitar case Jacob gave Hurley: a giant ankh, with a note inside. It appears the note is a list of names, one of Jacob's favorite things, and the names are Kate's, Hurley's, Sayid's and Jin's.
7. Bram, Ilana and co. are Jacob's protectors. That said, if they're supposed to protect him from his nemesis, carrying those guns around seems a bit silly.
   

That's all I've got. Theories to post this afternoon.