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.