The Incident, Part 1 & 2

Announcements

I want to thank everyone who attended the LOST season finale party. It was a lot of fun, as usual. The quiz we took was brutal! I got 34 out of 50 correct…poor, poor showing. But there were some trick questions here and there. For those who attended, I will be sending the link after the blog with the photos as well as the release forms from ABC. For us to enter the contest to be featured at Comic Con, releases are necessary. Please complete ASAP or I will be forced to forge them. Now, on to the show!

Let me start by start by saying that true to form I am completely depressed that it is Wednesday night and LOST is gone until 2010 (okay now its Saturday night, but it was Wednesday night when I started!) I have avoided reading anything about LOST as if that in some way changes the fact that it is gone. This season is not the first season that I have found my self in a sad stupor following the season finale….but it seems like it’s the worst. But I have decided to take a deep breath, raise my head high and bid adieu to another great season. I will save the impending total devastation once the realization that LOST is in its final season to January. So I say again, on to the show!

Oh, I did realize that I skipped a blog. I missed the episode Follow the Leader. It was pretty much a filler episode but I will touch on some of the themes in this review.

Summary

From the Follow the Leader episode we had Locke telling us he was going to kill Jacob. I thought this was just a euphemism; he was going to kill the idea of Jacob. We now know that he meant it literally. We learned that Richard was merely a guide/advisor to those on the island and did not play a bigger part in its leadership. Hurley delivers some great lines when questioned by Dr. Chang, “So you fought in the Korean War?” “There’s no such thing.” The episode was simply a bridge to the finale.

The Incident, part 1 & 2…what a great episode. The ending wasn’t as great as the flash forward season finale of season 3 or the “We’re gonna have to take the boy” season finale of season 1…but it was a great wrap to the season nevertheless. I haven’t re-watched it yet because the images are still marked in my mind. This time we are treated to the story of Jacob. When I think LOST has outdone themselves, they do something greater. A Jacob flashback, wow! We have the present day Locke and Ben on a journey to meet Jacob and the 1970’s Losties trying to blow up the island and change history. We wont know anything for sure for months. But I think they did succeed but not in the way they had intended. We can discuss that later.

Connections

Jacob is reading the book, Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. It’s a collection of short stories that were published after the author’s death from lupus. Her stories focused on morality and ethics. The story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, was about race relations and integration in the South. A Patsy Kline song, Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, was playing over the PA system when Kate was little. Every item given back to Hurley upon leaving prison is one that Jacob gave to a character in a flashback: money (which he gave Kate in the store), a pen (which he gave Sawyer to write his letter, and a candy bar (which he got from the vending machine for Jack). Jacob touches everyone in his flashback and he saw 8 people from the island. Jacob is wearing white and his nemesis is wearing black. Jacob’s nemesis cannot kill him like Ben could not kill Widmore because of the “rules”. Something blows up each season finale (Hatch, Swan station, Looking Glass station, the Kahana and Jughead). The LOST ending logo was switched from black background white writing to white background black writing. When Ben makes his comment, “I’m a Pisces”, he is still lying. He’s a Sagittarius. Juliet uses a black rock to hit Jughead 8 times before it detonated. The giant statue is of Taweret, the demon-wife of Apep, the original god of evil. She also was seen as the Egyptian deity of protection in pregnancy and childbirth. She is holding an Ankh, the symbol of life.

Questions

The Leader – Richard knocks out Eloise saying that she is our leader and they will not be involved in the detonation of the bomb. How did Eloise become the leader? What happens to get her off the island? When Ben is a young man, Widmore is the leader. Who authorizes these ascensions to power? What is Jacob’s role in this?

Juliet – I am going to miss her!!! I wanted her and Sawyer to ride off into the sunset. I fear she is yet another sacrifice to the island. Jacob didn’t visit her in his flashback, so we can assume she was not special to the island and neither was her presence there. I believe in the end, Sawyer really did love her. She was wrong to have given up on them, but may have saved them all.

The Flash – So did Jack succeed? I think not. I think they will wind up back in their own time zone. I think the “they are coming” Jacob was referring to was our Losties from the past. They will figure prominently in the coming war. I think the detonation of the bomb happened as it always had. Charlotte remembered seeing Daniel as a child. Which meant their presence in the past happened the first time around. They were responsible for Ben changing as well as the incident itself. I think the Swan hatch was built over the Jughead to keep the radiation in check. Razinsky (being crazy) ran the whole button-pushing thing to keep it harnessed. Miles, by helping his dad, was there to see him hurt only his arm, which resulted in the prosthetic we later see him wearing in future Dharma videos. When Desmond detonated the hatch, no one died. I think everyone (except Juliet) lives. But they do not alter the course of the future; they’ve just insured it. I think the only change is that they are back to the present time. In their absence, history continued as it did before.

Jacob - What lies in the shadow of the statue? Translation: He who will save us. So we finally get to see Jacob. But as always we get to meet his nemesis. As everything on LOST island, good and bad, black and white. I believe Richard (Ricardus) was on the ship the Black Rock that Jacob brought to the island. He then made Richard the advisor to the future leaders of the island and made him ageless as a result. The Nemesis sees people coming to the island and causing unavoidable death and destruction. While Jacob sees it as progress as they evolve with each visit. In this sense, we see fate vs. free will. Jacob thinks they can be changed, while his Nemesis thinks what is will always be. What is Jacob’s connection to Illana? How does she know about him and what is a ‘candidate’? Who fights in the upcoming war and on what sides?

Fake Locke – So Locke is dead. The Nemesis found his loophole. When Ben told Richard that he was taking Locke to meet Jacob, he knew he was lying since Ben had never met Jacob himself. He takes Locke to an abandoned cabin to pretend to visit Jacob. But when the Nemesis speaks to Locke, he thinks it’s Jacob reinforcing that Locke is the new leader. So Ben tries to kill him. The Nemesis then uses Locke to manipulate his release. I believe every bad vision or manifestation was him. Even back when Shannon was shot in front of Sayid while chasing ghost Walt. Similar to how Nadiya was hit by a car in front of Sayid. Locke had to die and come back for the Nemesis’ plan to work. Perhaps Christian is the manifestation of the Nemesis on the island. He was able to reanimate a dead body. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jack had to put Christian’s shoes on Locke in the casket. Once Locke was back, he was able to become the manifestation of Locke. By using Locke, he was able to fool Richard into bringing himself and Ben to Jacob’s location. And then manipulate Ben into killing Jacob. Or maybe Jacob was the manifestation of all those people, trying to cause them to choose different paths. Yemi for Eko, Walt for Shannon and Locke, Alex for Ben, Dave for Hurley, Charley for Desmond and Christian.

Final Season – I really think the final season will have everyone in the current time. I think Locke will continue to be the Nemesis and the real Locke will remain dead. Jack may finally be fighting on the right side against Locke for the island’s future. How Widmore, Desmond, Illana’s crew, Richard and Ben factor into all of this, I don’t know. It would be interesting if Bernard and Rose remained in the past and ended up being the skeletons in the cave. I am excited for the series to hopefully tie up all the loose ends. There are so many of them, I’m not sure if its possible. But I do believe that some will leave the island for good.

Conclusion

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for following and reading the blog. I feel a sincere sense of camaraderie and kinship just knowing you all are out there. I am warmly looking forward to kicking things into high gear for the final season. I would also like to increase the amount of feedback I get from you. I think the discussion and the processing of the details in this show is what makes it so fun. If I hear of things in the off-season I will be sure to pass them along. Be safe and take care. Until next year…c-ya!