LostEpisode 517The Incident, Part 2Wow. In five seasons of Lost, I don’t think I have been at such a loss before. After other finales, I made guesses - often wild and totally wrong guesses – at what would happen. Now, I simply don’t know. I can’t even say that I am frustrated, because honestly, I am not. I’m stumped and I’m awestruck.
When Lost started, we all followed these crash survivors, thinking that these poor sods landed on crazy island. Now we see that they are just chess pieces on a giant chess board, and really, they are just innocents in it all. Wow.
The second part of this superb finale picks up exactly where it ended last week – with Sawyer, Juliet and Kate standing the path of Jack and co. Sawyer asks for five minutes of Jack’s time where he first tells him about his parents, and then tries to persuade Jack into not blowing up the bomb. When Jack is unrelenting, he and Sawyer proceed to beat each other up until Juliet stops Sawyer, saying that Jack is right and that he needs to blow up the island.
Sawyer is furious and wants to know why. A broken hearted Juliet tells him that if she never met him, she will never have to loose him.
Meanwhile, the drill has hit the pocket of electromagnetic energy. Jack sets off with the bomb but is spotted and a shootout ensues. Sawyer and co come to Jack’s aid and Jack drops the bomb into the pit that was being drilled. They all brace themselves, but the bomb doesn’t explode.
Suddenly, all metal objects are being pulled into the pit, and Dr Chang’s arm gets caught under some poles. Miles rescues him and tells him to get as far away as possible. But the island is not done with our beloved characters and Juliet gets caught up in a length of metal chain and is being pulled into the pit. Kate runs to her rescue but can’t do it alone. A frantic Sawyer catches Juliet’s arm as she is being pulled further and further into the deep pit. Juliet tells Sawyer that she loves him and lets go.
Sawyer is absolutely heartbroken and Kate and Jack have to pull him away from the pit. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the pit, Juliet regains consciousness and sees the un-detonated bomb. She grabs a rock and starts pounding on it until…. A flash of white and the season ends.
Wow.
But wait … that’s not all!
In 2007, Richard leads Locke and the Others to Four-toes. He leads Locke in and when he protests at Ben’s inclusion, Locke insists that Ben has to go in with him. Richard opens a door and Ben and Locke enter.
Ben confronts Jacob about his role on the island and when Jacob doesn’t answer in a satisfactory way, Ben stabs him. As Jacob is dying he says to Locke “
They’re coming”. Locke pushes him into the fire.
Outside the statue, things have heated up considerably. Illana and her crew have arrived, and she asks for Ricardus. She asks him “What lies in the shadow of the statue” and he replies in Latin. She’s relieved and shows him what’s in the crate. It’s a body – Locke’s body!
And in between this all, we see Jacob make a brief appearance in Jack’s life after he’s done his first major surgery. He is the first person to touch and assure him that everything will be alright after Locke is pushed from a window by his father. And finally, he shares a cab with Hurley. He has a lot more interaction with Hurley than with any other Lostie, telling Hurley that he is not cursed, but blessed, and that the decision to return to the island is Hurley's.
Wow. Did I say that before? Well, here’s another, just for good measure – Wow.
I have a theory, and maybe it’s far-fetched and maybe it’s very obvious (and maybe it’s been discussed on the forum) but I don’t think that this Jacob that we have been seeing (visiting our Losties) is actually Jacob. I think that it’s that other dude – the one who told Jacob that he wants to kill him.
I think that Jacob himself appeared to Illana for help, but appearing to the rest of them… well, just maybe it’s The Other Guy. Consider this bit of conversation between Not-Locke and Jacob:
Not-Locke: Hello Jacob. Jacob: Well you found your loophole. Not-Locke: Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I've gone through to be here.
This guy has spent a very long time, perhaps hundreds of years looking for a way to kill Jacob, and seemingly he’s found it. We know that Jacob has a habit of luring people to the island, as he’s done with our Losties…. Hmmm. You know, I may have a rethink on this one. It’s possible that the real Jacob did visit them pre-crash and The Other Guy visited the Oceanic 6 to ensure that they would get back to the island.
It makes you wonder who really told Ben to move the island, and Locke to turn the Donkey Wheel.
Anyway, key points are
• Ben has killed Jacob after Not-Locke found his loophole. This is very, very interesting. Coupled with Jacob’s death are the words he utters to Not-Locke before he dies “They’re coming”. Who’s coming?? Is this the war that Widmore was referring to?? What is Ben going to do once he realizes that Not-Locke is ermm… not Locke but somebody who’s shape shifting?? (Monster, anyone?)
Furthermore, the translation to the question “What lies beneath the shadow of the statue” is “He who will save us all”. If Jacob is the one who will save them all, then The Other Guy is clearly the one who will destroy them all.
• The Loophole that The Other Guy spoke of is that he himself can’t kill Jacob, but can clearly get someone else to do it. But I’m sure it’s not that straightforward… there has to be more to it.
• Did that hydrogen bomb go off?? We can’t even be sure that it did. And if it did, how does it change things, if at all??? Personally, I still believe that no matter what happens Flight 815 is going to crash on that island, and that our Losties will be on that plane. It simply cannot be any other way as this causes a huge paradox.
Gosh, if it does change everything, can we assume that Jacob would still be alive? What about our Losties? And Daniel? And Charlotte???
• I’ve always liked Juliet, ever since we saw her all the way back in Season 3 and she gave Kate an ass-kicking. As the seasons went along, I grew fonder of her and I especially liked her with Sawyer. Ever since Kate got back to the island, we’ve seen her heart literally break in front of us.
Last night, watching her declare her love for Sawyer while pulled down into that pit was just heart-breaking. And Sawyer’s reaction – oh, my word. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried. Apart from the fact that it’s quite tragic, it also reminded me just how far Sawyer’s come since Season 1 and how much he’s changed.
I think that he really, truly loves Juliet. Maybe there were unresolved feelings for Kate, maybe he loved her still even… but ultimately Juliet was his choice. Josh Holloway’s acting was really superb in that scene. I felt his pain.
• It’s interesting that Sawyer was so against the whole blowing up the bomb idea because he didn’t want to loose what he had with Juliet. And Jack was so for it because he lost what he had with Kate. Wow. Love is really strong on this island.
I absolutely loved the big punch-up between Jack and Sawyer. It’s been coming along since season 1, and these two guys finally got their chance to prove their alpha-maleness.
So, at the end of this season, what can we say? We learnt a lot this season – about the island, about Ben, about some of the secrets of the island… but we still don’t know
anything. This finale ending in a flash of white light (as brilliant as it may have been) is quite possibly the most unsatisfactory ending ever. All I can say at the end of it all, is … now what???
I honestly don’t know. I cannot wait for Season 6.
What we learnt this week• Locke is dead, and The Other guy is pretending to be Locke
• Ben kills Jacob
• Ilana works for Jacob
• Juliet may (or may not) be dead, just as she may (or may not) have detonated the bomb.
New Questions this week:• Who is The Other Guy and why did he want to kill Jacob so badly?
• What is the Loophole?
• What did Jacob mean when he said “They’re coming”? Who’s they?
• Did the bomb go off?
• How does this affect everyone and everything??
Before I finish off, I just wanted to say a huge
Thank You to all of you who read this blog. I’ve been plagued with health problems this year and this blog has suffered as a result. I know my spelling sucks, my grammar is often non-existent and my theories are so far fetched that they’re laughable… but this blog has become such a part of my Lost experience. Thanks for reading. I truly do appreciate it. And here’s looking forward to enjoying Season 6 with you all.
Oooh. I can now go Google stuff to my heart’s content!
Interesting Trivia (from
this site)
• Juliet detonates the bomb with a "Black Rock."
• For the second season finale in a row, Ben stabs someone to death. The first was Keamy in "There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3".
• In Jack's flashback, we saw him cut a girl's sac and his father orders him to count to five to stop his fear. This is the story Jack told Kate back in the "Pilot."
• Patsy Cline's music is heard in the convenience store. The music of Patsy Cline appears in every single one of Kate's flashbacks.
• Lost has a track record for using black and white as opposites, such as in chess or backgammon or the stones found with Adam and Eve in the caves in season 1. Jacob wore a white shirt while his enemy wore black, possibly lending support to the theory that they are allegorical figures for God and the Devil.
• Jacob was reading "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor on the bench before Locke fell from the building. It is a collection of short stories that was published posthumously in 1965.
• This episode continues the tradition of having a significant plot device of the season be blown up in the season finale:
* Season 1, the Hatch
* Season 2, the Swan Station
* Season 3, the Looking Glass (and the Others)
* Season 4, the Kahana
* Season 5, the Swan Station again (and consequently Jughead)
• Richard Alpert responded to the question of "
What lies in the shadow of the statue?" with "
Ille qui nos omnes servabit" - "
He who will protect/save us all."
Interesting Screencaps (from
this site)
Miles helping his father, Dr Chang - who turned out to be a nice guy after all
Four-Toes
Hurley and Sayid
Jacob's tapestry
A distraught, broken-hearted Sawyer
Illana and troop approach Richard and the Others outside Four-Toes
Juliet smiling a goodbye at Sawyer before Jack drops the bomb into the pit. Poor sweet Juliet. I really hope you are not dead.
This is quite possibly one of my favourite images from Lost ever.