After the most recent episode, she was so upset that she said she didn’t want to watch anymore. I suspect she’ll be changing her mind next week, but her reaction was understandable. Spoilers after the break…
So we learn–big surprise–that Master Locke lied to the survivors and that his plan was not to escape with them, but to kill them all in one swell foop. With their deaths, only then will he be able to leave the island and…I dunno, bring back the Black Plague or something. (Actually, now that I think about it, that makes a certain amount of sense.)
In any event, our heroes clamber into a submarine only to discover a Master Locke-planted bomb. Jack, being Jack, correctly intuits the proper way to approach the crisis. Sawyer, being a dìçk, ignores Jack’s advice and winds up directly responsible for the sudden death situation that ensues.
And two of the people who died–which absolutely devastated Kath and upset me as well–were Jin and Sun. Which I suppose made dramatic sense. Sun came back to the island in order to find Jin; there was no way he was going to then abandon her to a watery grave, although it stunned me that at no point did Sun say, “We have a child who doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Get the hëll out of here.” But she didn’t, and it might well have made no difference anyway.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it, and trying to parse the underpinnings of the show, and this is what I’ve got:
Ain’t nobody leaving the island. None of the characters we care about, anyway. None of the candidates. Probably not anyone.
We’ve been wondering about the entire nature of the flash sideways sequences that appear to show an alternate world with the characters leading very different lives. I don’t think at this point that’s an alternate world at all. I think the detonation of the bomb basically created a world in which Jack, Jin, Sun, all of them, are who they are without ever having landed on the island.
But remember the recurring line: “The island’s not done with us yet.” So even though Flight 815 never crashed there, the island refused to release everyone who was already on it. You know how a message in a bottle is a recurring visual motif for people trapped on an island. In this case the people and the island are IN the bottle, while the rest of the world is going on without them.
And the characters on the island can’t go back to that world. Ever. Because were that to happen, then suddenly you’ve got two Jacks, two Suns, two Jins, etc., walking around. And the laws of space and time won’t allow for that.
Which, following that logic through, would seem to indicate that ain’t no one leaving and almost everyone will probably wind up dying.
This enables the producers to have a unique situation: On the one hand they’ll have the drama of killing off all these characters while, at the same time, the characters all have relatively happy endings since they’re living their lives in the real world.
And if this is moving toward a Highlander-esque “There can be only one” denouement as has been repeatedly indicated, the final sequence of the series is going to come down to Master Locke and someone else…probably Jack, although Hurley would be a nice twist since he’s the only other one who seems to “get” the island…sitting on a beach with Master Locke staring angrily at him and muttering that he’s going to kill him. And…who knows…maybe a futuristic space craft is crash landing and there’s a “here we go again” moment.
That’s my thoughts. What’s yours?
PAD
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Nice guess! Now if that is precisely what they end up doing, you can say they stole it all from you. You can then sue them because, of course, only one person can think up something. Yep. Wait. You know how creativity works don’t you? Never mind then. 🙂
Aside from the fact that I really don’t like Jack, the OTHER problem I have with the idea of him being the force in oppisition to the cloud critter is that he’s been so forcefully put up as the “Lead Hero” that it almost seems to obvious. For all the twists and turns of the series a kinda prdictable ending? I’m rooting for Hurley but really really hoping for a good “didn’t see that coming”.
and re: Sun and Jin – if you didn’t at least get misty you just have no heart.
I forget what the commercial was that played after Sun and Jin’s poignant deaths, but it totally destroyed the moment. There was bittersweet music and the the image of there hands drifting apart as they drown immediately followed by blaring, upbeat music.
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“This enables the producers to have a unique situation: On the one hand they’ll have the drama of killing off all these characters while, at the same time, the characters all have relatively happy endings since they’re living their lives in the real world.”
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I said the same thing in the last Lost thread, but I’m beginning to have second thoughts. The way all the survivors are being brought together in the flash-sideways, and the occasional dark hint that things aren’t right in that time line tells me there’s more significance to it.
I wasn’t overly upset about the aforementioned deaths; I suspect the body count will continue to pile up over the next few weeks, but what’s been bugging me is Jack’s transformation from de facto leader at the beginning of the series to somebody who know does whatever dumb-ášš thing Sawyer tells him to do. Considering these two characters have pretty much been at loggerheads since episode one, I can’t figure out what bit of character evolution now compels Jack to do whatever Sawyer says, when in fact I’m not sure Sawyer has made one overly intelligent decision since they all got stranded. So that’s my beef with the series at the moment.
Jack does not do whatever Sawyer says. He jumped off the boat when Sawyer wanted him to go back with the rest of them. He agreed to keep Locke busy because I thought he was staying on the island anyway. He did not want to stay on the sub, but he had no choice. He told Sawyer NOT to defuse the bomb, but Sawyer went ahead and did it anyway. Jack has been the voice of reason lately. He’s been the guy saying I don’t want to leave. I don’t think I’m supposed to leave. Sure, ok, Sawyer is more the leader now, but Jack isn’t just doing whatever Sawyer says. He’s disagreed with everything Sawyer’s wanted so far. The only reason he’s helping them out right now is because he feels like he should. As the ex-leader, Jack feels like he needs to help them leave the island. He doesn’t plan to leave though.
I suspect that we might see Jack take on the leader role again now that all of Sawyer’s plans have blown up in his face.
OH and I was very upset about the deaths. I liked those two. I hope they have a happy ending in the Sideways-verse.
Jack is deferring to Sawyer because both jack and Sawyer hold Jack responsible for Juliet dying. Now the situation has been reversed because Sawyer did what he thought was best and wound up killing four people. I think there’s been some interesting developments with these characters even though it’s somewhat brought them back to what seems like their original positions. But early on, Jack was looked to as the leader and embraced that role because he had to fix everything. Now, he’s leading because he knows what has to be done nd his arrogance has been tempered by failure. Sawyer tried his best to step up and was beaten back down. Maybe now he’ll finally learn to follow.
There’s one major problem with your theory, Pete. In the first episode of the season, we saw the island underwater in the sideways story. So if you’re right (and I guess you could be), there’s some time travel going on that we don’t know about.
I believe Jack will the the lone survivor when the smoke clears.
And Sayid had to die. And he had to sacrifice himself to save the others. It was the only way he could redeem himself after his recent actions.
And if I was Sawyer I wouldn’t be so quick to take Jack’s advice. His track record in those matters isn’t that great.
I felt the same way that both you and Kath did about Jin and Sun, Peter. For the longest time I was certain they were the two who would live happily ever after, because narratively, their destiny was to be together. It just never occurred to me the dark, twisted way in which the creators would indeed allow that to happen, and now, there’s something almost poetic to the tragedy of their romantic arc.
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What I’m curious about is how the Flash Sideways are going to end. I mean, like you said, I can imagine how the current quartet will end up: Either they all die, all live, or all but one dies. At this point in the game, I get that. But how will the Los Angeles Sideways story end? There’s only a few episodes left, and for the life of me, I can’t imagine how they’re going to tie that up, or how/if it’ll tie into the lives of the islanders. Will there be some messed up plot twist that reveals that the existence of the Sidewayers provides an avenue through which Jin and Sun and even Juliet might come back, and all four of the Islanders might live? One clue to this is that in “Everybody Loves Hugo” (the episode with Sideways Hurley and Libby), Libby remembers the island, and after kissing Hurley, so does this. This isn’t a huge surprise, because narratively, there has to be some relevance between these two timelines, perhaps because they will merge, ala’ Q-Squarred. Otherwise, what’s the point of that plot twist, and for the matter, the entire Sideways timeline? If it was just to reassure the viewer that the Islanders would have happy endings in another life, they could’ve done that with a closing epilogue in the series finale. The fact that they devote so much time to the Sideways must be significant. I find the idea of a plot that will somehow round up all of the Sideways cast together in a way that seems to have a point to it by the finale to be unlikely (though anything’s possible), but I find it a lot more feasible to simply merge it to somehow tie together with the Island timeline by then.
Luigi: The fact that they devote so much time to the Sideways must be significant.
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Actually, there’s one major reason they needed to spend so much time on the flashsideways that is a little unusual. They had to do it because without flashing in some direction, it wouldn’t be lost anymore.
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At first they had flashbacks that told us about who these people were. They had to stop doing that because as the writers said in an interview, there are only so many surprising things you can reveal about someone’s past before it starts to feel forced. Then they had flashforwards, and they had a great plot device to pull that off, but that ran it’s course. Then they had time travel that let them jump between 1977 and 2007. For the final season they had to do something to maintain the dual storyline element that is a crucial element of the show. It just wouldn’t feel like Lost without it.
OK, so based on what we know so far, , this is what I think is going to happen and it borrows a bit from the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
1) I think the rest of the cast ARE going to die. 1 by 1. Jack may be the last. Or Kate. Or Desmond. Or Ben. Or Richard. I’m fairly sure that Miles, Sawyer and Hurley are going first. Needless to say, fans are going to go ballistic.
2) I think Desmond is a portal, with the island’s electromagnetism and an important plot point below helping to activate him.
3) Desmond is gathering the Sideways passengers of Oceanic 815 for a reason. He ran over Locke because he knows that the key to activating the portal is for Jack to fix Locke. Locke will finally agree, Jack will perform the surgery, and will succeed in his task, just as the final on-island candidate dies, Smokey does a little victory whoop, AND…..
4) Every candidate from the flight is physically transported from the sideways U to the island. I was originally thinking that it would be every candidate EVER, but it can only be living people from the other universe, and it can only be candidates. So, Mr. Eko and original pilot Greg Grunberg will not be back, because if they were candidates Smokey wouldn’t have been able to kill them. Plus, Desmond is only bringing in flight people, so good Ben, alas, will not be making the trip. However, we WILL see the return of Charlie, Boone, Shannon, the other Tailies, Michael, Sayid, Jin and Sun, and most importantly, Locke. Their corresponding island spirits will enter their bodies, making them whole. Jacob is defeated because all these candidates are back and united and he can’t touch them. The whole candidates become the new caretakers of the Island, and like the Others come and go as they please. Thus, Jin and Sun will be reunited with their daughter. Happy ending.
Plot lines which may or may not complicate my theory.
1) Little blond kid. Don’t know who is or what he is doing, but obviously, he is important.
2) Kate’s role. I half-expected that she IS a candidate and Jacob crossed off her name to throw off Esau, but given that Smokey can obviously SENSE the candidates, I don’t think that’s it. Still, she has a role, and we’ll learn what it is.
I meant Smokey / Esau is defeated, not Jacob.
Question:
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Why did Sayid tell Jack about Desmond, whom we learn Sayid Didn’t kill? My first thought was that Sayid’s idea was that Desmond could use his time traveling abilities to perhaps avert the submarine disaster. Except, Desmond’s jumps through time have stopped. So that can’t be it.
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More likely, there’s a connection between Desmond and flash Sideways Desmond. How does that help? Not much, unless the two Desmonds can actually create a means of traveling from one timeline to another. And if that happens, suppose– just suppose– that the one who saves the day and stops Smokey (AKA Fake Locke) is… (dramatic pause)… flash sideways John Locke. He’ll change his mind, agree to the operation, regain the the use of his legs, and come charging (literally and figuratively) to the rescue.
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Clearly, there must be a reason why Sayid mentioned Desmond, and with time travel out of the picture, the only other logical explanation has to do with the flash sideways timeline. Because, let’s face it, having one more person facing off against an angry, possibly insane smoke monster isn’t going to make much of a difference.
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Hurley as the new Jacob. That could work. Though I don’t see Hurley acting through an intermediary, like Jacob did. He’d be a more hand’s-on island/world protector.
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As to the deaths of Sun and Jin (and Lapidus, too, don’t forget), yes, that was sad. I agree that Jin wouldn’t have left Sun in any event. I think if he had left, daughter to raise or no, he’d always believe he’d run out on Sun to save himself.
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I half expected Jack to promise to come back once he got Sawyer out. Maybe he realized there wouldn’t be time; but I suspect he would’ve tried had Sun and Jin been on a slowly sinking boat instead of a rapidly sinking submarine. Yes, Jack has somewhat gotten past his “need to fix things” mindset, but in such a case I think he’d have to try.
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I doubt we’ll actually see any actual Flash #123 moments, but can you imagine “our” con man James “Sawyer” Ford meeting flash sideways Detective James Ford? To quote Spock, that should prove interesting.
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Looking forward to next week’s “Secret Origin of Jacob and Smokey” episode.
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Rick
Sayid told Jack about Desmond because Sayid knew he was about to die. *Somebody* has to go back and get Desmond out of that well before he starves to death.
PAD: Because were that to happen, then suddenly you’ve got two Jacks, two Suns, two Jins, etc., walking around. And the laws of space and time won’t allow for that.
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Nah, that’s not it. That would mean original Helen disappeared and original Walt is gone and anyone else we care about back on the mainland is gone. That doesn’t actually make anything better.
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There are two timelines. That’s what the writers have said and that’s the simplest explanation. Remember, at the beginning of LA X we saw that the Island is at the bottom of the ocean in the Alternate Timeline. Jack isn’t fighting Smokey with a shark swimming around next to them, so they’re not in the same universe as Alt Jack and the rest.
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As for Sawyer ignoring Jack’s advice, it wasn’t because he was a dìçk. Remember what happened last time Sawyer trusted Jack about a bomb? Juliet died. Sawyer can’t forget that so easily.
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I agree that there’s a good chance nobody’s getting off the Island. I wouldn’t put it at 100% because of some off-Island loose threads, like Aaron, but I’d give 90%. However, I’ll be pretty upset if Hurley doesn’t make it out alive.
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I think the show is going to end with Jack and Sawyer. It can’t just be Jack and the Smoke Monster. For one thing, it would be anticlimactic if the status quo at the end of the show is the Smoke Monster and his jailer, same as it was before all this started. Jacob said he had a plan to improve the situation and I believe him.
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Second, Lost is largely about relationships. Often rivalries. Jack vs. Locke, Ben vs. Widmore, Jacob vs. Smokey. Jack has no relationship with Smokey. Sure, Smokey has menaced Jack since the first episode, but as an actual talking person, Jack only met him yesterday.
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I’m betting the show ends with Jack and Sawyer sitting on the beach, cooking up some fish. Maybe looking at an incoming ship. Hopefully with Jack petting Vincent.
I do agree with what others posters seem to have suggested, that the flash-sideways universe is heading somewhere and that Desmond is going to be a major part of it. That seems to be reinforced by the fact that he tried to turn Locke into road pizza.
As for the final survivor, candidate, whatever, my money is still on Hugo. I can see him sitting on a beach with Locke/Smokey saying, ‘Dude, stop bogarting those baked beans!’
Does anyone really believe that the writers/producers had this ending in mind in the first season? I kinda think they have been making up this stuff as they go along.
And YES, Sun should absolutely have told Jin to go save their baby.
I do like the “trapped in a bottle” theory while their other selves are living an alternate life off the island and that therefore, no one escapes.
Not since the first season, but they haven’t been making it up as they went along.
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The writers say that in the first season they had a few general ideas about where they wanted the story to go, but not a clear plan. Between the first and second season they had a big meeting and worked out a plan for the rest of the series. They say they’ve dome some things differently since then, but it’s still essentially the ending they had planned.
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The fifth season alone should prove that these guys know how to plan things. That was a very complex time travel story that worked and got all the details lined up. That doesn’t happen without serious planning.
The writers say that in the first season they had a few general ideas about where they wanted the story to go, but not a clear plan. Between the first and second season they had a big meeting and worked out a plan for the rest of the series.
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Not according to my sources who were there at the time. It was only once they knew the show was ending that they sat down and figured out what they were going to do. Until that point, it was all seat-of-the-pants, season-to-season stuff, no matter what the official word might be now.
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PAD
PAD, both versions could actually be true to certain extents.
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Even when they say that they worked out where things were going between the first and second season, they also say that there have been some changes along the way. So it could be that they worked out a lot of what they wanted to do, but not everything. A more detailed outline, but still an outline. Since they knew that the network wanted as many seasons as possible, they might have put the middle stuff on hold and kept the season-to-season stuff going, then gone back and reviewed those post-season 1 plans and updated them.
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I don’t know that this is what happened, but it sounds to me like one of those situations where everyone is telling the truth, it just seems different because they had different views.
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In any version, they had a few vague ideas of where they wanted to go when the show started, but by the beginning of season 4 they had it worked out. Considering that the final result has been *far* more organized and fruitful than the ending to BSG, I’m inclined to give them at least that much credit for planning. People are complaining about not getting enough answers, but when I look over all the mysteries and see how much they’ve answered, I think they’re actually doing pretty well.
Depends on which group of writers you’re referring to. The writers on the island had it all planned. The writers in the alternate timeline (where the series didn’t crash and get canceled in the first season) are largely making it up as they go….
Its not all that important to me if the writers had this ending in mind or if they were flying by the seat of their pants. What’s important is that they made it look like they knew what they were doing all along and I was entertained along the way. I think fans place too much importance on the planning, and it’s not unique to Lost fans. No one judges the final product by how easy or hard it was to make.
If I recall correctly, the writers themselves have admitted that they didn’t know where they were going in 1st season. It was only toward the end of first season that their ideas solidified somewhat and they mapped things out toward a long-term plan with an ending. Though, I’m sure they’ve done lots of changing since then.
Jack, Kate and Claire get off the island
Desmond helps
Later his son read his dead grandfathers log of Black Rock and is VERY interested
Hurley stays and talks to the dead, Charlie, Michael,
Echo, Jin & Sun
Little Boy is Jacob coming back to life,
SMonster killed him by kicking him into the fire
and broke the rules, SMonster must do things BEFORE
he fully returns
or
the little kid is the son of SMonster, the first person
he killed
or
I’ll just wait and see
Not since Babylon 5 have I been impressed with a show like this one. While there were a lot more stumbles and loose ends then B5, it is impressive that the show is going out on such a strong note. In fact, it is quite possible the show might end stronger in some ways than B5 (though the unfortunate switch in networks obviously hindered some things for B5).
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I actually was surprised at them killing off three or four characters (didn’t see Frank or Sayid’s bodies, but it seems likely they are dead) so quickly, yet part of me was impressed with how it worked. While I hated seeing Sun and Jin go, that scene was well done (apart from the obvious lack of mention about the soon to be orphaned child).
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PAD’s theory makes sense, but who knows. So far, they have done a decent job of staying true to continuity yet keeping it interesting.
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The one unmentioned factor is Widmore. Could he have returned by sub (or arrived by sub??) in PAD’s scenario? Not sure. That is what is also interesting. There are almost multiple factions. It seemed like Ben summoned the monster, so you had the smoke monster fighting Widmore. Apparently Jacob was not on either of their sides. So while there are two players, Widmore’s role is still unclear. All I know is I would trust him no more than I would trust the smoke monster Locke.
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Can’t wait to see more.
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Iowa Jim
Regarding a “planned” ending, I’ve read (and this could very well be revisionist history) that when Locke explained Backgammon to Walt, the producers had in mind that two characters would come to symbolize the black and white pieces.
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I don’t remember whether they said these would be characters already on the island or ones from Oceanic 815. Either way, various levels of conflict have pervaded the series, so even if they didn’t have Jacob and Smokey (who really should have a lot of fur and be wearing a forest ranger hat) in mind as characters at the beginning, I suspect that they always intend to go somewhere with the backgammon/opposing forces metaphor.
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We’ve had the “man of science” vs. “man of faith” conflict between Jack and Locke; the Dharma Initiative Vs. the Others; the “we need to go back, Jack” vs. the “we’re not going back, Hurley” conflict of the Oceanic six; and Jacob vs. Smokey. And probably others I’m overlooking. If we include internal conflicts, I’d definitely list Mr. Eko. Although he initially posed as a priest, I believe he eventually became one, in spirit (no pun intended) if not in actual fact. In fact, Mr. Eko’s situation reminds me in some ways of the “Beyond Good and Evil” episode of the radio series Suspense, which aired Oct. 11, 1945. It starred Joseph Cotten as a man who killed and then impersonated a priest.
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I’m not including the more, if you will, pedestrian levels of conflict– such as interpersonal relationships– as every story has those. Just the bigger, philosophical issues. I suspect that even if the producers didn’t know what the issues would be or who’d be espousing them, they knew somebody would.
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Did they choose backgammon as their metaphor because it’s the oldest known board game? I don’t know. It could well be they thought of backgammon first and a possibly ancient rivalry second.
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Why backgammon instead of chess, which is almost as old? Both are games of strategy, but chess would have been a more appropriate metaphor if Lost had been a show about intrigue. Though the chess game metaphor is a bit of a cliche when it comes to such shows (or books or movies). I don’t believe the chess metaphor would’ve worked with Lost (too many people would’ve expected it to be more of a political thriller), but maybe the producers went with backgammon because it’s not referenced as often.
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But the game we really need to see used as a metaphor?
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Fizzbin.
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Rick
“If we include internal conflicts, I’d definitely list Mr. Eko. Although he initially posed as a priest, I believe he eventually became one, in spirit (no pun intended) if not in actual fact.”
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I agree to a point. I think Mr. Ekko lost his calling though when he embraced his past as necessary. When he first appeared he was sorrowful over the killings he performed and he stared down Smokes in the same way Locke had. It was when he essentially became unrepentant for his past deeds that he got eaten. In essence, by saying he was no longer sorrowed for being a murderer, he lost faith.
No, it was the other way around. Remember, it was the Smoke Monster who was judging him, so everything was backwards. Smokey was looking for someone week he could manipulate. Mr. Eko didn’t lose faith, he gained faith in himself. That made him expendable to Smokey, but it was still a personal victory to hold to his values when confronted with the Devil.
I may be the only one to mention this, but didn’t the Marshall family from “Land of the Lost” escape kinda-sorta this way? (by causing a time paradox that let the elder family escape only by causing the space/time rift that allowed their younger selves to enter in the first place ^_^).
The sideways-verse is more than just as if flight 815 never crashed there. In all the flashbacks, Jack didn’t have a son, did he? A lot is different. I’ve been thinking that the sideways-verse is gong to be used as a “temptation” for the final candidates — Jack was able to be a better father to his son than his dad was to him, Hurley is lucky, etc. As I have been spectacularly wrong in all my predictions for the show, though….
I’m still wondering if the man in black/smoke monster is some sort of a djinn — or alien. Both Jacob and the SM are aliens, maybe? Maybe Jacob is some sort of Green Lantern, which harks back to Walt reading the comic on the plane, I think?
And ever since we’ve known about the “candidates” I’ve thought it would be fitting for Jack and Locke/SM to be sitting on the beach with Locke asking Jack if he knows how much he hates him.
I would not be surprised if people die one by one on the island until Jack perhaps with Desmond defeats Locke/SM. Meanwhile over in the Sideways land, everyone will eventually remember their time on the island, their experiences there, and their relationships. With this knowledge they will be able to improve their lives in the Sideways universe.
I didn’t read every single post so this may have been mentioned but I think the Sideways world is going to crossover (for lack of a better word) with the island world and that we will see all of the sideways people regain their memory enough to take another flight and end up on the island.
Or that the sideways people are actually discovered to be the skeletons (Adam and Eve I think their called) because they sought out the island and died there in the distant past.
By the end there will be one world and that is the island world. I also think that Jack will be the chosen one. He has nothing connecting him to the outside world and he would make a good Jacob. I also think that Hurley and Miles were put on the island to help him become the new Jacob. Hurley can talk to Jacob (any all the other dead people) and Miles can also connect himself to the dead. My biggest question is what’s going to happen with Kate, Ben and Sawyer???
Also on Jorge Garcia’s blog he said that Lapidus is gone…what does everyone think? Is he dead? If so what was the point of having him around? Was it just to give the illusion that if they got on the plane he’d fly them out and now that that illusion is shattered the island doesn’t need him anymore? hmmm.
I thought the point of having Lapidus around was that he was a great character! Seriously, nothing ever phased the guy. He’d always just make a wry comment about events. “We’re not going to Guam, are we?” One of the best moments of the show.
I always wanted to see him in a spinoff. Oh well.
MarvelFan asked, “I may be the only one to mention this, but didn’t the Marshall family from “Land of the Lost” escape kinda-sorta this way? (by causing a time paradox that let the elder family escape only by causing the space/time rift that allowed their younger selves to enter in the first place^_^).”
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The episode you’re referring to “Circle”, the season one finale, written by David Gerrold and Larry Niven. And it was structured that way so there was a “Marshalls get home” ending if the show wasn’t renewed (it was the only Sid and Marty Krofft series to run more than one season), and a “Marshalls are still in the Land of the Lost” ending if it was renewed. But no, the Marshalls didn’t themselves cause the paradox. They were merely caught up in it.
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In this episode, the Marshalls lean that the time doorway in Enik’s chamber is fixated on a single event, which plays over and over again– themselves going over the waterfall. Will notices there’s no mist for the time doorway, and tries to work out how that can be, saying if the doorway never opened, then they must have fallen to the rocks below and died. But if they’d died on the falls, they couldn’t be in the Land of the Lost.
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My theory, which I’ve expressed on the Land of the Lost.com website: Somehow the universe “hiccupped” just as the Marshalls went over the falls and they ended up “jumping a time track” as it were, and finding themselves in the Land of the Lost before they actually arrived. In other words something like what happened to the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki in the Doctor Who episode “The Space Museum.” Naturally, the universe is confused by this, and since the Marshalls are already in the Land of the Lost, they can’t enter the Land, so their trip over the falls keeps being repeated in a time loop as the universe tries to puzzle things out.
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Rick figures out the solution when he realizes that Enik’s statement of three needing to enter so three can leave can apply to the three on the waterfall. “If they enter, then we can leave,” he says, adding that the doorway will no longer can be fixated on that scene. So Enik tells him what he needs to do, the loop in broken, and the doorway clears. The Marshalls who were already in the Land of the Lost go through the doorway and– what? My guess: Either they merge with their past selves who’ve now entered the LOTL, or simply pop out of existence like soap bubbles. The end result is pretty much the same, save that the merged Marshalls would have feelings of deja vu.
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And yes, the Marshalls who “arrive” at the end of “Circle” are the same ones who left, not the “Earth-2” versions, or anything like that. Because the cave is empty when they get there. If they were an alternate universe family, then “our” Marshalls’ supplies would already be there.
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I never saw the recent Land of the Lost movie, but haven’t heard anything good about it. If you saw it and didn’t like it, don’t let that keep you from checking out the DVDs of the original series. It may have aired on Saturday mornings, but it had some good writing (especially during the first two seasons) and probably could have aired in the evenings with minimal changes. I still say it’s the best Saturday morning “kids” show ever aired.
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Oh, why couldn’t Will Marshall do anything to his sister when she was in her room?
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Because she was on Holly ground.
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We now return you to our regular Lost commentary, already in progress.
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And on that note, I said, “If we include internal conflicts, I’d definitely list Mr. Eko. Although he initially posed as a priest, I believe he eventually became one, in spirit (no pun intended) if not in actual fact.”
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Malcolm Robertson replied, “I agree to a point. I think Mr. Ekko lost his calling though when he embraced his past as necessary. When he first appeared he was sorrowful over the killings he performed and he stared down Smokes in the same way Locke had. It was when he essentially became unrepentant for his past deeds that he got eaten. In essence, by saying he was no longer sorrowed for being a murderer, he lost faith.”
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I think this is an apples/oranges thing. I read Eko’s being “unrepentant” (and I assume you’re talking about his confrontation with what he thinks is his brother) as saying that he essentially sacrificed himself for the “greater good”– that being that Yemi was able to lead a productive and useful life– and that he’d do it again. In short that he wasn’t sorry that he kept Yemi from becoming what Eko himself became. In short, the needs of Yemi outweigh the needs of Eko. That, to me, is completely separate from his impersonating a priest to his becoming one to all intents and purposes.
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(By the way, Manny, Hugh and Juan go to a nice restaurant for lunch. Manny has the most expensive item on the menu. Hugh and Juan get stale bread to eat and the bill. Why? The needs of Manny outweigh the needs of Hugh. Or Juan.)
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This is probably a really weak real world analogy, but what comes to mind is this: imagine Paul saying something to the effect of, “no I don’t regret the actions I took when I still called myself Saul and persecuted the Christians. Because if I hadn’t done those things, I wouldn’t have been on that road to Damascus.”
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Jason M. Bryant said, “Smokey was looking for someone weak he could manipulate. Mr. Eko didn’t lose faith, he gained faith in himself. That made him expendable to Smokey, but it was still a personal victory to hold to his values when confronted with the Devil.”
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Agreed.
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Jason also said, “Sayid told Jack about Desmond because Sayid knew he was about to die. *Somebody* has to go back and get Desmond out of that well before he starves to death.”
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Oh, sure. Bring logic into it. But yeah, that would make sense. Here I am, expecting some major story arc connection, and it’s just one guy saying don’t let this other guy starve.
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Rick
It might be more than just Sayid telling Jack to go save Desmond out of the kindness of saving Desmond. Given Desmond’s electromagnetic abilities, it might also be a matter of telling Jack where to find the weapon to defeat Smokey. Either way, nobody knew Desmond was alive but Sayid, so he had to tell someone before he died.
This episodes reflected one of LOST’s big strengths: We never know who is going to die. Most shows either make a big deal when a main character is going to be leaving (“X talks about their final days on set”) or promise a “big” death and kill off a minor character. Jin and Soon continue LOST’s theme of the doomed lovers — but at least this time they died together.
What I am wondering about is what Desmond is doing. He not only had knowledge of the “real world” and the “Island world” but he seems able to act on the two: reminding the other 815 survivors about the Island, trying to kill John Locke, etc. It’s almost a shame he’s not a candidate to replace Jacob: Desmond seems a lot more serene, unafraid of the Smoke Monster, immediately able to work with WHitmore, and when Sayid was going to kill him Desmond wasn’t scared or pleasign but instead almost seemed to try and enlighted Sayid.
As for the end: It’ll turn out that the Island is in Iowa. And yes, I know Iowa is a landlocked state. That’s what makes it so spoooooooky…
Lorinheller said, re Lapidus, “nothing ever phased the guy.”
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Case in point: Ben’s eulogy of Locke: “I’m sorry I killed him.”
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Lapidus: “weirdest funeral I’ve ever been to.”
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Rick
I still think there’s one HUGE point everyone is forgetting about. Aaron.
There’s was a reason babies born on the island didn’t survive. I think it was because they would become natural “corks” for the bottle. Aaron not only survived, but left the island. And in the sideways universe, where all the players are gathering, Claire is still pregnant with him.
I’m not exactly sure how it all fits together, but he’s part of it. He’s being referred to constantly in both realities, but in a way that doesn’t draw too much attention.
It’s always been about me and always will be! 😉
I don’t know if what you worked out is the way they’ll go, but at least in two incidents, perhaps more, the alternate world versions definitely remember/connect with events that happened to their island-based characters. So this isn’t simply a sideways flash. So if there is a tangible link, then a parallel world wasn’t necessarily created. If the writers/producers actually play with what they set up then it’s something else altogether. What it is I can’t guess because I have a hunch there are a lot of red herrings here that have been set up simply to have us ask questions but ultimately have little to do with the solutions. Also, I discount a lot of what was mentioned or tossed off in previous seasons unless they were brought back once the producers knew this was going to be the last season. I think at best they had vague ideas back then what they’d do, but once they knew their final show they started to nail down ideas and will,because they have to, ignore things that no longer fit.
Also, I still have questions about why the survivors returned to the island in the first place. Somehow I think that has something to do with whatever the final answers may be (if there actually are any).
Fun speculations!
A while back I had an idea about what the relationship between Jacob and the Man in Black might really be. It’s probably wrong but, since Old Smokey’s motivations are scheduled to be revealed in tonight’s episode, I might as well use this last chance to get it out there.
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After the fifth season finale, I read something online in which the producers cautioned viewers against assuming that Jacob was “good” because he was wearing a white shirt and that his Nemesis was “evil” because he was, after all, the Man in Black. I started to wonder if perhaps the reverse was true. What if Jacob wasn’t the jailer of the evil Man in Black? Maybe Jacob was the prisoner and the Man in Black was his jailer.
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In this theory, Jacob’s attempts to “improve” humanity are considered interference by whatever Higher Powers exist in the LOST universe. He was punished by being sent to the island but, since said Powers hope to rehabilitate him, he was allowed to retain some of his ability to influence humans, albeit at a greatly-reduced level, in the hopes that he would learn from his mistakes. The Man in Black was actually the warden of Jacob’s prison, condemned to stay on the island as long as Jacob was present and held to his beliefs. His duties also allowed him to be judge and exectioner of any “evil” humans who came to the island. However, since Jacob has never renounced his beliefs about humanity, the Man in Black has been stuck on the island for a VERY long time and has gone insane because his desire to return home has been frustrated for so long.
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Of course, since then the whole question of whether or not the Man in Black was actually evil seems to have been settled. Aside from his actions in recent episodes, the enhanced repeat episodes aired by ABC were clearly favouring the position that Jacob was good and Smokey was evil. I suspect that that is what tonight’s episode will finally confirm and, frankly, I will be disappointed. I was hoping for something deeper than a simple “good vs. evil” dynamic between the two.
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For the record, even if Jacob is declared “good” in tonight’s episode, I still don’t think that he’s all THAT good. For one thing, he’s admitted that he’s responsible for bringing every human to the island in the first place. He has supposedly done this simply so that he could prove to the Man in Black that humans were not inherently corruptible. However, before Ricardo, every human that he brought to island island had died, and many of those whom he brought later have died as well. The fact that he’s perfectly willing to sacrifice so many human lives just so he can prove something to his Nemesis doesn’t show him in a good light. Unless, of course, something incredibly good will happen is he ever does convince UnLocke of his position.
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The second thing that made me mistrustful of Jacob was how he interacted with Sayid and Nadia in Los Angeles. On the face of it, it seems that he saved Sayid’s life by stopping him to ask for directions. However, one could argue that Nadia might have not been struck and killed by the car if not for his actions. It looked to me like Nadia was hit because she stopped in the middle of the street and turned back to speak to Sayid. If Jacob hadn’t stopped Sayid, then Nadia and Sayid could well have crossed the street without incident. Or maybe Sayid would have seen the car coming and managed to save either himself and Nadia or, at the least, just Nadia. By choosing to contact Sayid at that particular moment, it seems that Jacob was acting to separate Sayid from his true love, someone who might have prevented him from fulfilling whatever purpose Jacob had in mind for him. After all, in the LOST universe, having a “destiny” seems to be the same as “doing whatever Jacob has planned for them to do.” And for all of Jacob’s talk of how people have a choice, he certainly doesn’t seem to mind “putting his finger on the scales” to alter what those choices could be.
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Don Campbell
I read a lot of the comments, but if someone already posted this and I’m just repeating, my apologies:
I don’t know what will happen to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Desmond but I think the replacement for Jacob has to be Hurley. Think about it: Of all the remaining candidates (heck, throw in Sun, Jin, Sayid and Locke), who would you feel safest about guarding the world against unspeakble evil and having all kinds of power? Each of the other candidates is too easily swayed by emotion and even selfishness (even if it takes the form of concern for others). Hurley wants nothing more than for everybody to get along. He wants to help because he knows it’s right, not because there’s something in it for him or he feels he knows best. That’s not to say the others are abd people — they’re human, succumbing to the temptations that affect us all. But Hurley’s not lazy; he just wants everybody to live happily ever after. He has no agenda and wouldn’t force his beliefs and desires on people.
As for the questions of Jacob’s benevolence, it reminds me a little of the book of Job, where God basically says to the devil, “See my servant Job? No way you can get him to turn his back on me.” If you look at Jacob as a God-type figure, maybe he’s testing these people to get them to do good and there’s a promised reward (the Sideways?) later.
Huh.
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Well, my theory was wrong. No, wait, that statement is just too mild. Here’s a bettter one:
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MY THEORY WAS ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, ENTIRELY, AND TOTALLY WRONG!!! And, for some insane reason, THIS was the theory that I chose to put on public display. AARRGH!
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Sigh
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Well, aside from the fact that my theory was WRONG, the origin story of Jacob and the Boy/Man in Black was, um, interesting? The five actors involved all did a great job and, uh, what else is there to say? It was something that I could never have predicted, so it was a surprise, but aside from that it seemed somewhat lacking in answers. Sure, we now know why the Man in Black is so determined to leave the island but we don’t know why Jacob is so insistent on bringing new people to the island (unless it’s just because he’s always been looking for his own replacement?) and there was no explanation of why Jacob told Ricardo what he did about the island being a cork holding evil separate from the outside world. Maybe it will make more sense after we see the final episodes. At least, I hope it will.
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However, I was right about one thing: Jacob is not such a good person. And, after seeing what Jacob did to him, I can sympathize (at least a bit) with the Man in Black, and can see how Jacob’s actions could have driven him to carry out the extreme (and evil) deeds that we’ve been seeing.
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Don Campbell
Minor spoilers a few paragraphs below:
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Regarding “The Secret Origin of Jacob and Smokey” (my title; if there was an actual on screen title, I didn’t see it), interesting. I didn’t initially recognize Allison Janney, though. I wonder how long ago that story took place (sometime after the development of the Spanish language, based on the conversation between the women at the start), and how long the boys’ “mother” had been on the island.
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I suppose, with this new information, we should start calling Jacob’s adversary Clint. After all, he is the man with no name.
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Which raises an interesting point. When his “mother” called to him, what did she say? “Hey, you!”?
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Okay, here comes the spoiler part: When Jacob threw his brother into the cave of light, and the column of smoke appeared a short time later, I expected that it’d later reconstitute into physical form. Instead, Jacob finds his brother’s body a short distance away, apparently thrown back out of the cave. So the question becomes, is “Smokey” the spirit/soul/whatever you want to call it of Jacob’s brother? Or is it some sentient entity that had until that incident been trapped down there, and has assumed the form (and possibly has the memories) of Jacob’s brother (as it later would assume the form of John Locke)?
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With the exception of the scene last season where Ben kills Jacob, “Smokey” has always appeared with Jacob as “the man in black”, suggesting the former. On the other hand, we know that “Smokey” can assume the forms of dead people (and animals? I still think he was the horse Kate saw), and that he’s lied to people he’s met on the island. Maybe the first form he took was “Clint’s”, and he approached Jacob one day saying, “I am thy brother’s spirit. Doomed for a certain term to exchange pleasantries with you on a beach while you keep bringing people to this stupid island.” Or something like that.
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I have to admit the scene with Jack and Kate at the end threw me at first. I thought it was one of those quick jumps to the present, and was confused for a few seconds as to how they’d gotten into the jungle. Then they started talking and I realized we’d flashed back to season one.
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I guessed wrong about the “Adam and Eve” skeletons. I thought it would’ve been Rose and Bernard, who we last saw back in 1977. Who’d have guessed it’d turn out to be flash sideways Hurley and Libby, sent back in time some 10,000 years?
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For those who haven’t seen the episode, I’m just kidding..
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Maybe.
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Don Campbell said, “And, after seeing what Jacob did to him, I can sympathize (at least a bit) with the Man in Black, and can see how Jacob’s actions could have driven him to carry out the extreme (and evil) deeds that we’ve been seeing.”
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I think you’re being a bit too hard on Jacob. Don’t forget that Jacob regularly visited his brother after the man in black’s self imposed exile. Don’t forget also that it was their “mother” who took the drastic steps to keep the man in black from leaving when it looked like he had an opportunity, not Jacob. It wasn’t until the man in black murdered her that Jacob dragged his brother to that cave. So Jacob “did something” in the immediate aftermath of seeing his brother standing over his just-killed mother. And what he did was understandable in the circumstances.
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Question: Did I miss Naveen Andrews’ name in the opening credits, or was it not there because Sayid is dead (Jim)?
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Rick
Claudia and “Mother” were speaking Latin… not spanish… and were wearing classical-ish Roman-era clothing…
Oh. I thought I heard Claudia say “gracias” at one point, so I assumed it was Spanish. Didn’t realize the clothes were Roman era.
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Rick
I’ve never done a spoiler warning before so I’m not quite sure of the form. However, if you haven’t yet seen the LOST episode “Across the Sea” and don’t wish to be spoiled, then you should stop reading NOW.
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Actually, Rick, I don’t think that I am being too hard on Jacob. For one thing, in the two instances of violence between the twins that were shown, Jacob attacked his brother who DID NOT FIGHT BACK. Also, the first time that Jacob beat up the Boy in Black was because he didn’t want to hear the truth about “Mother” (i.e. how she killed their real mother). And while the circumstances which caused his second attack were undeniably much more provocative (i.e. finding the Man in Black standing over “Mother’s” body), he totally refused to listen to the fact that “Mother” had just MASSACRED an entire village. Frankly, I felt that the Man in Black’s execution of “Mother” was entirely justified and thus the extreme punishment that Jacob inflicted upon his brother was UNjustified.
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Also, the fact that “Mother” thanked the Man in Black after he killed her makes me think that she was truly grateful to him for releasing her from the burden that she had borne for who-know-how-long. It may even be that part of the reason that she massacred the villagers was to provoke the Man in Black into killing her. After all, she had already passed her burden to Jacob (and I think that she was TOTALLY lying when she told Jacob that he was wrong about him being her second choice). Frankly, I don’t think that “Mother” would have approved of what Jacob did at all. In fact, I suspect that she would probably be angrier at Jacob for what he did to his brother than at the Man in Black for what he did to her. Also, I suspect that Jacob was at least partially motivated to attack his brother because of his long-held belief that “Mother” liked his brother best.
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Finally, I think that the idea that Smokey is NOT the real Man in Black after all might have some merit. When I watched the episode, I assumed that being thrown into the cave had somehow permanently separated the Man in Black’s soul (aka Smokey) from his physical body. After all, the Man in Black (Smokey) did tell Ricardo that the Devil (Jacob) had taken his body from him. However, if the post-cave Man in Black is actually just Smokey using the form and memories of the deceased Man in Black, then Jacob’s refusal to ever allow him to leave the island may be justified after all. Maybe in this case “the ends” (keeping Smokey on the island) do justify “the means” (the deaths of all the humans that Jacob has brought to the island). Of course, if it was Jacob’s actions in sending his brother into the cave that released Smokey in the first place, then Jacob is the one who is ultimately responsible for everything that’s happened since then, including all the deaths caused (directly or indirectly) by Smokey. That would mean that he has a LOT of blood on his hands and that he’s essentially sacrificing others in his attempt to clean up the mess that he’s made.
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I sort of hope that Smokey is not the real Man in Black. After everything that his crazy “Mother” and jealous brother did to him, he deserves to be at peace, not trapped on the island for eternity.
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Don Campbell
Don Campbell said, “Also, the first time that Jacob beat up the Boy in Black was because he didn’t want to hear the truth about “Mother” (i.e. how she killed their real mother).”
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The boys looked to be about 10 in that scene, and it’s not surprising for 10-year-old boys to fight. Especially about people or things to which they’re emotionally attached. Forget all the “spooky-dooky” (a catch-all phrase my Mom uses to refer to anything not related to the mundane world of the here and now) elements of Lost and imagine you’re watching some other show with two boys on a present-day playground. One says something about their mother– truthful or not– that the other– Jacob– doesn’t want to hear. End result, Jacob hits him. It’s a bit extreme, perhaps, and could show that Jacob has a temper; but is such action all that much out of character for a 10-year-old boy? I don’t think so. The same result could have come about (whether in Lost or on some other show) if the boys had fought over the game they were playing, with one accusing the other of cheating. Again, boys have been known to fight; though, as I said, it could be that Jacob has a temper.
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You can’t really blame the young Jacob for being upset, especially given that his “mother” and brother have been his entire world. A world which had recently seen its equilibrium upset with the realization that they weren’t alone on the island.
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Don also said, “Of course, if it was Jacob’s actions in sending his brother into the cave that released Smokey in the first place, then Jacob is the one who is ultimately responsible for everything that’s happened since then, including all the deaths caused (directly or indirectly) by Smokey. That would mean that he has a LOT of blood on his hands and that he’s essentially sacrificing others in his attempt to clean up the mess that he’s made.”
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Could be. A few poorly chosen words by Delenn caused the Earth/Minbari War in Babylon 5 (hers was the deciding vote in the “go after the humans or try to find out what happened” debate). Something, we later learned, which haunted her ever since. It remains to be seen whether Jacob was haunted by his actions. So far, I haven’t seen any indication that he was, which could be further evidence that “Smokey” is not the man in black’s soul/spirit, etc. Jacob seemed to genuinely love his brother, and was deeply upset at his death.
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On the other hand, a lot of time has passed since then. People’s feelings can (and do) change over time.
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I’m sure both are aware of the irony that while the man in black wanted to leave the island, but can’t, Jacob didn’t want to leave the island and often has. Assuming that statement didn’t reflect Jacob’s immaturity at the time (the island equivalent of “I don’t want to get a summer job. I want to goof off all summer, like I did in grade school”), did he enjoy those excursions into the outside world, or was it a burden he was forced to bear?
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Don also said, “I sort of hope that Smokey is not the real Man in Black. After everything that his crazy “Mother” and jealous brother did to him, he deserves to be at peace, not trapped on the island for eternity.”
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I suppose there’s a third possibility. What I’ll call the “Alec Holland scenario.” Suppose that just like the Swamp Thing believed itself to be a transformed Alec Holland, “Smokey” believes itself to be a transformed man in black? Just as Alec Holland was “a ghost dressed in weeds” (I believe that’s how the phrase went), the man in black/Fake Locke is a ghost dressed in smoke. But yes, I agree “Clint” deserves to be at peace. And if the “Alec Holland scenario” is the right one, he is.
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Rick
“The boys looked to be about 10 in that scene”
10? More like 14.
Heard a joke today:
Q: Why don’t they post episodes of “Lost” on Twitter?
A: Because the show has waaay more than 140 characters.