Let's begin at the beginning of the Lost Season 5 finale ... Two men are talking on the shore of our island - Jacob and a man played by Titus Welliver. The man says he wants to kill Jacob, and says he'll one day find a "loophole" to allow him to do this ... This happened a long time ago...
Back in our time - that is, the past few decades - Jacob visits most of our original, now still surviving, Flight 815 passengers. Some, like Saywer and Kate, are visited when they are children. Others, like Jack and Locke, when they at low or desperate points in their adult lives. Jacob visits Sayid, distracts him, so he can't stop Nadia from being hit and killed by a car. Hurley's visit is the most recent - its purpose to convince Hurley to get back the island.
Tonight's episode, then, among the many intriguing, fabulous things it is, is the story of Jacob. It provides at least part of an answer to something I've been saying since the beginning of the second season - that the key to understanding Lost resides, somehow, in the inexplicable coincidences in the flashbacks, in people who presumably first met on Flight 815, or on the island, crossing paths in the past - such as Desmond and Jack running into each other on the steps of the stadium, Kate's mother serving Sawyer in a diner, etc. We didn't see Jacob in those intersections tonight, but we saw him in enough places and times to make it plausible that he could have manipulated those coincidences to happen, too...
But Jacob's story is also as short as it is long. And it ends with one of the best surprises in the series: Locke did not come back to life when Flight 316 crashed on the island this season. No, not at all. The Locke who has been walking around on the island is the man who was talking to Jacob on the shore all those centuries or whenever ago. He has somehow taken Locke's form - as well as, inexplicably, at least some of Locke's memories - and in that form goads Ben into killing Jacob. That, apparently was the loophole - the man could not kill Jacob himself, but he could drive someone else to do that...
Which may explain a lot of things. Let's say no ever came back to life on the island? Coming back to life certainly seems like news to Richard - his people can cure the critically wounded, not the dead. That's why young Ben but not Faraday was saved. Did this shape-shifter look like Christian, to manipulate Jack; look like Alex to manipulate Ben; and who knows who else?
Dead is dead, that seems clear now. And it brings us to the other great part of tonight's story.
Jack brings the core of the hydrogen bomb to the Swan site. There are some wonderful scenes with Jack and Sawyer - who, as he's been throughout much of this season, is a more admirable character than Jack. The plan is that the bomb will wipe out the island, 815 won't crash, and nothing we've been seeing for the past five seasons will happen. Sayid is badly wounded, so this might be good for him (though Richard could well cure him) ... but for everyone else?
As I wrote last week, and in previous weeks, the plan can't succeed. Faraday was right when he said the past can't be changed (and he was too torn by grief to be thinking clearly when he said it might be changed, after all). Miles seems to best get this now - he says maybe the bomb going off will cause the "incident" to happen - will cause the reality we have seen to occur.
Jack drops the bomb into the shaft, as the digging already going on unleashes a magnetic force that starts pulling the equipment apart. Phil from Dharma gets killed - good riddance (but good acting by Patrick Fischler). Juliet gets pulled into the shaft. She's hanging on. Sawyer and Kate try to save her (great line from Sawyer - "where you going, Blondie?") But the force is too strong. Juliet leaves go because doesn't want to pull Sawyer in and she falls down the shaft.
But she's not killed. And at the bottom of shaft, she finds the core of the h-bomb, still intact. She pounds on it. And - it goes off.
Have the past five years been destroyed? Will they never happen?
Of course not. Of course they will. I'm sure Miles was right. And we'll see how this all plays out - with the new "Locke" next year... The fact is that we can't be sure what the blast will do, other than that it won't change the past and wipe out five years. Conceivably, it could throw our people from 1977 back into the present ... it could even, perhaps, save Juliet in this way.
Minor quibbles ... I found Jacob coming in and out so fast a little unsatisfying,* and we could have used a little more precedent in the story for the shape shifting. But, all in all, a splendid resolution to this season and a powerful set-up for the next, and final, season.
And, oh yeah, Rose and Bernard! Someone asked me, in a comment somewhere about one of my Lost reviews this season, if I thought we'd ever see those two again. I said I was sure they'd turn up in the final episode of the season, as they usually do. And, sure, enough, they did (taking care of Vincent!) - both looking better and happier than ever!
See also: Thoughts about Lost Season 5 Finale, One Month Out: Richard and Jacob
10-min podcast review of Lost Season 5 Finale!
More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...
and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel ... 5.12: Ben v. Charles, and Locke' Slave ... 5.13: Lost Meets Star Wars and the Sixth Sense ... The Problem with Baby Aaron and the Return of the Oceanic Six ... 5.14: Eloise, Daniel, and Obsession Trumping Paradox ... 5.15: Moral Compasses in Motion
The Plot to Save Socrates
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
more about The Plot to Save Socrates...
Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!
42 comments:
A thought about that white flash at the end...We're all assuming it was the bomb going off, but what if it was in fact a time-travel flash? And because Juliet was touching the bomb when it happened, it traveled in time with them?
Or, as I was suggesting in my third-to-last paragraph, maybe the h-bomb triggered a time shift, which saved Juliet (and our people)?
We're thinking along similar lines...
Oh my gosh this was a pay day episode. It answered enough questions to leave one satisfied, yet left some questions hanging, as well as throwing in some things to think about over the summer.
Why didn't Jacob ever talk to Ben? If he "allowed" him to be leader, why not guide him?
What will the extent of the blast be? I would expect times to merge again at the very least. Will Jacob be saved from his fiery death because of it? Juliette? Those who died right around the time it happened. (I ralize Jacob dies thirty years later if we look at time linearly but who does that anymore!)
Could the blast have changed things back to the way they were but everone retains their dual memories?
Would they really write Locke out for the final year? Having him be 'snarky-guy' from the 1700's isn't very rewarding.
Why the brak of pattern having a flashback of Juliette's childhood without any Jacob in it. (Is it because Ben wanted her on the island, Jacob didn't?)
Most importantly...are we stuck waiting until February again, or will we get a full season?
So good! I think I will rent all 5 seasons over the summer
Hi Paul,
Great review for an excellent season ending.
I thought it was interesting that Jacob was acting like Jacob Ex Machina, popping in at key events of the story and steering them. The writers winked at audience with this "God in the machine" concept when Jacob retrieved the candy bars for Jack. He was saying the "machine" was "stuck" and he had to move it along.
Chris Hellstrom
That opening scene was one of the coolest things I've ever seen on television. And I'll be really surprised if the man talking to Jacob, the man who wants to kill him so badly, isn't named Esau.
Don't know how I'm going to make it to next season.
White Bear - about no Jacob visiting Juliet - yeah, I think it's because Jacob was about getting some people to the island via Flight 815 - and Juliet was brought to the island by Ben.
maybe the bomb explodes after all. and maybe the bomb + energy from the exotic matter pocket = super duper megaflashback which sends the losties back to the seventies.
btw: did you see the little promo right after the episode?
*sorry, i mean, back to the noughties
"The Locke who has been walking around on the island is the man who was talking to Jacob on the shore all those centuries or whenever ago. He has somehow taken Locke's form, and in that form goads Ben into killing Jacob. That, apparently was the loophole - the man could not kill Jacob himself, but he could drive someone else to do that..."
Paul, where did you get that from? When the episode ended, I still wasn't sure who Locke was. How do you know it's the guy from centuries ago?
Excellent post again. But I agree with Michael's comment: I'm still not sure about who or what the "New" Locke is. Your theory about a shape-shifter could be valid, but the "New" Locke seemed to have "Old" Locke's memories, personality, etc. Seems like there could be more to it. But obviously, there was a connection to the other guy in the opening scene. More mysteries to be resolved, and they only have one more season to do so! :)
Duh Burstein in the beg unknown dude said i want to kill you so bad..I'll find a loophole....when locke shows up at the end jacob says so u found a loophole..
Check this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design
"The first device whose dimensions suggest employment of all these features (two-point, hollow-pit, fusion-boosted implosion) was the Swan device, tested June 22, 1956, as the Inca shot of Operation Redwing, at Eniwetok. Its yield was 15 kilotons, about the same as Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb. It weighed 105 lb (47.6 kg) and was cylindrical in shape, 11.6 inches (29.5 cm) in diameter and 22.9 inches (58 cm) long."
The thing Jack was carrying around was a little small...oh well. Still, "The Swan Device". :)
To Anonymous:
The question was addressed to Paul, not to you. And I'm sure he'd also thank you for not being rude to his readers by opening your statement with the word "Duh" in that way.
Paul,
I thought of something else, the nameless man might be Smokey the monster (hence the black shirt and shape shifting). I still have to analyze more and rewatch the episode.
I guess what threw me off (and now blows my mind) is the fact that the "new" Locke may have been around since Season One! Jacob's Nemesis was probably around from the beginning, manipulating things. I'm thinking of the scene between Locke and Walt with the black and white pebbles. Or that scene with Ethan that I remember his shirt color changing and becoming black! All of this gives me confidence in the showrunners intentions and that they're not just making this stuff up as they go along.
smoke monster = "Locke"
I like the idea that the "new Locke" may have been around since the first episode. Didn't Locke get dragged under by the smoke monster? I certainly remember him not being scared of it. But that also means that the monster and Locke were on screen together. The monster could have taken Locke's memories though.
Also, don't forget about the polar bears. They still have to be explained. We have some more time shifting to do.
And didn't Ben and the Darmha people keep both the smoke monster and Jacob out of their camp. No wonder Ben and Locke never talked. Ben didn't allow it to happen by closing off the "others".
And I assume Richard was speaking Spanish when he answered the question from the girl I don't remember. Anybody know what he said?
I think we know now who the Oceanic Six are now thanks to Jacob: Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Sun, and Jin.
The whole killing Jacob loophole thing reminded me of when Ben couldn't kill Widmore off-island. Maybe it's the same reason Shape-Shifter Locke can't kill Jacob himself? Ben says he wants to kill Widmore but can't while they are in Widmore's bedroom. Can anyone help me out with this?
Professor Levinson i must say i enjoy you Lost reviems a lot! I just wanna add this to the discussion:
In the very first scene of the episode we see Jacob sitting in a chair and weave. That’s exactly how the Moirae (the ancient greek personifications of destiny) used to control each person's life, by weaving the (metaphorical) thread of life of every human being from their birth to their death!
Later on Jacob’s rival is accusing him of bringing the people on the ship we see on the far end to the island and Jacob says nothing to deny it. Isn’t it possible that he somehow “brought” the people of the Oceanic 815 flight also? Maybe that’s the significance of the first scene: if he is indeed compared to the Moirae we can view the following scenes of him meeting some of the people of the Oceanic flight from a different angle and say that he controlled or at least interfered with the destiny of those people and lead them to the island.
Dimitri Kyriazis
DMH - "He who will protect [or save] us all..." is the translation of what Richard spoke in Spanish.
Michael - I think the mention of the "loophole" in that final scene with "Locke," Ben, and Jacob is indeed the key - which shows us this "Locke" is the man who was on the beach with Jacob at the beginning, where the "loophole" was also mentioned.
Nick - it's possible that our Locke may have always been Jacob's Locke - but, then, who was the Locke in the coffin? - a clone? Hmm... that reminds me of The Plot to Save Socrates ... :)
I suppose it's also possible - to get back to Michael's point - that the "Locke" in the end is really our Locke, who has been in communication with the man sitting next to Jacob at the beginning, who has told our Locke about the loophole ... but that still leaves the question of who is Locke in the box?
Hmm... I may write another blog post entitled "The Locke in Box" ... or maybe, "Of Locke and Loopholes" ... it's fascinating stuff...
Dimitri - great to see you back here! Yes, I think Jacob may well have brought all of our people to the island, just as he was doing with the people on the ship at the beginning (my wife and I think Richard was on that first ship)...
Dawn & DMH: good point about Locke being the smoke monster.
Happygolucky - I think Ben couldn't kill Widmore because he needed Widmore for something ... but you're right that we still need an explanation of why shape-shifting Locke can't kill Jacob...
Sue - good point about Jin - but wasn't the Oceanic Six supposed to be six returnees picked up and flown back home? That would leave out Jin, who never really left the island. (But I always though Baby Aaron as one of the Oceanic Six was weak)..
Assuming living Locke is really the unnamed guy from the opening scene, and that he is shape shifting into Locke's form, I think we may have seen a precedent for it. Every time someone on the island sees a dead person who's body is on the island (the docs dad, Aaron's mom, etc.), it could actually be the unnamed person...
Oops - I meant Latin not Spanish - in my comment above about the language Richard was speaking.
The bit that bugged me most of all was Jack's sudden psychopathic change in character.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's spent the last 5 seasons pretty much abiding by the hippocratic oath. Do no harm.
He's one of the few characters who's never killed anyone.
In this finale he seems to go postal, running around with a nutter with a gun, tagging dharmas like they're going out of fashion.
I suppose he could justify it with the idea that "it will never happen anyway", and he is about to nuke the lot of them anyway, but still it seemed out of character.
Agreed - that's why, at this point, I'm rating Sawyer a lot higher than Jack.
It's interesting how the Others, particularly Richard who has been on the Island for centuries, don't know the full situation of Jacob and his nemesis. The Others must have come to the Island after things were already in play. I wonder if they are all descended from people brought there by Jacob. If so, perhaps the 815ers are fated to join the others if they don't succeed at whatever they're supposed to do.
Do I remember that when Hurley found the VW campervan in whatever season it was there was a body in it wearing a jump suit with Horace on it. In the finale Sayid was wearing it.
Hmm... I thought the name on the jump suit - in the campervan that Hurley discovered - said "Roger" (and we did see young Ben kill Roger in that van)..
Well, the one obvious question, that's been left out in all these posts, who is coming?
Did Jacob mean the Losties stuck in 1977? Did he mean other beings we have yet to see? Or, more frighteningly, something much more forboding that perhaps the world is not quite ready for?
If you remember the conversation on the beach, the unnamed man said "they don't like you very much" or something to that effect. Jacob kinda brushed it off and then unnamed man said he wanted to kill him. Now, if unnamed man is this "New" Locke, why was he so startled by Jacob's pronouncement that "They're coming"? I mean he literally got wide eyed and did a double take. That suggests he wasn't expecting Jacob to say something like that at all. If "they" don't like Jacob very much, why would they be coming when someone kills him?
So there's a few possible scenarios here:
1. "they" are some higher order of beings, and Jacob is just simply a caretaker, that will be coming to whoop somebodies tail for the death of Jacob.
2. "they" are beings we have never seen before, or have seen in the form of dead Losties who are about to be unleashed and unnamed man didn't think that would happen, or even feared it because of what these beings might be capable of.
3. Or, he meant the Losties in 1977, which may be the only way to stop the unnamed man.
The apocalyptic ending of Lost was spot on. A white back drop with black letters for the title. apocalypse means to bring to light or a revealing, which the producers eluded to with the phrase "Destiny Found."
Alana is obviously much more pivotal than we ever realized when she first showed up with Sayid on Flight 316. She wasn't just a replacement for the Marshall, she was supposed to be there too.
What I don't understand, if Jacob can live for centuries, how can a knife wound and fire kill this man? Are we talking about a being that has an indefinite life-span, but can be ended just as easily as any other mortal? He will never die of old age, but could die from a gun shot wound, just like I could? But that's a question I really want to see answered next year. How are these people living so long on this island? And of course, what is the island, really? Obviously it is more than just an island, but no one has ever truly addressed that.
I don't believe for one minute that bomb actually blew up anything. A nice touch and great cliff hanger to be sure, but come on, erasing five years of the series just like that? Surely not! I agree with Miles, that was the incident, which plays right along with my paradox scenario, that all Jack has accomplished is causing an even bigger paradox that could have much more far reaching effects. Kind of like The Civilization Loop. Simply by opening the door (which is what happened in 2004 with the crash) a paradox is created and going back in time, with your presence alone regardless of what you do, creates an even larger paradox than the initial one. The only bad thing is, in The Civilization Loop, it led to the whole universe being destroyed...cross your fingers!
Can't wait for 2010!
See you guys and dolls next year!
Good analysis, as always, Looper.
One point about immortality (and Jacob): it comes in different forms.
For example, in the case of the Elves in Lord of the Rings, they didn't age, but they could be killed (hence their incredible and poignant bravery and sacrifice in the Two Towers).
And then there are people like Claire in Heroes, who can't be killed, and may or may not age (I don't think we know that, yet).
So Jacob is apparently like an Elf in Lord of the Rings.
I just assumed that Jacob being killed meant he lost his corporeal form. He still exists but can no longer interact directly with the physical world.
Paul: great review of the finale. your "loophole" theory is spot on. so where does that thread (Jacob, the weaver) lead us next season?
btw, when i saw the opening scene with unnamed guy and Jacob -- the ship in the distant ... could that be The Black Rock that shipwrecked on the island?
can't wait for the final chapter. have a great summer,
/jimy_max
Paul,
Thanks, I'm glad I found your post because I needed an intelligent discussion of this episode.
The thing I didn't like about the Jacob character was his surfer-boy looks. I was really hoping for someone with a more ambiguous face. I think they could have cast an older character actor. Jeffrey Rush comes to mind. I think he would make a great Jacob.
Hey Jimmy,
I hadn't thought about that being the Black Rock, but I bet you're right. Which I think Paul eluded to the possibility that maybe Richard was on that boat? Have to wait and see.
Paul,
I definitely think Jacob is more like the Elves for certain. I just can't wait to see the explanation for why he is like that. Why is it necessary to live forever on that island to begin with?
Hey Antonio,
Barbossa brings them all back!lol Hey, Rush could have done it just as well too, but this guy provided what they wanted, a comforting, cool and collected person that helped them all feel more at ease. Hey, they could have casted Michael Keaton for the part, who was originally considered for the role of Jack to be killed off in the very first episode of Lost, before they thought better of it. Would have brought his casting full circle, once again killing him off.
Well, although we all know death on this island is only relative. I get the feeling, (Terminator plug ensues), Jacob will be back!
Jimmy and Looper - yeah, I definitely think the ship at the beginning could have been the Black Rock, and that's what I was getting at by thinking Richard was on it...
Antonio - welcome to Infinite Regress! I agree about the casting of Jacob being too much surfer dude...
I agree with you guys about Jacob´s looks. Actually, i´d rather have Jacob´s nemesis as Jacob. He has more gravitas. Somehow Jacob feels a bit too cool, you know? a bit too casual.
now, wouldn´t it be brilliant if Ben killing Jacob would actually unleash jacob from his corporeal form, releasing a powerful entity like the smoke monster, but opposite in its intentions? like a good smoke monster? a white smoke monster?
I am going to go for the biggest picture, top down so to speak. At the core the writers wrote this show to explore character development using the island as a sort of testing ground. My hope is that the series is ultimately about the evolution of motivation. How has Sawyer's and Jack's motives for what they do changed this season from other seasons for example? Is Jacob weaving the destiny of the characters for this very purpose? And is not the weaver of the characters destinys a thin veil that when removed points straight back to writers themselves? What I would love is if actually Jacob was killed in the season finale and as such killed the writers leaving the finale destiny of the show to writers such as the ones in this very forum. But haven't all the episodes already been shot already?
"As I wrote last week, and in previous weeks, the plan can't succeed. Faraday was right when he said the past can't be changed (and he was too torn by grief to be thinking clearly when he said it might be changed, after all). Miles seems to best get this now - he says maybe the bomb going off will cause the "incident" to happen - will cause the reality we have seen to occur."
BUT, they are trying to change the FUTURE, not the past. Two timelines exist on LOST. As soon as they went back in time, the created the POSSIBILITY for change. If they make "big" enough changes (e.g. destroy island/energy), the past as they remember it (the FUTURE) changes. I agree with you that their actions won't change anything and think about this: Richard says he remembers them all dying, so if my logic is right we are actually observing 1 timeline the whole time, the new timeline. The other we never see is the one that continued after they went back in time....Locke visiting Richard (and vice-versa) still throws me off but all those "visits" into the past by Faraday, Locke, and company effectively started a new timeline. The other would result with Sun, Lapitas, etc. never meeting up with fake Locke and Alpert, or basically, Alpert wouldn't trust them as he would never have been visited by Locke EVER. I know this doesn't make a ton of sense, but there is something here, this angle I'm proposing, unfortunately I don't re-watch Lost of read up on it and just have my mind blown when I sit down to take it all in.
I agree with Richard possibly coming from the black rock also, because he was the one making the ship in the bottle when Locke came back after 3 years and I don't think we would be privy to that unless it meant something more.
Hi, still thinking about Lost...
A few thoughts...
Re: o-6
Sue@wordtree.ca said...
I think we know now who the Oceanic Six are now thanks to Jacob: Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Sun, and Jin.
Neither Sawyer or Jin were "rescued" right?, The Oceanic 6 was a name the "back-there" world gave them so it didn't bother me about Aaron because to them it was just 6 people miraculously alive. (although there could be a new 6)
Re: "They're coming" WOW! Looper...way deep. I just thought Jacob meant the people carrying (some sort of)Locke in the box were coming and he (New Locke) was about to be found out.
Re: Jack....hmmmmmm complete change of personality....mighty suspicious, maybe it's not him, how many bodies can shapeshifter dude be in at one time? By the way could he have been Kate's horse, and other "things" we have seen since season 1...not just people?
Re: New Locke/Shapeshifter being Smoke monster....that would be interesting because Ben seemed able to summon Smokey, yet seemed unaware of SS not being the original Locke.
Great call on the candy bar comment, on the machine being stuck! the weaving and also about Jacob with the surfer looks. Ha I thought the same thing
So my two predictions, to which I'm clinging....
1. Ben seems so bad, he might just be good
2. Sawyer's girlfriend/mother of his child back home is deeper into this than we realize. I thought her advice to Kate to give up Aaron raised a red flag!
September 09 or Feb 10? anyone know when the new season starts?
has every1 forgotten about claire, one second she's giving up the baby, the next she in that hut with her dad, now u cant say that thats the smoke monster aswell, and that evil twin cant have been locke from the 1st seris as that would mean that he died in the plane crash, he was of the island then died, he cant die twice as they already said that its impossible to come back from the dead, even if it is that guy who was talking to jacob about loopholes.
My take on Locke is that he died when Ben killed him - not in the first plane crash.
As for Claire - I think there's a chance she's still alive in some way...
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