Subject: LOST 5, ep. 16 "The Incident" part 2
Part 2.
1. Rose and Bernard (and Vincent!) at the cabin: So cute. Rose "It's always something with you people."
2. Lapidus, Bram and Ilana: What is Lapidus a candidate for? To be on the "good guy team?" I love how his eyes/ eyebrows do as much acting as he does. Bram and Ilana surprisingly do appear to be "good," and are on Jacob's side. There goes the "they are Dharma trying to reorganize" theory. So does that mean Widmore is aligned with Anti-Jacob, as Bram warned Miles that he should NOT go on Widmore's mission? Oh, remember how Bram said that it was Miles' choice and that Miles needed to NOT WANT TO GO? Bram is, like Jacob, depending on free will... the right to choose, the ability to do the right thing. That being said, Widmore still confuses me.
3. Smokey/ Anti-Jacob: I think they are one in the same. I think Smokey/ Anti-Jacob can only take the form of dead people (Yemi, Alex, Christian, Locke) who are not buried. That might explain why it was so important to Richard and the Others that the bodies of the hostiles who were holding Amy and Paul at gun point needed to be buried. Also, the Others gave Danny Pickett's wife (who Sun shot) a Viking burial (set her on fire at sea). This was all to keep Smokie from using their forms.
Smokey used Alex to convince Ben to follow Locke or Ben would be destroyed. Fake Locke (Smokie/ Anti-Jacob) brought Ben and Alpert to the beechcraft plane so Alpert could convince Real Locke he had to die, thus allowing Anti-Jacob to use Locke's form. The loophole (referred to on the beach in the opening scene) was getting Ben to do his dirty work, because Smokie/ Anti-Jacob can't touch Jacob himself. He realizes that he needs to get Real Locke off island in order to kill him, then use Christian to manipulate Real Locke into turning the wheel and returning to the outside world, where it knows Real Locke will be killed, while at the same time planting seeds in Real Locke's head that he'll need to die in order to come back. Ingenious!!! Fake Locke was the one who told Richard to tell Real Locke that he needed to die to bring the 815ers back! I love it!
4. Sayid: He's close to death and realizes his soul can never be saved. It doesn't really matter what Jack does, the sum of Sayid's past sins is just too great. Even if he makes it, he can never atone. As Ben said "You are a killer. It's what you do."
5. Riddle: What lies in the shadow of the statue? Translated as "He who will save us all."
6. Jacob reading Flannery O'Conner's book: As Locke was being pushed out that window, Jacob was reading the book Everything That Rises Must Converge. O'Conner typically writes stories where the righteous are skewed and exposed as hypocrites, while the worst sinners end up becoming unwitting or unwilling conduits for God's grace. The book is titled Everything That Rises Must Converge - from a phrase coined by a Catholic provocateur named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who concocted a theory of evolution called "Omega Point." Basically, it's the idea that there is some kind of transcendent entity or consciousness that is guiding everyone and everything toward greater complexity and enlightenment, until everyone and everything becomes transcendent, too. More simply, it's Jacob's view: There is a single end; everything before then is progress (as he said in the beginning). Chardin believed his Omega entity was basically Jesus Christ himself. His phrase, "everything that rises must converge," is a poetical expression of a key Christian idea known in the Greek apokatastasis. It's like the opposite of apocalypse, or rather, what comes after apocalypse. Apokatastasis is the idea that in the end, Satan will be defeated and that all of creation will be redeemed and unified under Christ.
7. Jacob in the 815ers' flashbacks: If you think Jacob is good, you can see these events as him being there when these people were at pivotal moments in their lives. An argument can be made for Jacob being the evil one, but since I don't believe that I'll spare you those details. I think Jacob did what he could, intervening in their lives, to ensure that eventually they would get on that original 815 flight, knowing that they would prove him right... mankind can redeem and use free will to do the right thing.
Kate: He paid her debt, telling her not to steal again.
Sayid: Jacob saved Sayid from getting struck by the car along with Nadia. Perhaps Jacob knew that Nadia had to die to help direct Sayid down his "killer" life path, working for Ben.
Locke: He walked over to Locke's body, after the fall, and touched him on the shoulder - and suddenly, Locke was very much alive. Offering an apology: "Don't worry. Everything is going to be all right. I'm sorry this happened to you."
Sawyer: Jacob offered Sawyer a pen so that Sawyer could write that infamous letter to the real Sawyer (aka Anthony Cooper).
8. Miles: When Dr. Chang's arm was injured I was so excited! The prosthetic arm explained... 4 years later!
Miles suggested that Jack's suicide-bomber act would actually produce the very ''incident'' they were trying to subvert - that they would be fulfilling history, not re-making it. At the same time, Faraday was correct with his ''human variable'' theory. There was a free radical among the time travelers, and her exercise of free will in last night's episode made all the difference: Juliet ''I changed my mind'' Burke. As a result of her Jughead-blowing anarchy, history has been rebooted. The Swan will never be built; Oceanic 815 will never crash. But the shape and form of the new time line will be determined by now-former castaways, thanks to the two gifts given to them by Jacob in the finale: a second chance at life - and the freedom to create their own destiny. Whatever that means.
You could argue that the nuke itself was always part of the original incident. Maybe this is why so much cement is poured on top of the Swan site. Maybe this is why the area gets quarantined, and everyone stationed there gets yellow suits. Maybe this is why Desmond needs to inject himself with serum every time he wakes up. All decent arguments. We'll have to wait to find out what happened when Jughead went off.
9. Seasons mirroring back on themselves: Remember how I sent out the theory that the seasons are mirroring back on themselves. 'Here's more on that from Doc Jenson...
'The Incident'' confirmed for me one of the few correct theories I've come up with this year: That season 5 was a mirror to season 2, they've been setting up a sixth season that will resemble season 1, thus completing the moebius strip narrative of Lost. ''The Incident'' certainly resembled season 2's finale, the title of which, ''Live Together, Die Alone,'' was name-checked by Juliet last night. There was a story line involving castaway treachery (Michael = Fake Locke). Both episodes shared the Four Toed Statue as a plot point, although ''The Incident'' gave us a better look at what it once looked like back in the day. Both episodes culminated with the destruction of the Hatch, perpetrated in each case by lovelorn characters hoping their sacrifice would somehow, someway save the lives of their friends. And finally, both episodes were about activating ''quibbles''. As in: A plot device, common to fantasy/science fiction, that allows a character to cheat the literal obligations of a promise, contract, or prophecy. Also see: loophole. Desmond had the failsafe.
I think Jacob's failsafe is the 815ers... using Jughead, using free will, redeeming themselves. After all, he has faith in humanity whereas Anti-Jacob does not.