The Incident

OMG…

WTF…

That’s all I could say for about 2 hours after this piece finished guys. And yesterday I didn’t even try to tackle writing the blog because my brain hurt so freaking much. It was, in my opinion, an awesome finale. I kind of knew Juliet would bite it, but didn’t know Jacob would be such a….person. And who the hell is that other dude???? Since there’s so much freaking jumping around, I’m going to tackle the Jacob visits first, and then move onto island, present then past.

In an unknown time, though we assume around the 1800s, an unnamed man spins thread, weaves on a loom and catches him some fish. When I saw the loom, I immediately thought of The Fates; “three Greek mythological women who were the spinners of destiny. The first fate spun the thread of life; she determined the time of a person’s birth. The second fate measured the thread of life; she determined a person’s life span. The third fate was the cutter of the thread of life; she determined the time of a person’s death.” Looking at his clothing, I also assume that this gentleman might be a survivor of The Black Rock. As he sits on the beach, another man (let’s henceforth call him Nemesis) approaches. Out in the distance, a large sailing ship floats nearby. Nemesis accuses our man of bringing the ship here, claiming that it will all end the same, with destruction and corruption. Next, Nemesis ever so bluntly says, “Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?” and addresses our man as Jacob. LO AND BEHOLD! We finally have a face to the name.  Nemesis says to Jacob that one day he’ll fine a loophole to complete his task, and walks away as the camera pans out and reveals the whole Egyptian statue. So…who is this dude? Doc Jensen says, “Since the very beginning, we’ve been given hints, such as in the pilot, when Locke taught Walt the rules of backgammon. ”Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark.” The opening sequence officially activated this Big Idea. We now we see that the entire Lost saga is contextualized by a centuries-spanning conflict — or maybe just a game — between two beings, enchanted and long-lived but not necessarily immortal. On one side, there is Jacob. On the other side, there is…well, he didn’t drop a name. I know what you’re saying, especially those who know your Bible: ”Esau.” The ruddy, hairy older twin who got tricked out of his birthright by brother Jacob. The problem with this comparison is that Jacob and Esau ultimately forgave each other. I didn’t get sense that that kind grace and détente are possible for Lost’s Jacob and…whomever. So who are these guys? Jesus and Satan? Set and Horus? Roland Deschaine and Randall Flagg? Yep: We’ll be excavating and debating for months.” Notice that Jacob and Nemesis sport opposing knit shirts, one white, one black. Hmm.

DarkUFO has another idea on Nemesis. He says, “It’s obvious to me at least, that the guy in the dark shirt represents the smoke monster. This fits well with all the judging we’ve seen Smokey do throughout the show. He abhors Jacob constantly bringing in all these tainted outsiders to violate the sanctity of his island. He killed Mr. Eko for refusing to repent. He destroyed the pilot before he could radio for help… to keep other slimy corrupt humans from finding the island. The smoke monster is the island’s judge and jury, but he’s also locked in a timeless power struggle with Jacob – one that goes by a very specific set of rules (the book of laws?) These dictate what they can and cannot do, and one thing they seemingly can’t do is move the chess pieces around the board with their own hands. They can indirectly influence these moves by manipulating certain things, but the ultimate choices must eventually be made by the pieces themselves.” That would make sense, considering that Smokey as Alex told Ben to do whatever Locke, (aka him) told him to do. It makes me wonder about Christian Shephard and Claire though. Perhaps Nemesis is able to embody people who have come to the island or perhaps whom have died on the island. We’ve seen Christian and Locke reanimated now. But what about Claire? She died on island, and if Nemesis can embody her, could he not embody all others who have died. If so, why no Smokey Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia, etc? And does is mean anything that Christian and Claire appeared to be in the shack together? Can Smokey embody two bodies at a time? Dark continues: “This is who we first saw say “Help me” when the cabin was introduced. Maybe Jacob tricked him in there and trapped him, and maybe Richard even helped. This could explain why the dark man could at first only appear in one of his most ancient forms – the smoke monster – because his physical being was stuck in the cabin behind the circle of ash. We also saw him appear in the forms of Yemi and Alex, but only after having scanned the minds of the people who knew those characters…. And so the dark dude/monster develops an elaborate plan: To become Locke, it knows the original John Locke needs to die. But the island (Jacob?) won’t let allow Locke to die; this is best evidenced when Ben shoots him point blank and he somehow lives. It realizes it needs to get Locke off island in order to kill him. It then uses ghost Christian to manipulate Locke into turning the wheel, where it knows/hopes Locke will be killed, while at the same time planting seeds in Locke’s head that he’ll need to die in order to come back. Ben dutifully brings Locke’s body back on Ajira 316, thinking he’s doing the island’s bidding when he’s actually doing the opposite. The smoke monster takes over from there. All that’s left at that point is to gain a weapon with which to kill Jacob. That weapon is Ben, and the dark man has been sharpening that weapon for a long time now.” This would also go along with the idea that The Others demand that their dead be burned; to prevent Smokey from taking them over.

Why does this fellow so desire to kill Jacob? Jacob seems ever focused on the positive while Nemesis is exhausted with the idea of another go around of whatever time loop of encounters they’ve been in. “NAMELESS: You’re trying to prove me wrong. JACOB: You are wrong.” Their conversation hints that they’ve been together, on the island for a very, very…verrrrry long time. Jacob’s nonchalance at his Nemesis’ desire to kill him also implies that either Jacob can’t die, or Nemesis can’t take any sort of action that would lead to his death. Some kind of rules. Perhaps the same rules that affect Ben and Widmore? A Lostpedia theorist says that, “I do believe the time-loop theory is a sound one with the evidence we have. For instance, Jacob’s nemesis, when referring to the ship off the coast of the Island (presumably the Black Rock) wearily goes over the details of what will happen when the sailors come onto land, saying, “…it always ends the same.” At first glance this could just be taken as a wider reference to people coming to the Island, i.e. every time an outside presence comes to the Island it ends in “fight(ing) destroy(ing)” and “corrupt(tion).” However, the cryptic nature of this conversation, along with J.N.’s exhausted, bored demeanor, could imply that this specific event has happened many times before. Such a theory is perhaps further bolstered by Jacob trying to “prove (his nemesis) wrong”, for one reason or another, in attempting to produce a different outcome in this iteration of the time loop. Obviously, the true motives for this strange relationship are unclear at the time, but there’s more than enough half-clues in their conversation to at least suggest something resembling this.” Another responds, “”It only ends once. Anything that happens before that…just progress.” This strongly suggests a time loop, with Jacob maintaining that something only truly “ends” one time, and the other time loops are simply “progress” toward that final ending in which the time loop is broken.” Vozzek69 adds a more God Vs. Satan theme to their relationship: “This conversation is the crux of the entire show. The dark man is resigned to the fact that LOST’s loop will never be broken. He argues that Man’s destructive history and propensity for war will never allow anything but corruption. This is an inner corruption too; one of the heart and soul. The dark man is judging humankind here on a very general basis – it doesn’t matter who the Black Rock brings to the island, he believes Jacob will never be right. Jacob on the other hand, believes in change. Maybe even an inner change, brought about by sacrifice and purity. All throughout LOST we’ve seen the terrible things done by everyone throughout their flashbacks. They’ve each been guilty of being impure on one level or another. Lying, cheating, stealing, killing – there are skeletons in every closet. At one time or another, every single one of our characters has done something to prove the dark man right… something that could be judged to be impure by his own definition of human nature. Everyone, of course, except for one person: Hurley.” Very WWH Vs. The Variable, don’t you think? And yes what about Hurley?

Also, Doc has some notes about the statue: “The mug on the edifice sure didn’t look like a jackal to me, thus ruling out the Egyptian God Anubis, protector of the dead. No, that face looked like a crocodile, which gets you Sobek, a morally ambiguous dark god who oversees dark waters and preys onsinful souls in the afterlife. (Very Smokey.)

“Even worse, Set, the Egyptian god of chaos and evil, was a shape shifter who often morphed into crocodiles and hippos (another candidate for Four Toed’s face) in his clashes with archenemy Horus. Set was linked to infertility (seems Horus once ripped off Set’s testicles) (serious!) (and ouch!) and was partial to fish and lettuce. Hey…didn’t we see Jacob munching on a filet-o-fish lettuce wrap last night? And aren’t devilish gods all for the concept of choice and free will?” A friend writes to me, “In Egyptian lore two brothers were born. One loved God and cooperated lovingly with the creation. The other pursued self-seeking urges and interests, and took advantage of the creation, giving little thought to the consequences of his actions and appetites. In Egypt these two brothers were Osirius and Set (sometimes called “Seth,” and from which some Pharaohs took the name “Seti”). Just as in the biblical story of Cain and Able, Set grew jealous of Osirius and killed him.

Yet another Lostpedia Theorist has an idea as to what the statue was. “The four-toed statue was the Ancient Egyptian goddess, Taweret who was a patron of childbirth and a protector of women and children. She was also believed to guard the path to the underworld. Although it is unknown when this statue was destroyed, its destruction led to the inability for women to give birth on the island. Furthermore, its destruction led to the inability of the dead, like Christian and Claire, to move on and forced them to wander the island.”

Or, neither. “It is a never before seen statue of Ammut in a humanoid form. Ammut is the Egyptian eater of the heart, when you die Anubis takes your heart to the underworld where it’s accumulated sins are weighted against a feather, if it is heavier than a feather the heart is eaten by Ammut. I think it’s clear that the Smoke monster is Ammut. The Egyptians believed Ammut had the head of a Crocodile seen on the statue, mane of a lion also seen on the statue, and legs of a hippo, which explains the 4 toes.”

Another friend points out more hidden Egyptian links. She says,  “In the room inside the foot where Jacob is chillin’, in the last scenes with Alterna-Locke and Ben, the wall behind Alterna-Locke and Ben has stone relief carvings on it, which feature many long lines with little hands at the bottom of the lines, that are reaching toward the figures at the bottom of the relief panel. You can’t see the top of the carving, i.e. where the lines are coming from, but that is an extremely famous Egyptian motif — they are the rays of a sun, and the rays are the lines, with little hands at the bottom of each one. This was a motif debuted by Akhenaten, who created a religious revolution in Egypt when he became pharaoh by rejecting the pantheon of Egyptian gods and declaring the Aten (the sun) was the one true god. In effect he thus became the first monotheist in Egyptian history, and went so far as to build his own capital — Akhetaten, I think it’s called, but the modern name of the site is Amarna.I was extremely surprised to see the sun-ray-hand motifs because that is not standard Egyptian style, it’s very specifically associated with Akhenaten and his monotheistic religious reforms. There are many famous relief carvings of Akhenaten and Nefertiti (his wife) and their daughters being loved on by the Aten/sun/one true god in this manner, with the rays-hands stretching down to bless them. After Akhenaten died, his monotheistic religious reforms and city were abandoned and everyone went back to the old ways.”

Interesting tidbits. Apparently Akhenaten is also connected to Mosesin that, according to Freud, “that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten’s death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve.” Did Ben not refer to Locke as Moses upon arriving at the statue? She continues, “…since Jacob is treated as the “god” of the island, perhaps whoever speaks to/for Jacob is Moses, and if whoever speaks for Jacob is Moses, that person as the leader would be charged with freeing his people from slavery/being trapped on the island?”

After this visit to the past, Jacob seems to pop up in our Losties lives every so often. First he visits Kate in one of her first attempts at thievery. Using her BFF Tom as a lookout, she swipes a NKOTB lunchbox only to be caught by the clerk. Yet Jacob (still young and fresh faced) steps in and offers to pay for it, making Kate promise never to steal again. We all know how well that worked out. Or do we? Kate may be a criminal, but her biggest crime is murder, not theft. During that raid on the bank she had no interest in the money, only the toy plane. While Kate may have stolen for necessity in her life, has she ever really stolen out of desire outside of this lunchbox?

Next, Jacob visits a young James Ford outside the church where the funeral for his parents was just held. He is writing his letter to the infamous Anthony Cooper, his “Sawyer” when his pen runs out of ink. Jacob supplies him with a new one and tells James he’s very sorry for what happened to his parents. James’ uncle then takes a peak at the letter and implores him not to finish it, spouting the line we often hear out of Sawyers mouth, “What’s done is done.” We all know he didn’t listen.

A bit later in time, Sayid and Nadia are content in their new post O6 life together. While Sayid is distracted by Jacob asking him for directions, Nadia is hit by a car which then speeds off. Nadia, as she lay dying, asks Sayid to take her home, which we can assume meant that she wanted to be buried in Iraq. I find that this was a strange way for Nadia to die, considering that Nadia was alleged to have been killed by an employee of Charles Widmore (or so Ben said.) It’s difficult to imagine that murdering someone, and only one person, with a car is an exact science. If it was a set up by Ben, why did the assassin choose to hit Nadia with a car, making it look like an accident if Ben was only going to have to inform Sayid that it wasn’t? I also found it odd that Sayid’s visit came from Jacob after he had already been to the island. With the theme of “Jacob touches us all” (literally, he touches all of our Losties in their encounters) I was thinking that his touch lead one to the island. Yet Sayid has already returned. Perhaps as a way of getting him back?

In relation, Jacob also pays a brief visit to our new cast member Ilana. She is laying in a hospital bed somewhere in Russia and heavily bandaged. We don’t know what has happened to her, yet there is recognition in her eyes when Jacob appears. She knows him and she trusts him; and when Jacob asks for her help, she agrees. I can only assume that it is to lure Sayid back onto the plane (using her skirt or her gun) and thus get to the island. Take note here that we don’t see Jacob actually touch Ilana. Perhaps this is only occurring for the 815ers.

At another point in time, Jacob sits on a bench outside a tall building reading Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge. As soon as I saw the building, I knew immediately whose encounter was coming next. Just as I suspected, John Locke came flying out the 8^th floor window, crashing to the ground. Jacob touches him on the shoulder and Locke gasps and wakes up (was Locke brought back to life here as well?) and tells Locke that everything will be alright and that he’s very sorry that this happened to him. Doc says, “O’Connor, Catholic and Southern, was known for her ironic redemption stories. She had a penchant for violence but felt it was in keeping with the nature of revelation — that it comes upon you unexpectedly, shockingly, horribly. In her yarns, the righteous are skewed and exposed as hypocrites, while the worst sinners end up becoming unwitting or unwilling conduits for God’s grace. As for Everything That Rises…, reader Adam Sroufe sent me this quote from critic Madsen Hardy characterizing O’Connor’s ambition: ”O’Connor…claims that it is her specific goal to offer a glimpse of God’s mystery and, thus, to lead readers — whom she sees as, for the most part, spiritually lost in the modern, secular world — back toward the path of redemption.” That could indeed be Jacobesque, provided he’s good, and certainly fits into my Quibbling theory…”

In Korea at the wedding of Jin and Sun, Jacob also makes a brief appearance. As he touches them on the shoulder, Jacob tells them to, “Cherish the time they have together and never let it go.” Though they’re both perplexed, Jin does note Jacob’s excellent Korean. Seems our Jacob is all knowing after all. We all know that Jin and Sun do, in fact, take their love for granted. I’m wondering what Jacob’s goal was in this scenario.

In a Los Angeles operating room, Jack operates on a teenage girl. I totally knew what was coming here too (is Lost becoming predictable, or am I just a huge dork? The latter, it seems). As I suspected, we were about to witness the surgery when Jack tears the young woman’s Dural sack; the surgery he told Kate about the first time that they met. Hearing Jack tell the story, he claims that he gave himself 5 seconds to feel the fear, and then fixed the problem. What we see here, however, is that it was Christian who told him to do so. I don’t know if that makes any difference, but perhaps it just suggests that Christian may not have been the terrible father Jack thought he was. Jack may have been embarrassed, but in reality, were it not for Christian, Jack maybe would not have taken that 5 seconds to calm down, and the girl would have died. Later in the hallway, Jacob touches Jack in his time of crisis, if only to hand him an Apollo bar. “Maybe all it needed was a little push,” he says.

Now, at some other point in the past, Juliet and her sister Rachel are informed by their parents that they will soon divorce.  The whole scene reflects Juliet’s future relationship with Sawyer and her confusion over why two people in love should separate, yet there’s one distinct difference: Jacob does not visit her. Interesting…was Juliet never supposed to come to the island? Though Richard recruited her to help with the island’s fertility problem, and Richard does seem to be devoted to Jacob, Jacob never visited her himself. Read into that what you will. Vozzek69 Says, “she learns that sometimes two people love each other but aren’t meant to be together… just like her and Sawyer. Suddenly everything’s clear to her on this subject. I’d wondered why Juliet had the only flashback that didn’t include Jacob, but that’s because she wasn’t ever necessary to the island’s whole plan. She was someone Ben brought in for his own purposes only, and never really place in the grand scheme of things. More lost than anyone, really.”

Lastly, Jacob visits Hurley in another post-O6 visitation. When Hurley is released from prison after his run in with some Widmore folk, Jacob offers to split a cab.  When Jacob mentions the island, Hurley immediately assumes that Jacob is a ghost and reiterates the idea that he is cursed. Yet Jacob disagrees and tells Hurley that he is blessed, and informs him about Ajira Flight 316. Jacob exits the cab leaving the guitar he seemingly brought; only when Hurley reminds him, Jacob says it’s not his. Is it Charlie’s? Is it just another part of the package that needs to be on Ajira Flight 316? Jacob again emphasized the subject of free will, “’It’s your choice, Hugo. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

I’m going to jump to the present time now to continue the Jacob intrigue. Richard, Locke, Ben and the rest of the Others head to the Four Toed Statue to see Jacob. Since Ben let it slip that his “dead daughter told him to do whatever John Locke said,” Locke though it best to quit the pretense, and let Ben know that it was he who was going to kill Jacob, not Locke. I’ve got to say though, Locke put up a pretty convincing argument. Reminding Ben of all of the horrible things that Jacob seems to have done to him, he’s surprised that Ben doesn’t want to kill Jacob. Hmm…remind you of anyone? Note that Jacob’s tapestry contains phrases written in ancient Greek from Homer’s Odyssey 6:180 and 8:413:

“ΘΕΟΙ ΤΟΣΑ ΔΟΙΕΝ ΟΣΑ ΦΡΕΣΙ ΣΗΣΙ ΜΕΝΟΙΝΑΣ“, which means, “may the gods grant thee all that thy heart desires.”

“[ΘΕΟΙ ΔΕ] ΤΟΙ ΟΛΒΙΑ ΔΟΙΕΝ“, which means, “may the gods give you happiness.”

Meanwhile, Ilana, Bram, Frank and a few other 316ers paddle over to the main island from the Hydra Island. While Frank “sleeps”, Ilana and Bram discuss the possibility of being a candidate. For what, however, is not revealed. They head to Jacob’s cabin only to find the ash circle displace and the cabin empty. I have to wonder if the ash circle was keeping something trapped in, rather than keeping someone out. Remember that this cabin was where Ben first brought Locke to meet Jacob (if that was really him) and where Lock encountered Christian Shephard and the ghostly Claire. Yet Ilana mentions that it seems that someone else had been using it. After finding a woven picture of the statue, they set the cabin ablaze and head in the direction of the statue.

In this time period, only a four toed foot remains. Locke immediately demands to see Jacob and insists, much to Richard’s chagrin, that Ben joins him. Once they enter, Ilana and the 316ers arrive, demanding to see Ricardos. She asks of Richard the all famous question: What lies in the shadow of the statue? This time, however, we get an answer! Richard replies “Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” which translates to “He who will protect/save us all.”  And Ilana is visibly relieved. She then discloses what they’ve been lugging around inside that metal crate: John Locke’s body.

…Whaaaaaaa????

If John Locke is actually dead, who the hell is inside the chamber with Ben??? NEMESIS! TIS YOU?!?!

Inside the chamber, we see the mysterious tapestry yet again. Jacob immediately realizes that John Locke is not who he says he is, yet Ben is still convinced to kill him. Ben asks Jacob about all the times he has been neglected and asks, “What about me?” Jacob’s only reply is, “What about you?” Ben then stabs him twice in the chest and right before Locke rolls Jacob into the fire, Jacob whispers, “They’re coming.” Doc Jensen thinks the “who” in that they are in fact the Losties from 1977. “What the Adversary didn’t know was that Jacob had been doing some plotting of his own to counter all of his enemy’s moves. And in the last moment of the Jacob/Alterna-Locke/Ben showdown, I think what we saw was Alterna-Locke realizing that he’d been checkmated. ”They’re coming,” Jacob sputtered — referring, I believe, to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the entire quantum leaping cavalry. I think the Adversary completely understood the significance of what Jacob was saying — and it pissed him off big time. Hence, why Alterna-Locke angrily kicked Jacob into the fire. Hence, that scowl on his face. It was the pout of defeat.”  Also, regarding Ben, since Ben’s innocence was taken by the monster when he was fixed in 1977, is that why Jacob refuses to see him?

Doc also has some other theories about Jacob: “As it happens, Flannery O’Connor’s aforementioned book takes its title — Everything That Rises Must Converge — from a phrase coined by an egghead and fellow 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. I think. More simply, it’s Jacob’s view: There is a single end; everything before then is progress. 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. I’m not trying to get all religious on you, but it is what it is: apokatastasis is the idea that in the end, Satan will be defeated and that all of creation will be redeemed and unified under Christ. “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” (John 12:31-32) Or, again, to use a line from the show: “He who will save us all.” That, my friends, is the answer, translated from Richard Alpert’s Latin, to Ilana’s riddle: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?’… Jacob was “quibbling” during his flashbacks; he was building loopholes and failsafe devices into each castaway’s life that will allow them to cheat death by Jughead. By physically touching each of them, he marked them in a magical way. And now, he’s going to draw them to himself, i.e., the Island, just like the electromagnetic anomaly at the Swan site started drawing anything metal into is powerful singularity. Perhaps they will all be immediately beamed to the Island in reincarnated bodies.” OR, (which I think is an even cooler idea) It’s the Harry Potter/Horcrux idea. Also see: Spock downloading his mind into McCoy in the second Star Trek movie. Jacob was imbuing each of the castaways with the essence of himself or parts of his soul. Now that he’s been gutted and his life is imperiled, he’s going to summon the castaways to the present to collect his missing pieces to heal himself.” I gotta say though, I’m pretty upset about this whole thing if John Locke is totes dead (which he most likely is). I was totally down with new relaxed and groovy John Locke. He seemed to have found his purpose, had a goal and wasn’t just an unfortunate well….red shirt. Dark says, “1977 Richard has a few questions for Jack. He explains that he’s visited a young John Locke three times already, and in none of those instances did he see anything that would indicate Locke to be ’special’. As we’ll see later on, maybe John Locke wasn’t special after all. He was a puppet in life, and a puppet in death: nothing more than a vessel used by the smoke monster on his quest to find a loophole.”

Now, lets jump back to 1977 where some truly effed up “Incidents” are about to occur. After some badassery on the Galaga, Kate, Sawyer and Juliet head back to the island to try to stop Jack from blowing them all to smithereens. Arriving on the beach, they’re greeted by a familiar bark. VINCENT! He’s alive!!! Not only is he alive, but HE LIVES WITH ROSE AND BERNARD!!! Apparently, Rose and Bernard have been chillin’ out max and relaxin’ all cool in their little beach hideaway for 3 years. When Sawyer asks why they didn’t bother joining them in the Dharma Initiative, Bernard replies, “Were retired.” Hilarious. Something makes me that they wouldn’t make convincing Dharma members anyway, considering there’s seemingly no one over 40 allowed in. They tell Rose and Bernard what’s going on and yet, the two don’t really care. Their attitude is one of, “hey we’ve lived a great life, despite being on an island for a few years, in a plane crash and all. But here we’re relaxed and groovy and just want to be together. Hey want some tea?” You can see in Juliet’s reaction how badly she just wants to hang, how she kind of regrets getting off the sub and that she totally does want some tea. But they head off towards Dharmaville anyway. Dark liked this whole exchange too, saying, “If the island were a great big bunch of kids all playing tag, it’s like these two kids just quit in the middle of the game and went off to do something else. They don’t care about bombs, guns, or flying through time – all they want is to chill out and enjoy each other. This might be their own personal redemption; to stop running around looking for the next best thing and finally just smell the roses.”

Under the Temple, Jack and Sayid (who apparently is an expert in nuclear device handling) disassemble and reassemble in some way the nuclear warhead inside Jughead. Sayid claims that the smaller bomb will detonate on impact. Richard is concerned about her pregnancy (lil Dan!) and being exposed to the radiation of the bomb. Uhm….I’m a little confused here. Don’t they understand that a little radiation isn’t going to matter when they set an atomic bomb off on an island that really isn’t that big?? Doesn’t Jack understand that setting this bomb off may help flight 815 in the future to land fine, but that THEY WILL EXPLODE and DIE right now? No traveling through time. It’s their future selves that will land fine. I’m kind of a supporter of “Whatever Happened Happened” and Miles seems to be on board with me later, posing the question that maybe what Jack is doing is going to cause the Incident that they are trying to avoid.

Jack and Sayid try to make it through the Dharma barracks unnoticed, but unfortunately Ben Linus catches a glimpse of the guy who shot his son and fires a shot right into Sayid’s gut. A gunfight follows, but Hurley and Jin come to the rescue with a Dharma van. Their route to the Swan is intercepted, however, when they run into Juliet, Sawyer and Kate. Sawyer asks Jack for a bit of alone time. Lostpedia summarizes, “Sawyer expresses his opinion that “what’s done is done” and that they shouldn’t try to change the past. Jack claims it his destiny to change the past and that John Locke has always been right about the island. Jack and Sawyer get into a fistfight. Juliet, who now agrees with Jack, breaks up the fight. When Sawyer asks what changed her mind, she tells him it was the way he looked at Kate. She tells him that although they love each other, they are not meant to be together, and that if they never meet then she will never have to lose him.” Ooh barf barf barf. Come on Juliet, you’re smarter than that. All of this whiney love quadrangle business is annoying.

“With everyone now on the same page, Jack enters the construction site of the Swan station at the same time security officer Phil arrives with a team of armed men. On the orders of Radzinsky, Dr. Pierre Chang continues drilling into the energy source beneath the construction site. A massive gunfight ensues, wherein the survivors gain the upper hand, allowing Jack to drop the bomb into the pit at the same time the drill hits the energy source. The bomb, however, does not detonate, and suddenly all metal items are being pulled into the pit. A tool box knocks Jack unconscious, a rebar stabs Phil in the chest (CHEER!!) a beam traps Dr. Chang’s arm (AHAA!) and a metal chain wraps around Juliet’s midsection and drags her into the pit. Miles manages to lift the beam and release Dr. Chang’s injured hand. Sawyer and Kate grab Juliet’s hand before she falls into the pit, but their efforts to save her are futile. She slips out of Sawyer’s grip and falls to the bottom of the pit. Severely injured, Juliet sees the bomb lying next to her, cushioned by the mud. She picks up a rock and hits the hydrogen bomb’s thermonuclear core eight times until it seemingly detonates with a flash of white light.” Blondie, which Sawyer has been calling her all episode, was killed by Jughead. Har…Har…

Then: LOST, surrounded by white.

Holy crap guys. What the hell just happened? Dark has some theories. He asks, “Did whatever happened happen again? Or did things change? There’s no definitive answer here. Until we see what happens in the opening scene of next season, you could easily make arguments for both sides. Jack and company definitely accomplished Dan’s goal: to detonate the bomb as close to the magnetic pocket as possible. But was that a big enough boulder to make changes in the great river of time? Now of course 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 fancy yellow suits. Maybe this is why Desmond needs to inject himself with serum every time he wakes up to Mama Cass. All decent arguments. However (and I’m definitely not an expert), I’m thinking the detonation of an atomic warhead would cause the following big problems:

1) Everyone would be thoroughly and completely dead.

2) The whole area would be a molten mess.

3) Radiation at the site would be deadly for a really long time.

The most likely possibility is that our main characters wake up on the island in 2007. Maybe the release of magnetic energy flashes them back to current time a split second before they’re evaporated. If so, who goes? Just the people from 815? Wouldn’t Juliet go too? Rose, Bernard, Vincent? Big questions. Finally, let’s consider this scenario: the bomb never went off. The flash we saw was just like all the other flashes, spinning everyone through time. Maybe the drill broke into the pocket just before Juliet could detonate the nuke (in which case maybe she’s still alive). This would be a pretty big lie to carry on for eight or nine months, but I could totally see them doing it. ” Well the screen did go white, just like during all of the time jumps. This may also refer back to The Black Swan Theory “coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb refers to an event in history that might by it’s sheer unlikeliest change the course of history, and may come as a surprise even though in hindsight, it all appears to be plausible and foreseeable. The unlikely events during The Incident, the name of the site being the Swan and the surprising (in an empirical sense) change of the title card from black to white echo these assumptions.”

I suppose we’ll have to wait until January 2010 to figure it out, kids. For now, lets enjoy summer, and just when Christmas is over and winter is about to kill us. Join me back here for some OMGWTFLOST!

~ by iamtheisland on May 15, 2009.