We open with a man at a loom. He then catches a fish and looks out over the sea. Based on his clothing, and the fact that there’s a galleon sailing in the distance, this is a very long time ago. Another man joins him, and it’s important to note now that the first man is dressed in white, and the other is dressed in black. Remember that conflict between light and dark? So it turns out, that’s huge. The man in white turns out to be Jacob. That’s right, the Jacob. The other man is not named but is only credited as “Man #2”. He is, however, played by Titus Welliver, better known as Silas Adams from Deadwood. The Lost producers, as I’ve suggested before, are obsessed with casting Deadwood actors. I think he’s probably the 7th or 8th one to appear on Lost. Until he has a name, I’ll call him “Silas”, since it sounds sinister. (Jacob, by the way, is played by Mark Pellegrino. He’s Rita’s ex-husband on Dexter, if he looks familiar.)
Their conversation indicates that Jacob has led the distant galleon to the Island. Silas doesn’t want anybody on the Island, because it leads to bloodshed and ruin. He then says to Jacob “Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you right now?” Only he can’t, unless he finds a “loophole”. This also sounds a little like Benry and Widmore fighting their battle while governed by rules. At the end of this scene, we finally see the statue, and with its jackal face, it appears to be a statue of Anubis, as previously suggested.
In our first flashback, young Kate tries to steal a New Kids on the Block lunchbox. She’s caught, but then Jacob shows up to pay for the lunchbox and get her out of trouble. Here, Kate learns that her negative behavior has no consequences whatsoever.
In 1977, Kate explains Jack’s plan to Sawyer and Juliet, who are appropriately horrified. Sawyer, however, doesn’t really want to take action. Meanwhile, Sayid helps Jack remove the bomb’s core so they can take it to the Swan. This is the first of many times I will yell at Jack tonight. Finally, at the Swan, Radzinsky refuses to listen to Dr. Marvin Candle and starts drilling. I bet he’s muttering “Can’t believe that guy saw my model” under his breath.
Thirty years later, Locke and Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert discuss Jacob. There’s always a leader on the Island, and the leader always answers to Jacob. Richard is also astonished that Locke came back from the dead. He’s never seen that happen in all his years on the Island. He also mentions that he doesn’t age “because of Jacob”. Locke ominously says that they’ll have to “deal with” the 316 passengers. That doesn’t sound like Locke at all. (sob!)
Speaking of those passengers, they finally make it to the main Island, with an unconscious Frank in tow. Ilana suggests to Bram that even though Frank didn’t know what lies in the shadow of the statue, he may be “a candidate”. When Frank comes around, Ilana assures him that they’re his friends. To show good faith, they let him see what’s inside the box, and Frank is alarmed.
Another flashback. Young Sawyer is at the funeral, and afterwards, he sits down to write a letter to the man he blames for his parents’ deaths. Jacob stops by to give him a pen. Is it a stretch to think that if he hadn’t been able to start the letter at that moment, he might have let go to some extent, rather than letting vengeance dominate his life?
Back on the sub, Juliet kicks some butt and knocks out the sedative guy. They force the pilot to bring them back so they can put a stop to Jack. In the tunnels, Richard has questions about Locke. He says he’s only left the Island three times, and two of those were to see Locke. (What was the other time? Also, since then he also left the Island to recruit Juliet, and he was off-Island when Flight 815 crashed.) He says Locke didn’t seem all that special, but Jack says not to give up on him. These are the words that will get me through the break.
Thirty years later, Locke reveals that Benry will be the one to kill Jacob. Hey, last time Locke was tested in his willingness to kill somebody (his father), he got Sawyer to do it. Well, Benry is good at killing people.
Another flashback. Sayid and Nadia are so happy together, until Jacob distracts them as they’re crossing the street. Nadia is hit by a car and dies, and suddenly it doesn’t look like Widmore was responsible for that at all. What kind of game is Jacob running here?
Richard knocks out a wall in the tunnels to reveal a set of stairs right up to a Dharma house. Ellie demands that she be the first up the stairs, since she won’t hesitate to start shooting. But Richard knocks her out and says he’s protecting his leader. Wait, White Oracle was the leader of the Others? Maybe Widmore succeeded her. And maybe he’s the reason she left the Island. Jack and Sayid head upstairs and that alarm is still blaring while Dharma folk are walking around with guns. They put on uniforms and try to sneak away, but Roger spots the guy who shot his son. He puts a bullet in Sayid, which is upsetting, but it’s sort of a relief that the bomb used Sayid as a human shield. Jack goes into a shooting frenzy, until Hurley, Miles, and Jin arrive in a Dharma van to get them to safety.
In a scene that I assume was done for my benefit, when Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate make it to shore, they’re greeted by Vincent. Yay! And Rose and Bernard, who are doing just fine, thank you very much. In fact, they’re not happy to see their former camp-mates. “It’s always something with you people”. Hee. They’re leaving it all behind to enjoy their time with one another, and when Bernard says it’s OK if they die as long as they’re together, Sawyer makes the mistake of looking at the wrong woman. Not cool, man.
In the present, the 316 passengers assure Frank that they’re “the good guys”, but he’s not convinced. They find Jacob’s cabin, and Ilana enters. This cuts to a flashback where she’s in some ramshackle hospital, bandaged and badly injured. Jacob comes to visit, and it’s clear that they know each other. He asks her for help, and we cut back to the present. Jacob’s cabin is uninhabited. She finds a note stuck to the wall, and there’s a creepy dog painting on the ground. The note is actually a picture of the statue. She tells her friends that somebody else has been using the cabin, and demands that they torch it. It’s a roaring blaze in no time. (So where’s Claire? She was living there last time we saw her.)
Another flashback. Jacob is casually waiting around as Locke falls eight stories. He tells him not to give up before he runs off. So Jacob spent years stalking the Lostaways. Guy needs a hobby.
In the present, Locke and his crew stop at the old Lostaway camp. Benry admits that he lied to Locke about talking to Jacob and that he’s never once had contact with him. Locke then explains that Benry should want to kill Jacob, since he pretty well got hosed. He followed the orders of a guy who won’t speak to him, and still got cancer and watched his daughter die. When he puts it that way, Benry likes the plan a lot better. Not far away, Sun finds Aaron’s old cradle (built by Locke), and Charlie’s old “DS” ring.
This takes us to another flashback, where Jacob wishes Sun and Jin well at their wedding. In fact, he stresses the importance of not taking love for granted and sticking together. Well, Sun took those lessons to heart when she didn’t bail on a loveless marriage…
In the van, Sayid’s bleeding out but rigs the bomb to detonate on impact. Everything’s going well (except that everything is going wrong), until Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet block their path.
There are a lot of short scenes back-to-back. Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert brings Locke and the Others to the remains of the statue. That’s where Jacob lives now.
Next, Sawyer demands five minutes with Jack. This leads to Jack’s flashback, the surgery that he told Kate about in the very first episode. He knicks the sac, and Christian tells him to count to five and gather his wits. Afterwards, the vending machine doesn’t give him an Apollo bar (we’ve seen those before, notable in the Hatch), and then he yells at Christian for embarrassing him.
Afterwards, Jacob passes through to give Jack his candy bar. This may be a little abstract, but I think that helped defuse the situation. It let Jack focus on somebody doing something nice and cool down. He still learned the lesson, but whenever he’s mentioned these events since then, he leaves out Christian’s role. It went from being humiliation to a learning experience.
In 1977, Sawyer tells Jack about how his parents died. He also says that it happened a year ago, but he didn’t try to stop it. “What’s done is done”. Finally, Jack admits that he’s doing this for Kate. Seriously? Yeah, he blew it with her, and he wants to start over. Sawyer points out that if they reboot history, they’ll never meet. Jack says “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be”. First off, he’s forgetting that she’ll be in jail. Second, if it’s meant to be, you don’t need to blow up time to make sure that it happens. Somebody needs to smack him. Sawyer, would you like to do the honors?
Yep, Sawyer decks Jack. This turns into a fight, and it’s no contest. Sawyer takes Jack down and seems like he’s close to beating him to death, until Juliet intervenes and says that Jack’s right. This takes us to a flashback where Juliet’s parents tell her they’re getting divorced. No Jacob here, but she learns the lesson that people who love one another aren’t always meant to be together.
That’s the lesson she brings to the present. She saw the way Sawyer looked at Kate, and she knows it’s not meant to be. “If I never meet you, I never lose you.” This is tearing out my poor dead heart right here. And it’s going to get worse. But isn’t it maybe a bad idea to fix your relationship problems with a hydrogen bomb?
At the Swan, Dr. Marvin Candle’s worried about the readings, but Radzinksy refuses to listen. Dude, he knows way more than you. Listen to him! Phil calls in an alert and lets Radzinsky know that Jack and the rest are coming with a bomb.
In a scene that makes Kate a lot more sympathetic, Jack asks her about Aaron. Kate reveals that she came to the Island to get Claire and reunite her with her son. Jack says that they’ll be together if the bomb goes off. And even if she still ends up giving him up for adoption, at least it’s her choice. Man, Jack is weirding me out here. He’s a big believer in destiny now, but only the kind of destiny that he gets to determine.
Another flashback! Hurley’s released from prison when it turns out he didn’t kill those people. He really doesn’t want to go, since Widmore’s people are still following him, but they kick him to the curb. He shares a cab with Jacob, who addresses the issue pretty directly. He tells Hurley that he needs to go back to the Island, and when he gets out of the cab, he leaves his guitar case behind. But he tells Hurley “It’s not my guitar.” (As Kelli texted at this point “It’s Charlie’s guitar!”, and that seems likely. Why else would Hurley bring a guitar to the Island. And how would he get Charlie’s guitar unless a magic guy gave it to him?)
In 1977, Sayid hands the bomb over to Jack, and it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have much left. “Nothing can save me”, he says. Jack assures him that they’ll see each other in Los Angeles.
In the present, Locke announces that he’ll be bringing Benry with him to see Jacob. Richard “Batmanuel” Alpert protests that only the leader can see Jacob, and there can only be one leader. Locke is suspicious of these rules, and decides that he and Benry will take it up with Jacob. They enter the statue, and Locke assures Benry that “Things will change once he’s gone”.
All right, this is awesome. In 1977, Miles wonders whether the bomb is actually what causes the Incident that forces the Hatch to be built. I’ve been saying that forever, Miles! I’m glad somebody on this show is paying attention. As Jack approaches the Swan site, Phil arrives and sets up a perimeter. He catches sight of Jack, and the shooting begins. Jack is badly outnumbered until the Dharma van drives into the fray, and suddenly gun-wielding Lostaways are everywhere. (No sign of Sayid, though.) Sawyer knocks out Radzinsky, who had it coming. Then he puts a gun to Phil’s head to end the fight.
As this is going on, Dr. Marvin Candle can’t stop the drill. Jack drops the bomb down the shaft, only to have nothing happen at all after a tense few moments. Then, the electromagnetism goes crazy, and metal is flying everywhere. Dr. Marvin Candle’s left arm is crushed, which explains the prosthetic arm in the orientation videos. (And wasn’t it great to see Miles call him “Dad”?) Phil gets skewered by some rebar, which is really pretty satisfying. A flying toolbox knocks Jack out, and Juliet gets pulled down the shaft by a length of chain. Sawyer grabs her, but the metal is just piling up and he’s losing his grip. Kate tries to help, but something tells me she’s not trying all that hard. Finally, Juliet lets go rather than risk pulling Sawyer down with her. Nooo! If it weren’t for the next two scenes, this would be the most traumatic thing in the episode.
Here goes. Let’s get through this together. The 316 survivors arrive at the statue. Ilana asks for “Ricardos”, a name Richard responds to. She asks him what lies in the shadow of the statue, and he answers in Latin. Translated, he answers “He who will save us all”. And so, she opens the mystery box and a body falls out. Locke’s body. The Island didn’t resurrect Locke at all – he’s still dead. I am not taking this very well. I tried to ignore everybody who suggested that was the case, and I may well continue to deny it. How can they do this to me? Again?
Fake Locke and Benry confront Jacob inside the statue. Jacob notes that Fake Locke found his loophole. Fake Locke assures him that “You have no idea what I’ve gone through to be here.” Benry is confused by this, but he confronts Jacob anyway. He says that Jacob has decided to stop ignoring him now, and asks “What was it that was so wrong with me?” Jacob doesn’t have an answer, and Benry stabs him. Jacob chokes out an ominous “They’re coming”, and Fake Locke kicks him into the fire. Fake Locke has to be Silas, Jacob’s eternal enemy. And since Smokey demanded that Benry follow Locke, it’s safe to assume that Smokey is either Silas or his minion. The battle really was between Jacob and Smokey, and the fact that it looks like I was right does not mitigate my sadness that not only is Locke still dead, but I’ve been rooting for an evil guy taking his shape for weeks now.
In the final scene, Juliet is barely alive at the bottom of the shaft. She grabs a handy rock and pounds on the bomb until there’s a white flash. Wow.
OK, I’ll get into this more in a couple of days when I’ve had some time. However, a few things still give me hope. First, lots of things on Lost cause white flashes and weird noises. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a hydrogen bomb actually detonated. Next, we now know that what lies in the shadow of the statue is “He who will save us all”. And since the 316 cult arrived and dumped out the mystery box, Locke’s body now lies in the shadow of the statue. Maybe, just maybe we’ve still got a chance. And Jacob interfering with the lives of the various Lostaways certainly seems like he’s working the long game. He put everybody there for a reason, and a guy with a knife isn’t going to derail that kind of long-term planning.
Plus, Vincent, Rose, and Bernard are just fine. That makes me happy. Not “I can brush off Locke being dead” kind of happy, but it helps.
So what’s the deal with Christian? Where’s Claire? Who spoke to Locke in Jacob’s cabin before? Who’s coming? Did Juliet blow up time? Is Sayid OK? Is there any way that Locke can come back from this one? Let me know what you think, and we’ll talk soon.
That? Was an awesome season. I’ll be freaking out more when I have some rest under my belt. Also, if there’s a way to cryogenically freeze me until the new season begins, that would be for the best. It’s not like I have anything planned until then.
