Lost [FINALE SPOILERS PAGE 25 ONWARDS]

[Paelos]

Nor would he have used Kate and Sawyer to get into the Others camp, and then told them to remain behind while he goes wildly shooting into the middle of gun-toting outlaws. If you're going that route, you want obvious gun-toting backup in there with you as well.

[Ozzu]

Holy mother of moses, that was good TV! 

My jaw hit the floor when Locke said his intention was to kill Jacob. I had always assumed up to this point that all the messages, the "purpose", and all that other island stuff was just Jacob communicating with him. I guess not? Unless Jacob wants to die? I think Ben's reaction basically summed mine up perfectly:



Oh and Locke just keeps reaffirming himself as my favorite character. The entire scene where he's telling Richard what to do when he sees a man with a bullet wound to his leg show up at the plane? Just...awesome.

[Quinton]

Holy mother of moses, that was good TV! 

My jaw hit the floor when Locke said his intention was to kill Jacob. I had always assumed up to this point that all the messages, the "purpose", and all that other island stuff was just Jacob communicating with him. I guess not? Unless Jacob wants to die? I think Ben's reaction basically summed mine up perfectly

I think for the first time we have now seen Ben really, seriously, completely at a loss for words.

Helluva episode.  Was hoping for a bit more Richard Alpert backstory, but still great stuff.  Locke sending Richard to meet him... Dr Chang interrogating Hurley ("Who's the president?" "Okay dude, we're from the future.")... all kinds of fun.

I'm still kinda hoping that Whatever Happened Happened and Jack and Co are being setup to ensure that everything remains in motion as before.  I don't think there's been a single instance of the past being successfully derailed and in a way will be disappointed if it turns out it can be.

Of course, if WHH, I'm not sure how it all fits back together.

Next week ought to be fun.  I'm sure it'll end with some insane twist that will setup some entirely new arc for season six and the endgame -- hopefully it'll be on par with the previous season finales.

[Merusk]

Goddamn that was awesome.   

They said 'starting at 8' for next week, but I just checked the listings to see if it was a 2 hour episode.  The 8:00 show is another clip sum-up for those who have missed episodes, the finale is at 9:00 as usual. 

[Ozzu]

Goddamn that was awesome.   

They said 'starting at 8' for next week, but I just checked the listings to see if it was a 2 hour episode.  The 8:00 show is another clip sum-up for those who have missed episodes, the finale is at 9:00 as usual. 

Yes. So, in total, there's going to be 3 hours of Lost. That's a good night of TV right there. 

[Arthur_Parker]

They can't change anything in the past, I thought Dan getting killed by mummy (shortly after saying they could) was a fairly major clue that he was wrong.

Edit - But I was wrong about something similar in TSCC so *shrug*

[Samwise]

I'm going to go with the "nothing changes" theory.  Exploding the bomb seems much more likely to cause The Incident than to prevent it.

[tazelbain]

The entire scene where he's telling Richard what to do when he sees a man with a bullet wound to his leg show up at the plane? Just...awesome.

That scene was poorly staged.  Otherwise a good show.  This whole nuke thing seems half bake.  It's hard to image how they are going to pull this off in a reasonable manor.  I look forward to be proven wrong.

It's a total conceit where the writers set up coincidences and inside knowledge so that one character can be a badass as he pwns everyone else.  But the way Lost has built up, it works well here.  It's like Locke is a surrogate for the viewer and *we* are finally getting some payback after these characters jerked us around for so long.

[HaemishM]

Splendid episode. I look forward to Jack trying to set us up the bomb while EVERYBODY fucks with him.

Who wants to bet that the tremendous electromagnetic energy contained in the Hatch was a hydrogen bomb being exploded and captured in a temporal field (time warp) at the exact moment of explosion so that the bomb doesn't go off? Thus ensuring that if Jack succeeds in setting off the bomb, it dooms them to crash on the island in 30 years?

[Paelos]

Good episode, and one that makes me hate Kate even more if that's possible. I wish Juliet would just punch her in the face already. Hurley admitting he doesn't know anything about the 70s was really funny, as was Locke's smirking ass the entire show while Ben is grasping at any sort of foothold on the situation.

As for the incident, I bet they fuck over Jack and try to get rid of the bomb by detonating it right as the island skips through time via the wheel. The explosion occurs in empty space left by the bomb, and everyone else gets shot off into a different time period. Here's the kicker: we know most of the Dharma folk live through the incident, only to be gassed later on by an older Ben. I think they island actually takes the Dharma folks into the future, and that's how they are going to try to unite all the Losties across time periods.

[Soln]

I bet Jacob is either the remains of the Set statue or the poltergeist-like thing we saw in Horace's cabin way back when.  Conjecture: Jacob is an evil spirit haunting the island (smoke?), and the "island" needs Locke to remove it.  And then all will be well. 

[ashrik]

I'm throwing my lot in with the Whatever Happened, Happened crowd in that the past cannot be changed. I think the show is obviously setting up for that to be the case, with perhaps the small exception of Desmond.

Locke, for me, is currently bordering the fine line between unbelievable awesomeness and immeasurable smugness. He does that wide smile with the closed eyes and all I can think of is a Cheshire Cat

[tazelbain]

Jacob is what lies in the shadow of the statue.

[Evil Elvis]

Hurley's girlfriend gave Desmond the boat so he would end up on the island, and then watched over Hurley in the mental institution to keep an eye on him to ensure he made it to the island.  Eloise guided her son's life to make sure he did what he was needed to do.  It's not coincidence that they wound up on the island, and it's not simple fate.

Since stopping The Incident would work against all the effort put into bringing them to the island, it won't happen.  They were brought there for some purpose, but this ain't it.

[Paelos]

I bet Jacob is either the remains of the Set statue or the poltergeist-like thing we saw in Horace's cabin way back when.  Conjecture: Jacob is an evil spirit haunting the island (smoke?), and the "island" needs Locke to remove it.  And then all will be well. 

I'm not sure what Jacob is, but if the writers have any sense of names (and given many of their choices, I believe they do) Jacob means "Supplanter". If they run with that meaning, Jacob is not supposed to be in charge of the island. Instead, he stole it and the other force on the island is seeking to regain control. The flip-side it could be JJ Abrams (middle J is Jacob) tossing it out there in the ultimate version of egotistic puppetmaster.

Personally, I think Jacob and Richard could both be gods, or the two different facets of the same god.

[Merusk]

Oh well goddamnit.

[Paelos]

Wow, what a gigantic fuck you that entire episode was. Outside of actually seeing Jacob which was pretty funny as he came off as the gigantic Darth Sidious puppetmaster.

EDIT: Also I totally knew what was in the box well before it came out.

[ashrik]

oh

my

god

Equal parts  and 

Fuck that ending. Forever.

[Paelos]

The funny part is the premiere will explain nothing, and they'll dick us over for another 8 episodes.

[Evil Elvis]

I figured out what was in the trunk a few minutes after they opened it the first time.

Aside from the cliffhanger, the biggest surprise was them finally revealing the bad guy.  5 seasons before they get back to things they hinted at in the first episode is a long time.

[Merusk]

Yeah the box was predictable, but the ending.. goddamnit.

[raydeen]

Y'know, this show is just about the silliest thing on network TV but I think I finally nailed why I like it: It's Myst in soap opera form. And I hated Myst so go figure why I love this show this much (well, there's less pointing and clicking at any rate). Tonight's episode fucked my brain hard and I need a cerebral cigarette now. Or at least a towel to clean my frontal lobe off.

[Paelos]

From beginning to end, there is some reason why Jacob's enemy can't kill him, even though he says he wants to. This has an endgame in time that they are both fighting for, and Jacob was in control of that timeline. This speaks highly to the usurper title assumed by Jacob's name.

[Ozzu]

I'm confused as to whether Locke is actually any part Locke anymore or if that was all Jacob's counterpart.

And why would Jacob go through all the trouble of manipulating everyone at various points in their life (including bringing Locke back to life after he fell from a window) to get them to that time period? He obviously knows what's coming, but that means he wanted to die? Or maybe he just flat didn't see Ben in the equation?

Oh me. What an episode. My brain seriously fucking hurts though.

[Paelos]

Jacob's obviously an even larger and crazier version of Ben.

[Abagadro]

Jacob is not a manipulator. He is the embodiment of free will.  They all made choices that put them on that island.  The loophole was that someone else had to choose to kill him of his own free will. The other dude will turn out to be the embodiment of determinism and the manipulator (how he set up Ben with the whole "you must obey Locke who just happens to be me").

The whole show is organized around fate/destiny vs. choice/free will.

[Paelos]

That sort of breaks down when he rezzes Locke for no reason, pulls Kate's feet out of the fire when she's stealing, and essentially lets Sayid's wife get creamed by a car. Granted with Hurley and Ben it was about choice, but if wanted to save himself he wouldn't have given him the "What about you?" line. Even with Hurley, he would have walked away from the Island and hid if it wasn't for Jacob showing up. He's taking choices away from people in most instances I saw. He's forcing the future. From the early part I'm gathering that he's playing blocker to the other guy. I think it's these two Titans locked in a battle for the future of humanity, and there may not be a "good" guy in any of this.

[ashrik]

I'm not so sure that was Jacob. As far as we know, Jacob has been trapped on the island and in the cabin up until Locke first broke the circle of ash.

On the other side, we have a shape-changing manipulator (currently) wearing the skin of Locke.

[Paelos]

They are both manipulators. There's not going to be a white knight here.

[Abagadro]

I disagree on the no choices issue but it's a matter of interpretation.

They both seemed pretty scared at who was "coming" so I don't think they are the ultimate powers.  Whoever has been "using" the cabin, i.e. whoever is in Jack's Dad's body, and whoever the "who lies in the shadow" people represent have both yet to be revealed.

[ashrik]

I assumed he meant that the people stuck 30 years in the past were coming. By all accounts, they very much are.

[Paelos]

There could be a higher layer of bad guys, I agree. I just think Sawyer's lines about destiny are the authors filling us in. We don't speak destiny here, people do things because they want something, and that's what the two superpowers here are fighting for.

[Abagadro]

But then he let Jack do his thing anyways. It's a continuation of the rationality v. faith tension that has been at the heart of the series since the second episode or so that was more explicit in the first three seasons with Jack (rational) v. Locke (faith).

[Paelos]

I'm not disagreeing with you about the theme. I think that's been the undertone of the series from the getgo as you've said.

What I am saying is that they are bad. Both of them. They are slaves to either side of thinking and that's gone too far.

[Abagadro]

Could be. The title of that O'Connor book Jacob was reading (in my favorite scene of the whole episode) is based upon a work of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin who was a Jesuit priest who tried to combine both faith and rationality and was a major proponent of directed evolution.