Lost [FINALE SPOILERS PAGE 25 ONWARDS]

[Draegan]

Someone explain to me how Ben stabbed Jacob and killed him but Sayid stabbed FakeLocke and nothing happened.

[KallDrexx]

Someone explain to me how Ben stabbed Jacob and killed him but Sayid stabbed FakeLocke and nothing happened.

I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact that Flocke (or unlocke or whatever) is a condensed smoke monster and I haven't seen any evidence that Jacob was a smoke monster too.

[Samwise]

Someone explain to me how Ben stabbed Jacob and killed him but Sayid stabbed FakeLocke and nothing happened.

Again, my theory on this is that they can only be hurt by their own "recruits".  The only way for Flocke to kill Jacob was to trick one of his own people into doing the deed.  When Sayid stabbed Flocke he wasn't working for him yet.  I can't believe the writers would rob Sayid of his redemption, though, which means I think he's going to end up turning on Flocke in the end, like Vader and the Emperor.

[HaemishM]

For some reason, I didn't think about Dogan and hippy dude floating in the pool of resurrection. Only, if the pool is corrupted, it means they'll come out corrupted as well.

[Samwise]

For some reason that scene struck me as Sayid deliberately "defiling" the pool, either to corrupt or neutralize it.

[Draegan]

Awesome episode tonight.

[Merusk]

I totally expected it all to go another way. 

[Paelos]

That was some amazing acting. Ben continues to jerk at both the mind and the heart in ridiculously conflicting ways.

[Samwise]

Even if we're headed toward a stupid series finale a la BSG, which I doubt, this season was worth it just to see Ben have a little moment of redemption.

[Quinton]

They are so goddamn lucky they had him for a guest star back in season two and decided to keep him.

EDIT: s/start/star/

[Draegan]

They are so goddamn lucky they had him for a guest start back in season two and decided to keep him.

Yeah.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, Ben proves he can act like a motherfucker without saying a word... AGAIN. He is an actor that just keeps on giving.

So we now definitely know that the candidates are there to replace Jacob - but are they also there to replace the Smoke Monster? We don't exactly have confirmation of that, and I'm guessing Anti-Locke is not going to tell his candidates that they are meant to replace him. Also, the Sideways Locke dropping a little hint of corruption into the Sideways Ben Linus pool makes me continue to think I'm right about Sideways Locke - he IS the Smoke Monster escaped though he doesn't know it.

They are really going to have to fuck the series finale in the ass to tarnish this season.

[EWSpider]

When Anti-Locke helped Ben escape he mentioned that he needed someone to look after things when he left, so I'm definitely thinking someone has to replace Anti-Locke.  After seeing the submarine at the end of last night's episode I'm thinking Whidmore might be the front runner now that Ben has made his choice.

[Samwise]

That or maybe MIB (I'm going to go with "Man in Black" because that's what the annotated Lost episodes call him) is trying to influence who will take Jacob's place, because he wants the new Jacob to be someone he can get favors out of?  If it was just a matter of finding his own replacement, I don't see why he needed to kill Jacob.

[EWSpider]

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Step 1:  Kill Jacob

Step 2:  Find replacement

Step 3:  Leave island and profit

We know they're playing by a set of rules.  We don't how or what is enforcing those rules, but we know they exist.  Perhaps in order for MIB to escape the island he had/has to complete steps 1 and 2.  Because dem da rules.

[Abagadro]

EDIT: Never mind, couldn't get link to work.

[Draegan]

Here's another point I don't know about.

Ben went to the Smoke Monster to be "judged".  He wasn't aware of Jacobs vs. Man in Black?

However Other's knew who the smoke monster was and how to protect themselves from him.  Why did Ben go to the Smoke monster in the first place?  I don't get it. 

[Samwise]

Maybe while Jacob was alive the MIB was bound by a stricter set of rules?  Or maybe they could both turn into smoke monsters?

[Mrbloodworth]

Its a balance thing.

[tazelbain]

Here's another point I don't know about.

Ben went to the Smoke Monster to be "judged".  He wasn't aware of Jacobs vs. Man in Black?

However Other's knew who the smoke monster was and how to protect themselves from him.  Why did Ben go to the Smoke monster in the first place?  I don't get it.  

Ya, Ben's judgment scene doesn't make much sense in the current story.  I thought he went to the Temple to be judged by the Island. In past they referred to the smoke monster as a security system, so I guess Ben thought it was an emissary of the Island.

[EWSpider]

Ben's "judgment" was entirely a ploy by MIB.  He (as Locke) told Ben to go down into the temple and be judged.  The smoke monster appears (which is MIB) and takes the form of Alex in order to convince Ben to stop dickering around and just follow Locke (who is now MIB at that point).  It was all part of MIB's plan to start working on Ben and get him ready to blindly kill Jacob.

[Draegan]

Hmm I thought it was Ben's idea to do that.

[EWSpider]

Hmm I thought it was Ben's idea to do that.

I couldn't remember either, but I found a clip that answers the question:

http://www.cinemablend.com/celebrity/Ben-Gets-Judged-This-Week-On-Lost-16737.html

It was Ben's idea, but I think MIB seized upon the opportunity to manipulate Ben.  You can almost see the gears turning in Locke's head when Ben says he was coming back to the Island to be judged.

[KallDrexx]

I thought Ben didn't know that Lock wasn't really alive again until after killing Jacob.

*edit*  i.e. He thought the island reincarnated Locke and didn't know Locke's real body was in the box.

[Evil Elvis]

Why didn't Ben know it wasn't Jacob in the cabin?  The big ring of ash should have been a tip off  

It seems like someone trapped him in there.  Then, the first time Locke was taken there, MiB asks him to help him, presumable to break the ring so he could get out... which we see someone has done when Illana/Bram visited, but we still don't know by who.

And if MiB was trapped in the cabin by the ring of ash - and MiB is Smokie and the apparitions people have seen - how were they able to roam about?

[Signe]

Get it together, you guys.  I totally rely on you to make me feel as if I know what the fuck is going on.

[Soln]

Did anyone notice Ben's Dad's comment about how they should have never left the Island?  never left the Dharma Initiative?

I found that interesting because so far this season I had the impression that the sunken island indicated in the flash-sidewise-world was real.  It suggested that nothing on the Island had ever happened.  But with this one remark it seems clear that one timeline did happen, but ended before Flight 815.  Maybe up until when Ben was shot by Sayid?

[Samwise]

Yes, I was wondering about that.  I figure that in the sideways timeline the island sunk sometime after the Dharma days, or maybe at the time the bomb went off.

[Soln]

yup but the bomb was in the "past"

Anyways, I forgot why this was interesting.... The flash-sidewise narrative I thought was originally being presented as an "as if" the events on the Island never took place.  Instead, it looks some of the narrative did happen.  But also, the choices and events that happen to the main characters in the flash-sidewise seem to reflect or anticipate what's happening on the Island in the present. 

So for instance, Ben choosing Alex in the flash-sideways over power, Sayid killing in cold blood in flash-sideways and then going dark with Flocke.  The events in the flash-sideways are revealing the true essence of the characters?  It seems more than a dramatic device is what I'm getting at, like flash-sideways is alternate but equal world?

[Teleku]

In the first episode of the season, when they show the island underwater, the camera swims by the darmha houses.  So what ever happened, the divergent timeline started after the Darmha initiative.  My guess is the same as Samwise, that it diverged at the point the nuke went off.  In that timeline, Ben and his dad are one of the people evacuated off the island, along with Miles and his mom.

[ahoythematey]

Anybody else get a kick out of seeing Jackie Treehorn's thug playing Jacob?

[Paelos]

Miles comment to Ben about Jacob's last thoughts really bothers me. Miles says Jacob was hoping he was wrong about Ben, but Jacob went out of his way to antagonize him right before Ben puts a knife into his chest: "What about you?" There's not much more of dick move. ANYTHING else could have probably turned Ben away from his course of action, but Jacob chose not to say one of those other things.

He was pushing for Ben to kill him as much as BlackLocke was. For a very very manipulative being, I don't think Jacob just tossed the words out there to test him.

[Ozzu]

Anybody else get a kick out of seeing Jackie Treehorn's thug playing Jacob?

Or Rita's ex from 'Dexter'.

[Hawkbit]

There's all kinds of weird things about the side timeline.  Such as the fact that the whole reason that Locke decided to go on walkabout was because Abbadon told him about them when he was Locke's PT/nurse during recovery from the fall from the high-rise.  It always made me wonder how he came up with the idea to walkabout if Abbadon hadn't have told him.... or if Abbadon was simply just a PT/nurse for his whole life in the side timeline. 

Anyways, yeah.  This is going to be a seriously interesting finale.

[Furiously]

I think the finale is going to be a disappointment.

My guess is we're getting a glimpse of the finale every side-flash. Or maybe it will end with Hurley hosting a golf tournament, which would also be awesome.