if you choose not to decide - you still have made a choice
Surrounded by ancient-looking clay pottery and a huge fire pit, a guy in homemade clothes and sandals is working a loom – creating the strands of fate? It’s an Egyptian looking tapestry with the Eye of Horus in the center, and what looks like the wings from the Grateful Dead's AOXOMOXOA album cover on top – Watchmen reference? Or just pretty framework? There’s Greek (I think) lettering across the top, but the last word looks like something in the Roman alphabet – menoinaz.
Who’s Meno and what’s he doing in Arizona?
The dude catches a fish outside for breakfast and cooks it, then leans back, watching a ship (let’s assume The Black Rock?) on the horizon. A scruffier looking guy in more homemade clothes walks up.
“I take it you’re here ‘cause of the ship?’
Scruffy tells the weaver guy that he knows he has guided the ship here, to ‘prove him wrong.’
“You are wrong.”
“Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
“It only ends once. Anything that happpens before that is just progress.”
“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?”
He does.
“One of these days, sooner or later, I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.”
“When you do I’ll be right here.”
“Always nice talking to you, Jacob.”
Nice pan out to find that they were talking in the shadow of the statue. It’s got a crocodile head, and is holding ankhs in each hand. Sobek?
(Scroll down a few comments here to FairVerona’s second post. I didn't really look any deeper into this - but check out her take, it's really cool.)
Flashback - A cornfield and some crows... looks like a shot from The Stand miniseries – or children of the corn. He who will protect us all between the rows. Lil’ Kate and her buddy that eventually gets killed because of her are in the Ames Central General Store parking lot, and he’s playing with ‘the plane’. Part of an Iowa license plate we can see is 023. They go into the store and the boy stands lookout while Kate’s shoplifting a NKOTB lunchbox, the same one she gets the toy plane from years later. Patsy Cline’s Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray) is playing in the background, of course. They’re busted as she tries to leave with it. Always getting caught, that Kate. Great casting on the kid too. The manager is gonna call her mom and the cops, but then Jacob shows up and pays for it. Kate thanks him.
“You’re welcome. You’re not gonna steal anymore, are you?”
He boops her on the nose.
“Be good, Katie.”
The sub is on its way in 1977. Kate tells the other two prisoners what’s going on back on the island. She wants to get back and stop Jack. Sawyer’s having none of it.
“You just don’t get it Kate. We were happy in Dharmaville until you all showed up...Jack wants to blow up the island, good for Jack.”
Back under the island of the Others, Sayid uses Faraday’s notes to figure out how to dismantle an atomic bomb and gets to work. The plutonium core will be easier to carry around than that big-ass Jughead. Richard is wary of the radiation around a pregnant Ellie! Daniel! Who’s the dad? I’m still thinking Widmore, gross as it may be. They’re the upper crusty Other parallels to the Carlyle’s, Boone and Shannon – who also slept together.
At the swan, Radzinsky is acting psycho insane as usual. He’s flipping out because Pierre stopped the drilling as they got close to the pocket. Chang argues that they have no idea what will happen when they tap into the energy.
“If Edison was only worried about the consequences, we’d all be sitting in the dark. I came to this island to change the world Pierre, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
Well, mission accomplished, I’d say.
Thirty years later, Locke is leading the flock of Others to Jacob. Richard is still perplexed at the resurrection of John Locke.
“You’ve been on this island much longer than I have, Richard. If anyone should have an explanation I’d think it would be you.”
“I have been here a long time John, and I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but, I have never seen someone come back to life.”
“And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“I’m this way because of Jacob.”
So did Richard take over for the scruffy guy at the beginning looking to kill Jacob? Or was he already there even at that time? I’m assuming he came on the Black Rock, just because he was making the model. If he did, and he’s been ageless since, maybe it’s because Jacob needed someone to take scruff’s place and cast Alpert in the part.
The Ajira castaways are landing their boat on the main island, laden with a huge crate and an unconscious Frank Lapidus. Bram wants to know why they brought him, when he didn’t even know the answer to the question. Ilana tells him that doesn’t mean he isn’t a candidate. Lapidus is awake and hears all this, and asks what it is he’s a candidate for - and doesn’t get an answer. My guess, replacing Alpert. Or Jacob. More on that later. They start to move out and Frank asks what’s in the crate. Bram tells Ilana it’s her call, so she shows him the contents.
“Terrific.”
Flashback, and now we’re at Sawyers parents funeral. I’m getting my bad robot shows confused, ‘cause I see one of the pallbearers is bald and I think I spotted the Observer! D’oh. Wrong show. James is writing “the letter” and his pen is running out of ink, when our Observer that seems to do more than just observe shows up. Jacob’s got a fresh one for him, and their fingers touch briefly as he hands it over.
“I’m very sorry about your mother and father, James.”
Jacob leaves. James’ Uncle (or something – definitely sounds like Sawyer) catches him writing the letter – he says he understands how he feels, but that he has to move on.
“They’re gone. And there ain’t nothing you can do to change that. What’s done is done.”
James promises he won’t finish the letter. The first in a long line of cons, maybe.
Back on the sub in ‘77 – Kate and Sawyer are still arguing about stopping or not stopping Jacks plan when Juliet suddenly takes out the guy with the keys and frees them. The name of the sub is the Galaga. Interesting… the game came out in ’81. They hold the the sub captain at gunpoint, and order him to surface and let them go, then continue away from the island. He wants to know what to say if Horace calls – Sawyer pulls a Han Solo and blasts the radio.
“You ain’t home”
On the island, Sayid’s dismantled the bomb, and it’s now officially a suitcase nuke. Well, backpack nuke. Alpert asks Jack about Locke – he tells him John came 20 years ago and told him he’d be their leader, Since then Alpert’s been off the island a few times to observe him and hasn’t seen anything special. Does Jack know him?
“Yeah, I do, and if I were you, I wouldn’t give up on him.”
The march toward Jacob continues in 2007 – Locke wants to know why Ben didn’t tell Alpert he was going to kill Jacob. Ben explains how he’s been doing things differently since, “…my dead daughter threatened to destroy me if I didn’t do everything you said”
This surprises Locke – and he quickly uses it to his advantage.
“You’re willing to do whatever I say, no matter what it is?”
I don’t even know how to explain the emotion Ben shows when he replies ‘yes’ under his breath. Is great acting an emotion? Locke’s happy that he now won’t have to convince him.
“Convince me of what?”
“I’m not going to kill Jacob, Ben…” (right here Locke goes out of focus briefly – how could that be an accident? But what could it even mean? Either someone behind the scenes messed up pretty bad, or the writers are playing with the fourth wall Like King does in the Dark Tower?)
“You are.”
Flashback (well, forward for Sayid time-wise, just not life-wise) - Sayid and Nadia are walking down La Brea in Los Angeles – it’s their anniversary. They get to a crosswalk and Jacob stops Sayid to ask for directions just as they’re about to cross, Nadia keeps walking and gets creamed, Meet Joe Black-style. Jacob puts his hand on Sayid’s shoulder before he runs to her side. Nadia’s dying wish is to be taken home.
In the tunnels back in 1977, the bomb is packed up and ready to go. Alpert leads the group through the catacombs, and then sledgehammers thru a wall into Horace’s Dharmaville basement. Ellie makes to go first, but Alpert knocks her out. He tells Jack he’s protecting his leader; “…she ordered me to help you, we helped you, now you’re on your own.”
Jack and Sayid go up into the village and try to hide in plain sight as the Dharma security alert is happening. It works for a few seconds, until Uncle Rico sees Sayid.
“You’re the guy that shot my kid!!”
He shoots Sayid in the gut, and Jack starts blasting away at everyone - he gets a few too. Hurley, Jin and Miles pull up in a van and rescue them in the nick of time.
Out on the ocean, Juliet wistfully watches the submarine submerge – her last chance at a real life with James slowly sinking away. The three of them land on the beach and are greeted by Vincent. Sawyer is thrilled. “HEY! How you doing boy? Haven’t seen you since the flaming arrows three years ago.”
Ha ha ha, quote of the episode so far. Rose and Bernard emerge from the nearby jungle. Sawyer wants to know why they didn’t come and join them in Dharma.
“We’re retired,” says Rose.
Bernard explains a little more, “People try their whole lives to get themselves a nice quiet place near the ocean where they can live in peace, and we did. It’s what we made for ourselves.”
Kate explains about Jack and the bomb, but they just don’t care. They’re done with the island drama.
“So we die, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters in the end.”
Juliet watches Sawyer looking longingly at Kate during this, and knows for sure it’s over for them. They set out for the barracks, and as she’s leaving, Bernard asks Juliet if she’s sure she doesn’t want any tea? “Maybe another time.” – as she holds her stomach and walks away – is she acting out the figurative punch to the gut she just received from Sawyer - or is she pregnant? Anyway, what a great conclusion to the Rose and Bernard storyline. Who didn’t want them to end up happy? And this is almost 30 years before 815 crashes – plenty of time to live out the rest of their lives and end up as a pair of skeletons near a natural water source, no?
Forward to 2007, and the Ajira hike. Lapidus wants to know what they’re gonna do with what’s in the box. They’re gonna show it to someone to let them know what they’re up against, something a whole lot scarier than what’s in the box. Bram tells him, “as long as you’re with us, you’re fine.”
“That’d be a lot more reassuring if I knew who you were, friend.”
“We’re the good guys.”
“In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
Ilana stops the group – they’ve arrived at Jacob’s cabin. They see that the ash circle has been broken and look pretty worried. Ilana goes to check out the cabin and we...
Flashback – to Ilana, in a dismal hospital with her face covered in bandages – the people are speaking some Russian sounding language. She has a visitor, its Jacob, but he’s wearing gloves. He’s sorry he didn’t make it sooner, and she’s happy to see him. She knows him for sure. He needs her help.
“Will you help me, Ilana?”
“Yes”
He doesn’t touch her.
Back to the cabin in 2007. Left to the elements, it’s been pretty much torn up, but the painting of the dog is still there. A piece of cloth stuck to the wall (with the knife Jacob was using to clean his fish at the start of the show, back in the 1800’s or so) also remains. She takes a look at it and goes outside. She tells them ‘he’s’ not there, and hasn’t been in a long time, but that someone else has been using it. They burn the cabin to the ground while Lapidus worries about the whole jungle going up in flames.
Flashback - A gloveless Jacob is sitting on a bench reading Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. The cover is a drawing of a dove being pierced by an arrow. Locke falls from the building behind him. He looks pretty damn dead until Jacob puts his hand on John’s shoulder... Locke gasps and opens his eyes.
“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Ok there’s some kind of bait and switch happening here for sure – did Locke actually die way back then? Been a vessel since? Even on the plane and hammering on the Hatch? Couldn’t be… I don’t think so. Just a life meant to end extended.
The Other marchers have arrived at the losties old beachside camp. Home sweet home. Locke sits down to talk to Ben – in front of the door to the hatch where they first met. In a rare moment of honesty, Ben reveals that he is a Pisces. Locke wants to know what happened when Ben took him to Jacobs cabin.
“I was pretending, John”
But he was surprised when everything started flying around. Locke still wants to know why he would go thru the trouble to make something like that up.
“I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know that I had never seen Jacob. So yes, I lied, that’s what I do.”
Locke gets up to walk away, but a frustrated Ben stops him
“Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?” (smith jingleheimer?)
“Because despite your loyal service to this island, you got cancer, you had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. You reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you’ve never even met. So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob?”
Just as manipulative as Ben at his best. Nice.
Sun finds Aaron’s old crib... that Locke built – and Charlie’s driveshaft ring is still in it. Ugh... sad. Really sad.
Flashback – Sun and Jin’s vows during their wedding ceremony. Later, in the receiving line, Jacob is there ungloved, and he touches both of them
“I’d like to offer you my blessing. Your love is a very special thing. Never take it for granted.”
Neither of them know who that white man was, but apparently his Korean is excellent.
Back in the van in 1977 – someone should be singing “you’re gonna be okaaay, you’re gonna be okaaay!” to Sayid. He ain’t looking good. They’re five minutes out from the swan when they’re stopped by Sawyer, Kate and Juliet. Sawyer wants five minutes alone with Jack. If Jack knew the Pantera song, he might’ve stayed with the van.
Flashback – Jack operating... we see where he got the whole count to five strategy he used with Kate way back in the first episode. It’s a technique from his dad – who was really trying to help, but of course Jack takes it the wrong way and thinks he was showing him up, that he doesn’t believe in him.
“Are you sure I’m the one who doesn’t believe in you, Jack?’
Jack was trying to get an Apollo bar (next to the Lindos and the Humdingers) out of the vending machine, but it sticks. A few minutes later a gloveless Jacob has gotten Jack’s Apollo bar out of the machine along with one of his own – he touches Jacks hand when he hands it to him. Jack tells him, “The machine got stuck.”
“I guess it just needed a little push.”
Ok… so the touching is done by the hands of fate, trying to guide destinies, while free will wears gloves so as not to give a hand?
’77 again. Sawyer tells Jack about his parents, and that it happened a year ago, in 1976. He could have gotten on the sub anytime and stopped his Dad. He didn’t because what’s done is done. The less said about the Jack/Sawyer melee the better – unfortunately it’s revealed that Jack is doing it all to try and get Kate back in some cosmic way. Ugh. It was better when it was just crazed faith, like Locke. They beat the shit out of each other, and, moving on, Juliet breaks it up and tells Sawyer that it all has to happen, Jack has to do it.
Flashback to lil’ Juliet and Rachael – their parents are splitting up. Mysteries of the Ancient Americas coffee table book under a conch shell on the coffee table. Nice touch. Speaking of touches – no Jacob. Juliet isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, or at least Jacob/anti-Jacob doesn’t think so. It’s all just a setup for Juliet’s current mindset, realizing that even if Sawyer loves her and she loves him, it’s nothing compared to what Kate and he have, so it seems obvious to her that they’re just not supposed to be together.
On the island in ’77, Sawyer is confused. “One minute you’re leading the great sub escape and now you’re onboard with blowing up the damn island?”
It’s because she saw who he looked at during Rose and Bernard’s tender moment. He tells her he doesn’t care WHO he looked at, he’s with her.
“And you would stay with me forever, if I let you, and that is why I will always love you.”
She gives him the whole speech we just saw her getting from her parents about loving each other but not being meant to be together. Fate or free will?
“If Jack can make it so that none of you even come here, then he should...if I never meet you, then I never have to lose you.”
Family. It fucks you up.
Things are going nuts at the swan, and Phil is calling Radzinsky to let him know that Sayid and the other new recruits are on the loose with a bomb. Jack is watching all this from a distance and Kate shows up. She worries over his busted up face and asks if he remembers when she sewed him up, when they first got there.
“Yeah, it seems like a million years ago.”
“Or 30 years from now.” Heh heh
He wants to know why she told him never to ask about Aaron. Seems it was mainly because she was so mad at him for making her come back to the island. Jack is convinced in a John Locke-ian way that he’s doing the right thing.
“Nothing in my life has ever felt so right, and I just need you to believe that.”
The incident starts at the site down below.
“Are you with me on this?”
“Yes.”
“Then lets go.”
Flashback – Hurley’s getting released from prison. Getting his stuff back – one wallet, $227 cash, a ballpoint pen, and one fruit roll up (and one used prophylactic – seriously, they couldn’t get Frank Oz for this one little scene?) He goes to get in a cab out front, and gloveless Jacob is already in it, with a guitar case. He tells Hugo they can split the fare. Hurley asks what he was in for, and he tells him he wasn’t in prison, he was waiting for him.
“Oh, then you must be dead.”
“I’m definitely not dead.”
He wants to know why Hurley refuses go back to the island. Hurley tells him he’s cursed... he caused the crash, his friends died, and now they talk to him.
“What if you’re blessed…you get to talk to the people you’ve lost. Seems like a pretty wonderful thing to me.”
“Sure, it’s wonderful, except for the part where I’m crazy.”
“I’ve got some news for you Hugo, you’re just gonna have to take my word on this. You are not crazy. Ajira airways flight 316 out of LAX, it leaves in 24 hours. All you have to do is be on that plane.”
Here’s the touching... and, “It’s your choice, Hugo. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
He gets out and Hurley stops him - “You forgot your guitar.”
“It’s not my guitar.”
Back in 1977 at the van, Hurley is assuring Sayid that everything will be ok once Jack changes the future, or the past... one of those. A dying Sayid has somehow rigged the bomb to explode on impact, and Jack tells him its going to work and it will save him.
“Nothing can save me.”
Jack runs off alone with the nuke. Ok – quibble... if they’re all just going to die and reset anyway, then why not ALL go help him to make sure it happens... I mean like right away, I know they do eventually, but still... dramatic license and all that. Boo on that decision. Anyway - Jack passes Sawyer and Juliet on the way to the swan and looks at James... “See you in Los Angeles.”
Another life, brother.
2007. The marching Others arrived at the foot of the statue a while earlier, and it’s nighttime now. Sun asks Ben what happened to the rest of the statue.
“I don’t know, it was like that when I got here.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Not really.”
Alpert and Locke are heading into the foot. Locke calls Ben over to join them. Richard doesn’t want Ben coming along.
“Only the leader can request an audience and there only one leader at a time and...”
Locke interrupts... “I think you’re making up the rules as you go along, Richard. Ben is coming in with me and if that’s a problem, I’m sure Jacob and I can work it out.”
Richard moves his second wall of the episode and tells Locke to say hello for him. Locke and Ben enter the foot... “Will you be able to do this, Ben? I know it won’t be easy, but THINGS WILL CHANGE ONCE HE’S GONE, I promise.”
My emphasis.
Back in time at the van – Miles brings up something pretty obvious that hasn’t been brought up yet... maybe the nuke IS the incident? So what should be done is nothing? Everyone looks dumbfounded.
“Ok, I’m glad you all thought this through.” They see Phil and his crew driving toward the swan, and know that if he sees Jack he’ll kill him. Sawyer looks to Juliet.
“Whadda you think, Blondie?”
“Live together, die alone?”
Jack ain’t too sneaky and gets seen pretty much right away. He’s a crack shot with that gun though... it’s almost as if the bullets are being guided by the hand of fate or something… He seems trapped, but then our buddies show up in the VW bus, tearing shit up like the Libyans in back to the future. Sawyer clocks Radzinsky on the back of the head, takes Phil hostage with Chang’s help, and the rest of the Dharma group drop their weapons. Chang can’t shut the drill down because it has already hit the pocket. Jack goes over to the hole with the bomb and Sawyer looks to Juliet instead of Kate. She is just tickled pink by this, forthcoming atomic explosion be damned. Jack gets that ‘Locke and the hatch’ look in his eyes, and he drops the plutonium core down the shaft. They all close their eyes and steel themselves, and.... nothing.
Sawyer opens his eyes. “This don’t look like LAX”
Then the magnetism shit starts happening.... big time. Chang’s hand gets trapped (it doesn’t seem like his whole arm though... has stuff changed?) and Miles runs to help free him. Jack gets knocked the fuck out by a flying tool chest. I’m guessing a lot of people liked that part. Phil is horribly impaled by some rebar. Juliet gets some chains wrapped around her and is pulled toward the opening of the shaft. Kate and Sawyer are helping as much as they can. It’s not enough though.
“I love you, James. I love you so much.”
And she goes down. Sawyer’s as broken as he’s even been on the show.
Thirty years later, The Ajira’s arrive at the foot of the statue with the crate and Lapidus in tow. Ilana puts down her gun and asks for Ricardo.
“It’s Richard, actually.”
“What lies in the shadow of the statue?”
“Ille qui nos omnes servabit”
[He who will protect us all]
“Richard. I’m Ilana. And I have something you need to see.”
They open the crate and dump out the contents... Locke’s lifeless body. They found him in the coffin in the cargo hold.
“I don’t understand. If this is Locke, who’s in there?”
Ok so the REAL Jacob is the one behind this – he’s the one wearing the gloves – trying to show Richard the John Locke he knows is a fake before it’s too late. But it is too late, isn’t it?
In there, Locke and Ben see the tapestry from earlier in the show, now completed. Jacob is sitting in the corner, in a chair.
“You like it? I did it myself. Takes a very long time when you’re making the thread, but I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Hello Jacob.”
“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to be here.”
Ben is surprised. Seems to happening a lot lately. “Have you met before?”
“In a manner of speaking,”
UnLocke tells Ben to do what he was asked. Jacob speaks up first.
“Benjamin. Whatever he’s told you I want you to understand one thing; you have a choice...you can do what he asks, or you can go and leave us to discuss our issues.”
“Oh, so now, after all this time, you’ve decided to stop ignoring me. Thirty-five years I’ve lived on this island and all I’ve ever heard was your name, over and over, Richard would bring me your instructions, all those slips of paper, all the lists. And I never questioned any of it, I did as I was told. When I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told you have to wait, you have to be patient. But when he asked to see you, he gets marched straight up here as if he was Moses. So why him? What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?”
“What about you?”
stabby stab stab
Ben gets him right in the chest, a couple times. Pretty brutal. He hits the ground and whispers something through the blood bubbling from his lips. UnLocke leans in closer to hear him.
“They’re coming.”
UnLocke kicks Jacob into the fire pit and he’s engulfed in flame. Dead is dead.
Back to the incident in 1977. Jack comes to in time to help Kate get Sawyer away from the hole before everything metal in the area goes flying down it. Juliet is lying broken and bleeding at the bottom of the shaft, but alive. Barely. We can hear that electromagnetic humming… she sees the bomb next to her, grabs a rock and starts hammering on it. Only way to save her life and unbreak her heart, right?
“Come on!!! Come on!! Come on, you son of a bitch!”
Boom.
So after all this talk of science vs faith, it looks like what we really have is fate vs free will. In the flesh (sort of). Jacob vs. the anti-Jacob. This Dr. Fate has been ‘giving the machine a little push’ this whole time – throughout all of our characters lives. I like the idea that that can also explain the odd coincidences and crossovers in all the flashbacks. That shit really was Fate – messing with them. Guided by the hands of fate, quite literally. Why? The incident was his loophole, somehow? He had to make sure all the pieces were in place. Can fate and free will exist together? It’s like The Great and Secret Show meeting Weaveworld by way of Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series (less the puns). It’s hurting my head, that’s for sure. I’m thinking that ‘he who will protect us all’ has to keep fate in check on the island, but he somehow escaped and was able to manipulate people to create this outcome. The whole Ben stabbing Jacob in the heart bit. But why then would Jacob have ‘guided’ the Black Rock to the island, to prove to fate that there is free will? Seems odd – not very logical.
Poor Locke is the pawniest of all the pawns – he was supposed to die that day, after being thrown out the window, but Fate had other plans and kept him alive. That means for all the theories about the island being purgatory – had actually been correct in a manner of speaking, at least as far as John Locke was concerned. He was a dead man walking for years.
Was it Fate interfering with Michael off the island, making sure he couldn’t die? Is it fate that split up Eloise and Widmore? It’s twisty as to which side either would be on… arguments can be made either way, but I’d guess that arrogant bastard Widmore doesn’t want to be told nothing he does makes a difference, putting him on Jacob’s side – and the mystical Hawking could be on Fate’s – but why then did Widmore send the freighter – wait – because Ben was never supposed to be a part of this – and the somehow significant time-loophole 815er’s made him who he turned out to be. All part of Fate’s plan. Which I guess does tie back to the Jack/science vs Locke/faith thing.
But there are variables – the power of love. If Jennifer hadn’t been in love with Marty, she wouldn’t have written the phone number on the back of the clock tower pamphlet, Marty would have no way to know when lightning would strike, and he would have eventually just vanished in 1955. It might just save your life. For some reason Fate couldn’t see that Juliet was important (thus not visiting/touching her in the past – at least as far as we’ve seen) and would end up falling in love with Sawyer. If she wasn’t in love with him, she wouldn’t want to erase the pain of knowing that he will always love another so badly that she would want to erase ever knowing him, and find the strength to hammer the bomb, which I think is going to send the 1977 group to 2007. (Wow, sorry for that sentence. It sucked.)
“They’re coming.”
If Jacob is dead is dead… did the Ajira’s (I think we can call them Disciples of Jacob now) know he was going to die and are talking about Lapidus as a candidate for his replacement? Speaking of replacements and variables – was Desmond Widmore’s attempt at introducing a variable into the equation, which was somehow negated when Daniel managed to talk to him? Interesting that if he were on the side of free will that he would steer Des’ life in the same way fate was working the 815er’s. Or will Des still have a part to play next season? And did Widmore leading Des to the island allow all this to happen in the first place – it had nothing to do with Fate/free will for him, he just wanted back on the island so badly that he sent Des there, who ended up crashing the plane and may have started this whole mess.
Desmond - more parallels – let’s say Jacob has to keep weaving to hold fate on the island so that mankind has free will. To gain access to him, you have to know the riddle of the statue. He who will protect us all. Lapidus doesn’t know the answer, but he could still be a candidate. Des’ didn’t know what one snowman said to the other snowman, but he still became the man stuck on the island doing a repetitive task to save the world, didn’t he? Protecting us all. Until he crashed the plane and started all this loopy shit happening. Nice job there Des. If Jack somehow knows the Latin answer to the statue riddle let’s give him the job. I think he’s going to be the one who ends up crafting the next tapestry. Just like stitching a dural sac back up. It’s his destiny.
Who’s Meno and what’s he doing in Arizona?
The dude catches a fish outside for breakfast and cooks it, then leans back, watching a ship (let’s assume The Black Rock?) on the horizon. A scruffier looking guy in more homemade clothes walks up.
“I take it you’re here ‘cause of the ship?’
Scruffy tells the weaver guy that he knows he has guided the ship here, to ‘prove him wrong.’
“You are wrong.”
“Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.”
“It only ends once. Anything that happpens before that is just progress.”
“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?”
He does.
“One of these days, sooner or later, I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.”
“When you do I’ll be right here.”
“Always nice talking to you, Jacob.”
Nice pan out to find that they were talking in the shadow of the statue. It’s got a crocodile head, and is holding ankhs in each hand. Sobek?
(Scroll down a few comments here to FairVerona’s second post. I didn't really look any deeper into this - but check out her take, it's really cool.)
Flashback - A cornfield and some crows... looks like a shot from The Stand miniseries – or children of the corn. He who will protect us all between the rows. Lil’ Kate and her buddy that eventually gets killed because of her are in the Ames Central General Store parking lot, and he’s playing with ‘the plane’. Part of an Iowa license plate we can see is 023. They go into the store and the boy stands lookout while Kate’s shoplifting a NKOTB lunchbox, the same one she gets the toy plane from years later. Patsy Cline’s Three Cigarettes (in an Ashtray) is playing in the background, of course. They’re busted as she tries to leave with it. Always getting caught, that Kate. Great casting on the kid too. The manager is gonna call her mom and the cops, but then Jacob shows up and pays for it. Kate thanks him.
“You’re welcome. You’re not gonna steal anymore, are you?”
He boops her on the nose.
“Be good, Katie.”
The sub is on its way in 1977. Kate tells the other two prisoners what’s going on back on the island. She wants to get back and stop Jack. Sawyer’s having none of it.
“You just don’t get it Kate. We were happy in Dharmaville until you all showed up...Jack wants to blow up the island, good for Jack.”
Back under the island of the Others, Sayid uses Faraday’s notes to figure out how to dismantle an atomic bomb and gets to work. The plutonium core will be easier to carry around than that big-ass Jughead. Richard is wary of the radiation around a pregnant Ellie! Daniel! Who’s the dad? I’m still thinking Widmore, gross as it may be. They’re the upper crusty Other parallels to the Carlyle’s, Boone and Shannon – who also slept together.
At the swan, Radzinsky is acting psycho insane as usual. He’s flipping out because Pierre stopped the drilling as they got close to the pocket. Chang argues that they have no idea what will happen when they tap into the energy.
“If Edison was only worried about the consequences, we’d all be sitting in the dark. I came to this island to change the world Pierre, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
Well, mission accomplished, I’d say.
Thirty years later, Locke is leading the flock of Others to Jacob. Richard is still perplexed at the resurrection of John Locke.
“You’ve been on this island much longer than I have, Richard. If anyone should have an explanation I’d think it would be you.”
“I have been here a long time John, and I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but, I have never seen someone come back to life.”
“And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“I’m this way because of Jacob.”
So did Richard take over for the scruffy guy at the beginning looking to kill Jacob? Or was he already there even at that time? I’m assuming he came on the Black Rock, just because he was making the model. If he did, and he’s been ageless since, maybe it’s because Jacob needed someone to take scruff’s place and cast Alpert in the part.
The Ajira castaways are landing their boat on the main island, laden with a huge crate and an unconscious Frank Lapidus. Bram wants to know why they brought him, when he didn’t even know the answer to the question. Ilana tells him that doesn’t mean he isn’t a candidate. Lapidus is awake and hears all this, and asks what it is he’s a candidate for - and doesn’t get an answer. My guess, replacing Alpert. Or Jacob. More on that later. They start to move out and Frank asks what’s in the crate. Bram tells Ilana it’s her call, so she shows him the contents.
“Terrific.”
Flashback, and now we’re at Sawyers parents funeral. I’m getting my bad robot shows confused, ‘cause I see one of the pallbearers is bald and I think I spotted the Observer! D’oh. Wrong show. James is writing “the letter” and his pen is running out of ink, when our Observer that seems to do more than just observe shows up. Jacob’s got a fresh one for him, and their fingers touch briefly as he hands it over.
“I’m very sorry about your mother and father, James.”
Jacob leaves. James’ Uncle (or something – definitely sounds like Sawyer) catches him writing the letter – he says he understands how he feels, but that he has to move on.
“They’re gone. And there ain’t nothing you can do to change that. What’s done is done.”
James promises he won’t finish the letter. The first in a long line of cons, maybe.
Back on the sub in ‘77 – Kate and Sawyer are still arguing about stopping or not stopping Jacks plan when Juliet suddenly takes out the guy with the keys and frees them. The name of the sub is the Galaga. Interesting… the game came out in ’81. They hold the the sub captain at gunpoint, and order him to surface and let them go, then continue away from the island. He wants to know what to say if Horace calls – Sawyer pulls a Han Solo and blasts the radio.
“You ain’t home”
On the island, Sayid’s dismantled the bomb, and it’s now officially a suitcase nuke. Well, backpack nuke. Alpert asks Jack about Locke – he tells him John came 20 years ago and told him he’d be their leader, Since then Alpert’s been off the island a few times to observe him and hasn’t seen anything special. Does Jack know him?
“Yeah, I do, and if I were you, I wouldn’t give up on him.”
The march toward Jacob continues in 2007 – Locke wants to know why Ben didn’t tell Alpert he was going to kill Jacob. Ben explains how he’s been doing things differently since, “…my dead daughter threatened to destroy me if I didn’t do everything you said”
This surprises Locke – and he quickly uses it to his advantage.
“You’re willing to do whatever I say, no matter what it is?”
I don’t even know how to explain the emotion Ben shows when he replies ‘yes’ under his breath. Is great acting an emotion? Locke’s happy that he now won’t have to convince him.
“Convince me of what?”
“I’m not going to kill Jacob, Ben…” (right here Locke goes out of focus briefly – how could that be an accident? But what could it even mean? Either someone behind the scenes messed up pretty bad, or the writers are playing with the fourth wall Like King does in the Dark Tower?)
“You are.”
Flashback (well, forward for Sayid time-wise, just not life-wise) - Sayid and Nadia are walking down La Brea in Los Angeles – it’s their anniversary. They get to a crosswalk and Jacob stops Sayid to ask for directions just as they’re about to cross, Nadia keeps walking and gets creamed, Meet Joe Black-style. Jacob puts his hand on Sayid’s shoulder before he runs to her side. Nadia’s dying wish is to be taken home.
In the tunnels back in 1977, the bomb is packed up and ready to go. Alpert leads the group through the catacombs, and then sledgehammers thru a wall into Horace’s Dharmaville basement. Ellie makes to go first, but Alpert knocks her out. He tells Jack he’s protecting his leader; “…she ordered me to help you, we helped you, now you’re on your own.”
Jack and Sayid go up into the village and try to hide in plain sight as the Dharma security alert is happening. It works for a few seconds, until Uncle Rico sees Sayid.
“You’re the guy that shot my kid!!”
He shoots Sayid in the gut, and Jack starts blasting away at everyone - he gets a few too. Hurley, Jin and Miles pull up in a van and rescue them in the nick of time.
Out on the ocean, Juliet wistfully watches the submarine submerge – her last chance at a real life with James slowly sinking away. The three of them land on the beach and are greeted by Vincent. Sawyer is thrilled. “HEY! How you doing boy? Haven’t seen you since the flaming arrows three years ago.”
Ha ha ha, quote of the episode so far. Rose and Bernard emerge from the nearby jungle. Sawyer wants to know why they didn’t come and join them in Dharma.
“We’re retired,” says Rose.
Bernard explains a little more, “People try their whole lives to get themselves a nice quiet place near the ocean where they can live in peace, and we did. It’s what we made for ourselves.”
Kate explains about Jack and the bomb, but they just don’t care. They’re done with the island drama.
“So we die, as long as we’re together, that’s all that matters in the end.”
Juliet watches Sawyer looking longingly at Kate during this, and knows for sure it’s over for them. They set out for the barracks, and as she’s leaving, Bernard asks Juliet if she’s sure she doesn’t want any tea? “Maybe another time.” – as she holds her stomach and walks away – is she acting out the figurative punch to the gut she just received from Sawyer - or is she pregnant? Anyway, what a great conclusion to the Rose and Bernard storyline. Who didn’t want them to end up happy? And this is almost 30 years before 815 crashes – plenty of time to live out the rest of their lives and end up as a pair of skeletons near a natural water source, no?
Forward to 2007, and the Ajira hike. Lapidus wants to know what they’re gonna do with what’s in the box. They’re gonna show it to someone to let them know what they’re up against, something a whole lot scarier than what’s in the box. Bram tells him, “as long as you’re with us, you’re fine.”
“That’d be a lot more reassuring if I knew who you were, friend.”
“We’re the good guys.”
“In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
Ilana stops the group – they’ve arrived at Jacob’s cabin. They see that the ash circle has been broken and look pretty worried. Ilana goes to check out the cabin and we...
Flashback – to Ilana, in a dismal hospital with her face covered in bandages – the people are speaking some Russian sounding language. She has a visitor, its Jacob, but he’s wearing gloves. He’s sorry he didn’t make it sooner, and she’s happy to see him. She knows him for sure. He needs her help.
“Will you help me, Ilana?”
“Yes”
He doesn’t touch her.
Back to the cabin in 2007. Left to the elements, it’s been pretty much torn up, but the painting of the dog is still there. A piece of cloth stuck to the wall (with the knife Jacob was using to clean his fish at the start of the show, back in the 1800’s or so) also remains. She takes a look at it and goes outside. She tells them ‘he’s’ not there, and hasn’t been in a long time, but that someone else has been using it. They burn the cabin to the ground while Lapidus worries about the whole jungle going up in flames.
Flashback - A gloveless Jacob is sitting on a bench reading Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. The cover is a drawing of a dove being pierced by an arrow. Locke falls from the building behind him. He looks pretty damn dead until Jacob puts his hand on John’s shoulder... Locke gasps and opens his eyes.
“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Ok there’s some kind of bait and switch happening here for sure – did Locke actually die way back then? Been a vessel since? Even on the plane and hammering on the Hatch? Couldn’t be… I don’t think so. Just a life meant to end extended.
The Other marchers have arrived at the losties old beachside camp. Home sweet home. Locke sits down to talk to Ben – in front of the door to the hatch where they first met. In a rare moment of honesty, Ben reveals that he is a Pisces. Locke wants to know what happened when Ben took him to Jacobs cabin.
“I was pretending, John”
But he was surprised when everything started flying around. Locke still wants to know why he would go thru the trouble to make something like that up.
“I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know that I had never seen Jacob. So yes, I lied, that’s what I do.”
Locke gets up to walk away, but a frustrated Ben stops him
“Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?” (smith jingleheimer?)
“Because despite your loyal service to this island, you got cancer, you had to watch your own daughter gunned down right in front of you. You reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you’ve never even met. So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn’t you want to kill Jacob?”
Just as manipulative as Ben at his best. Nice.
Sun finds Aaron’s old crib... that Locke built – and Charlie’s driveshaft ring is still in it. Ugh... sad. Really sad.
Flashback – Sun and Jin’s vows during their wedding ceremony. Later, in the receiving line, Jacob is there ungloved, and he touches both of them
“I’d like to offer you my blessing. Your love is a very special thing. Never take it for granted.”
Neither of them know who that white man was, but apparently his Korean is excellent.
Back in the van in 1977 – someone should be singing “you’re gonna be okaaay, you’re gonna be okaaay!” to Sayid. He ain’t looking good. They’re five minutes out from the swan when they’re stopped by Sawyer, Kate and Juliet. Sawyer wants five minutes alone with Jack. If Jack knew the Pantera song, he might’ve stayed with the van.
Flashback – Jack operating... we see where he got the whole count to five strategy he used with Kate way back in the first episode. It’s a technique from his dad – who was really trying to help, but of course Jack takes it the wrong way and thinks he was showing him up, that he doesn’t believe in him.
“Are you sure I’m the one who doesn’t believe in you, Jack?’
Jack was trying to get an Apollo bar (next to the Lindos and the Humdingers) out of the vending machine, but it sticks. A few minutes later a gloveless Jacob has gotten Jack’s Apollo bar out of the machine along with one of his own – he touches Jacks hand when he hands it to him. Jack tells him, “The machine got stuck.”
“I guess it just needed a little push.”
Ok… so the touching is done by the hands of fate, trying to guide destinies, while free will wears gloves so as not to give a hand?
’77 again. Sawyer tells Jack about his parents, and that it happened a year ago, in 1976. He could have gotten on the sub anytime and stopped his Dad. He didn’t because what’s done is done. The less said about the Jack/Sawyer melee the better – unfortunately it’s revealed that Jack is doing it all to try and get Kate back in some cosmic way. Ugh. It was better when it was just crazed faith, like Locke. They beat the shit out of each other, and, moving on, Juliet breaks it up and tells Sawyer that it all has to happen, Jack has to do it.
Flashback to lil’ Juliet and Rachael – their parents are splitting up. Mysteries of the Ancient Americas coffee table book under a conch shell on the coffee table. Nice touch. Speaking of touches – no Jacob. Juliet isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, or at least Jacob/anti-Jacob doesn’t think so. It’s all just a setup for Juliet’s current mindset, realizing that even if Sawyer loves her and she loves him, it’s nothing compared to what Kate and he have, so it seems obvious to her that they’re just not supposed to be together.
On the island in ’77, Sawyer is confused. “One minute you’re leading the great sub escape and now you’re onboard with blowing up the damn island?”
It’s because she saw who he looked at during Rose and Bernard’s tender moment. He tells her he doesn’t care WHO he looked at, he’s with her.
“And you would stay with me forever, if I let you, and that is why I will always love you.”
She gives him the whole speech we just saw her getting from her parents about loving each other but not being meant to be together. Fate or free will?
“If Jack can make it so that none of you even come here, then he should...if I never meet you, then I never have to lose you.”
Family. It fucks you up.
Things are going nuts at the swan, and Phil is calling Radzinsky to let him know that Sayid and the other new recruits are on the loose with a bomb. Jack is watching all this from a distance and Kate shows up. She worries over his busted up face and asks if he remembers when she sewed him up, when they first got there.
“Yeah, it seems like a million years ago.”
“Or 30 years from now.” Heh heh
He wants to know why she told him never to ask about Aaron. Seems it was mainly because she was so mad at him for making her come back to the island. Jack is convinced in a John Locke-ian way that he’s doing the right thing.
“Nothing in my life has ever felt so right, and I just need you to believe that.”
The incident starts at the site down below.
“Are you with me on this?”
“Yes.”
“Then lets go.”
Flashback – Hurley’s getting released from prison. Getting his stuff back – one wallet, $227 cash, a ballpoint pen, and one fruit roll up (and one used prophylactic – seriously, they couldn’t get Frank Oz for this one little scene?) He goes to get in a cab out front, and gloveless Jacob is already in it, with a guitar case. He tells Hugo they can split the fare. Hurley asks what he was in for, and he tells him he wasn’t in prison, he was waiting for him.
“Oh, then you must be dead.”
“I’m definitely not dead.”
He wants to know why Hurley refuses go back to the island. Hurley tells him he’s cursed... he caused the crash, his friends died, and now they talk to him.
“What if you’re blessed…you get to talk to the people you’ve lost. Seems like a pretty wonderful thing to me.”
“Sure, it’s wonderful, except for the part where I’m crazy.”
“I’ve got some news for you Hugo, you’re just gonna have to take my word on this. You are not crazy. Ajira airways flight 316 out of LAX, it leaves in 24 hours. All you have to do is be on that plane.”
Here’s the touching... and, “It’s your choice, Hugo. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
He gets out and Hurley stops him - “You forgot your guitar.”
“It’s not my guitar.”
Back in 1977 at the van, Hurley is assuring Sayid that everything will be ok once Jack changes the future, or the past... one of those. A dying Sayid has somehow rigged the bomb to explode on impact, and Jack tells him its going to work and it will save him.
“Nothing can save me.”
Jack runs off alone with the nuke. Ok – quibble... if they’re all just going to die and reset anyway, then why not ALL go help him to make sure it happens... I mean like right away, I know they do eventually, but still... dramatic license and all that. Boo on that decision. Anyway - Jack passes Sawyer and Juliet on the way to the swan and looks at James... “See you in Los Angeles.”
Another life, brother.
2007. The marching Others arrived at the foot of the statue a while earlier, and it’s nighttime now. Sun asks Ben what happened to the rest of the statue.
“I don’t know, it was like that when I got here.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Not really.”
Alpert and Locke are heading into the foot. Locke calls Ben over to join them. Richard doesn’t want Ben coming along.
“Only the leader can request an audience and there only one leader at a time and...”
Locke interrupts... “I think you’re making up the rules as you go along, Richard. Ben is coming in with me and if that’s a problem, I’m sure Jacob and I can work it out.”
Richard moves his second wall of the episode and tells Locke to say hello for him. Locke and Ben enter the foot... “Will you be able to do this, Ben? I know it won’t be easy, but THINGS WILL CHANGE ONCE HE’S GONE, I promise.”
My emphasis.
Back in time at the van – Miles brings up something pretty obvious that hasn’t been brought up yet... maybe the nuke IS the incident? So what should be done is nothing? Everyone looks dumbfounded.
“Ok, I’m glad you all thought this through.” They see Phil and his crew driving toward the swan, and know that if he sees Jack he’ll kill him. Sawyer looks to Juliet.
“Whadda you think, Blondie?”
“Live together, die alone?”
Jack ain’t too sneaky and gets seen pretty much right away. He’s a crack shot with that gun though... it’s almost as if the bullets are being guided by the hand of fate or something… He seems trapped, but then our buddies show up in the VW bus, tearing shit up like the Libyans in back to the future. Sawyer clocks Radzinsky on the back of the head, takes Phil hostage with Chang’s help, and the rest of the Dharma group drop their weapons. Chang can’t shut the drill down because it has already hit the pocket. Jack goes over to the hole with the bomb and Sawyer looks to Juliet instead of Kate. She is just tickled pink by this, forthcoming atomic explosion be damned. Jack gets that ‘Locke and the hatch’ look in his eyes, and he drops the plutonium core down the shaft. They all close their eyes and steel themselves, and.... nothing.
Sawyer opens his eyes. “This don’t look like LAX”
Then the magnetism shit starts happening.... big time. Chang’s hand gets trapped (it doesn’t seem like his whole arm though... has stuff changed?) and Miles runs to help free him. Jack gets knocked the fuck out by a flying tool chest. I’m guessing a lot of people liked that part. Phil is horribly impaled by some rebar. Juliet gets some chains wrapped around her and is pulled toward the opening of the shaft. Kate and Sawyer are helping as much as they can. It’s not enough though.
“I love you, James. I love you so much.”
And she goes down. Sawyer’s as broken as he’s even been on the show.
Thirty years later, The Ajira’s arrive at the foot of the statue with the crate and Lapidus in tow. Ilana puts down her gun and asks for Ricardo.
“It’s Richard, actually.”
“What lies in the shadow of the statue?”
“Ille qui nos omnes servabit”
[He who will protect us all]
“Richard. I’m Ilana. And I have something you need to see.”
They open the crate and dump out the contents... Locke’s lifeless body. They found him in the coffin in the cargo hold.
“I don’t understand. If this is Locke, who’s in there?”
Ok so the REAL Jacob is the one behind this – he’s the one wearing the gloves – trying to show Richard the John Locke he knows is a fake before it’s too late. But it is too late, isn’t it?
In there, Locke and Ben see the tapestry from earlier in the show, now completed. Jacob is sitting in the corner, in a chair.
“You like it? I did it myself. Takes a very long time when you’re making the thread, but I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Hello Jacob.”
“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to be here.”
Ben is surprised. Seems to happening a lot lately. “Have you met before?”
“In a manner of speaking,”
UnLocke tells Ben to do what he was asked. Jacob speaks up first.
“Benjamin. Whatever he’s told you I want you to understand one thing; you have a choice...you can do what he asks, or you can go and leave us to discuss our issues.”
“Oh, so now, after all this time, you’ve decided to stop ignoring me. Thirty-five years I’ve lived on this island and all I’ve ever heard was your name, over and over, Richard would bring me your instructions, all those slips of paper, all the lists. And I never questioned any of it, I did as I was told. When I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told you have to wait, you have to be patient. But when he asked to see you, he gets marched straight up here as if he was Moses. So why him? What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?”
“What about you?”
stabby stab stab
Ben gets him right in the chest, a couple times. Pretty brutal. He hits the ground and whispers something through the blood bubbling from his lips. UnLocke leans in closer to hear him.
“They’re coming.”
UnLocke kicks Jacob into the fire pit and he’s engulfed in flame. Dead is dead.
Back to the incident in 1977. Jack comes to in time to help Kate get Sawyer away from the hole before everything metal in the area goes flying down it. Juliet is lying broken and bleeding at the bottom of the shaft, but alive. Barely. We can hear that electromagnetic humming… she sees the bomb next to her, grabs a rock and starts hammering on it. Only way to save her life and unbreak her heart, right?
“Come on!!! Come on!! Come on, you son of a bitch!”
Boom.
So after all this talk of science vs faith, it looks like what we really have is fate vs free will. In the flesh (sort of). Jacob vs. the anti-Jacob. This Dr. Fate has been ‘giving the machine a little push’ this whole time – throughout all of our characters lives. I like the idea that that can also explain the odd coincidences and crossovers in all the flashbacks. That shit really was Fate – messing with them. Guided by the hands of fate, quite literally. Why? The incident was his loophole, somehow? He had to make sure all the pieces were in place. Can fate and free will exist together? It’s like The Great and Secret Show meeting Weaveworld by way of Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series (less the puns). It’s hurting my head, that’s for sure. I’m thinking that ‘he who will protect us all’ has to keep fate in check on the island, but he somehow escaped and was able to manipulate people to create this outcome. The whole Ben stabbing Jacob in the heart bit. But why then would Jacob have ‘guided’ the Black Rock to the island, to prove to fate that there is free will? Seems odd – not very logical.
Poor Locke is the pawniest of all the pawns – he was supposed to die that day, after being thrown out the window, but Fate had other plans and kept him alive. That means for all the theories about the island being purgatory – had actually been correct in a manner of speaking, at least as far as John Locke was concerned. He was a dead man walking for years.
Was it Fate interfering with Michael off the island, making sure he couldn’t die? Is it fate that split up Eloise and Widmore? It’s twisty as to which side either would be on… arguments can be made either way, but I’d guess that arrogant bastard Widmore doesn’t want to be told nothing he does makes a difference, putting him on Jacob’s side – and the mystical Hawking could be on Fate’s – but why then did Widmore send the freighter – wait – because Ben was never supposed to be a part of this – and the somehow significant time-loophole 815er’s made him who he turned out to be. All part of Fate’s plan. Which I guess does tie back to the Jack/science vs Locke/faith thing.
But there are variables – the power of love. If Jennifer hadn’t been in love with Marty, she wouldn’t have written the phone number on the back of the clock tower pamphlet, Marty would have no way to know when lightning would strike, and he would have eventually just vanished in 1955. It might just save your life. For some reason Fate couldn’t see that Juliet was important (thus not visiting/touching her in the past – at least as far as we’ve seen) and would end up falling in love with Sawyer. If she wasn’t in love with him, she wouldn’t want to erase the pain of knowing that he will always love another so badly that she would want to erase ever knowing him, and find the strength to hammer the bomb, which I think is going to send the 1977 group to 2007. (Wow, sorry for that sentence. It sucked.)
“They’re coming.”
If Jacob is dead is dead… did the Ajira’s (I think we can call them Disciples of Jacob now) know he was going to die and are talking about Lapidus as a candidate for his replacement? Speaking of replacements and variables – was Desmond Widmore’s attempt at introducing a variable into the equation, which was somehow negated when Daniel managed to talk to him? Interesting that if he were on the side of free will that he would steer Des’ life in the same way fate was working the 815er’s. Or will Des still have a part to play next season? And did Widmore leading Des to the island allow all this to happen in the first place – it had nothing to do with Fate/free will for him, he just wanted back on the island so badly that he sent Des there, who ended up crashing the plane and may have started this whole mess.
Desmond - more parallels – let’s say Jacob has to keep weaving to hold fate on the island so that mankind has free will. To gain access to him, you have to know the riddle of the statue. He who will protect us all. Lapidus doesn’t know the answer, but he could still be a candidate. Des’ didn’t know what one snowman said to the other snowman, but he still became the man stuck on the island doing a repetitive task to save the world, didn’t he? Protecting us all. Until he crashed the plane and started all this loopy shit happening. Nice job there Des. If Jack somehow knows the Latin answer to the statue riddle let’s give him the job. I think he’s going to be the one who ends up crafting the next tapestry. Just like stitching a dural sac back up. It’s his destiny.
posted by karmacomedian at 8:39 PM
