Lost 5.16/17: "The Incident, Parts 1 & 2"

“You found your loophole.”
“Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through to get here.”

First of all, can I just give props to SonshineMusic for making me my awesome new Dharma logo? I’m so thrilled with it. I need to get it on a shirt. Or a work jumpsuit. :)

Anyway, tell me what the following things have in common:
• a guy who sleeps with a girl after wooing her for several months, only to never call her again after he’s gotten what he wants (no, this hasn’t happened to me)
• a driver in a car on a really rainy day who drives too close to a woman pushing a child in a stroller just as they’re walking by a ginormous puddle, and sends a tidal wave over the two of them and keeps on driving (yes, this has happened to me)
• two writers who build up an incident for an entire season and know that the next season won’t start for about 8 months, and they leave it the way this episode ended

If you guessed, “These are all about JERKS” then you guessed correctly! The difference with that final one: I’d follow them to the ends of the earth. Hell, if they asked ME to kill Jacob, I would have done it.

What a glorious episode. Freakin’ amazing awesomesauce gloriousness. Where to begin?!

And it turns out Jacob is....
Nope, not Jack. Not Christian, either. Not John Locke. Not Roger Workman. Not Horace. It’s... Rita’s dickish ex-husband from Dexter! I TOTALLY called it back in... oh whatever. I was actually THRILLED that Jacob was someone we hadn’t seen. It opened up the show in a million different ways. The episode opened with Jacob (bathed in white: white clothes, white sand, white fish, white tapestry) being visited by Silas Adams from Deadwood some angry dude, all dressed in black, telling him how much he hates him. They’ve clearly set up the Jacob/Man in Black dichotomy to match the Widmore/Ben one, the way in “The Shape of Things to Come” Widmore asked if Ben was there to kill him and he said, “We both know I can’t do that.” In this case, the other man tells Jacob he wants to kill him, but clearly needs to find a “loophole.” We discover Jacob actually goes out of his way to bring people to the island, as if having them “come, fight, destroy, corrupt,” is all a game to him. Man says, “It always ends the same.” Jacob says, “But it only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.” Strange words. Before that... not after that. As if it always ends up this way, that the progress happens BEFORE (i.e. in 1977) and not after (in 2007).

Jacob’s home visits
So we see Jacob visit several of the people and touches each of them, but there were two that were unlike the others: He visits Kate when she’s a child, touching her when he hands her the lunchbox (the same one she and her buddy Tommy will later bury under a tree as a time capsule, along with his toy plane, right before he’s shot and killed as she’s trying to visit her mom). He visits Sawyer at his parents’ funeral, touching him when he shakes his hand. Visits Jack when he performs the now-legendary 5-second-fear surgery. Jin and Sun get a visit at their wedding. He seems to bring Locke back to life after his father throws him out of the window and changes his life forever. But notice how different the Sayid and Hurley visits are: they happen after their return with the Oceanic 6. So... what do his visits mean? Were they to get those people on the plane? If so, how did Hurley and Sayid get on the plane, if he only visited them AFTER they returned from the island?

The Man in Black
So if I understand this correctly (and I probably won’t until the end of season 6) there was another person on the island, one who embodied the darkness of it. Jacob seems to remain on the island physically, while the other one has left and has to find a way back. He’s unable to kill Jacob, and must find a “loophole,” i.e. someone else who can do it for him. Has this other man been priming Ben for 35 years for this very moment? Has he been priming Locke for even longer for the same reason? I’ve made so many comparisons to Ben and Locke and how their lives are so similar, but now they’re even moreso: for it would appear that despite all their beliefs and willingness to comply, they were nothing more than pawns in the bigger game between Jacob and the other man. Does this dissipate the Ben/Widmore war? Because that one was immensely fascinating to me, but this one is obviously a much bigger one.

And the other thing this indicates is... Locke is really dead. He’s not coming back, he never will, and he really died at Ben’s hand. Locke didn’t get his resurrection; he never found confidence or peace. He died an angry man who believed he was a failure, who never did anything right in his life, who was always the gullible loser. This revelation is hidden beneath the much more shocking and dramatic not-death of Juliet, but in the end, Locke is dead. And I found that immensely sad.

Highlights:
• That opening. Awesome, awesome opening.
• Richard: “I’ve seen things on this island that I could barely describe but I’ve never seen someone come back to life.” Locke: “And I’ve never seen anyone who doesn’t age. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
• Jack telling Richard not to give up on Locke. Interesting that just when Jack finally believes in Locke, it’s no longer Locke, apparently.
• Locke asking Ben why he hasn’t told Richard about the plan to kill Jacob, and Ben saying because he thought it was a secret, and Locke’s response: “When did THAT ever stop you?”
• Richard with the sledgehammer. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him being so violent!
• Vincent!! ROSE! GRIZZLY BERNARD!!
• Frank: “In my experience the people who go out of their way to tell you they’re the good guys are the bad guys.”
• Locke: “You mind if I ask you a question?” Ben: “I’m a Pisces.”
• Locke: “Well, it’s a wonderful foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?”
• The smackdown between Jack and Sawyer. It’s been five years coming, and it was such an amazing cartharsis for both of them.
• Hurley: “Don’t worry, dude. Everything will be fine when Jack changes the future. Or the past. One of those.”
• The way Ben walks into the statue and is immediately drawn to the fire at the end of the hallway. Emerson shows such regret and longing in this episode. He’s amazing.
• The looks on everyone’s faces when Jack is about to drop the bomb. It was a beautiful moment... and interestingly, when he thinks he’s at the end, Sawyer looks at Juliet, not Kate.
• Sawyer: “This don’t look like LAX.”
• Phil’s death. Best death since Nikki and Paulo. WOOT!!
• Emerson (again) when he pleads with Jacob, “What about me?”

Did You Notice?:
• Matthew Fox pulls off haggard really well. I’ve never seen a character look more realistically like he’s been emotionally hit by a Mack truck than Jack this season.
• Well, we all assumed last week that Widmore touching Eloise’s stomach tenderly suggested she was pregnant, and we were correct. How much do I love that a mainstream television show features a fetus of a child coming along on an expedition that is being steered by... his own journal notes?
• One of my favourite moments in the episode was the discussion between Sun and Ben, where he tells her that he was once the leader of the island and the leader is the only person who can meet with Jacob and takes instruction from him, and then she asks what Jacob is like and he says, “I dunno. I’ve never met him.” Sun’s face = utter confusion.
• Bram refers to Lapidus as a yahoo, which is what Sawyer called him when he came to the helicopter at the end of season 4.
• I was convinced Widmore was in the box, with an oxygen tank or something being kept alive.
• Richard refers to Eloise as “our leader,” meaning Widmore is NOT the leader of the group, it’s her. Did he become the leader after she left the island?
• The CGI on the departing sub is just as bad as it was last week. Ugh.
• Sawyer says they’re looking at the north shore. Kate argues that the sun is setting on the wrong side for that to be the case. Sawyer asks her if she has a compass. Juliet looks longingly at the departing sub while listening to them flirt. The look on her face says, “Just kill me now.”
• When Vincent runs up to Sawyer on the beach, there’s a rainbow in the sky. Could have been there naturally, or it could be a reference to the Noah’s Ark story, where God sent a rainbow as a promise that he would never wreak havoc on the world like that again. Interesting that it appears right before they’re about to set off their own apocalypse.
• Bernard’s first words are “Son of a bitch,” in homage to Sawyer.
• I was a little annoyed that, despite wanting to be “retired” and on their own, Rose’s first words when seeing her old “friends” were, “Oh, HELL no.” Rose could always be crotchety, but way to have some old ties there. Sheesh. Luckily their next scene made up for this.
• Considering Rose and Bernard are wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing when they were being shot at with flaming arrows three years earlier, they’ve kept those clothes REALLY clean.
• Bernard: “We just care about being together.” Bernard looks at Rose, Rose looks at Bernard. Juliet looks at Sawyer. Sawyer looks at... Kate. Kate looks at a leaf.
• The dog painting is still in Jacob’s cabin, but the jars of liquid are gone, along with many other extras that had been there before.
• Jacob’s reading Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” Me, by the way: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...” Last time the writers threw a book in the finale at me was season 2. I HATE them for adding this to my already rushed writing schedule. ARGH. Anyway, enough of my bitching. This book is a collection of O’Connor’s short stories published after death at the very young age of 39 from lupus. The story titles, which are indicative of this season, are:
o "Everything That Rises Must Converge"
o "Greenleaf"
o "A View of the Woods"
o "The Enduring Chill"
o "The Comforts of Home"
o "The Lame Shall Enter First"
o "Revelation"
o "Parker's Back"
o "Judgment Day"

• Ben tells Locke he’s a Pisces in an effort to make him go away. But just like everything else, that’s a lie. We know that Ben’s birthday is December 19, but the Pisces sign is for those born from February 20 to March 20. Interesting, however, that the astrological sign for Pisces is VERY similar to the sign that Juliet was branded with in “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
• So, Sun walks up to Aaron’s old crib and I said to my husband, “You know, I’ve always been disappointed that no one ever found Charlie’s Drive Shaft ring.” And then she reached in and picked it up. I threw my arms above my head, “YES!” My husband couldn’t stop laughing, and said, “You truly are a geek.”
• Jin: “We will never be apart. Because being apart from you would be like the sky being apart from the Earth.” And... apparently that was SO long you couldn’t memorize it? Interesting, though, that both Jin and Sun fell from the sky to the Earth, and then he remained on the Earth while she took to the sky once more.
• Jin says that Jacob’s Korean is excellent... they noticed the same thing about Charlotte. Could there be a connection?
• I really enjoyed the hallway scene with Jack and his father. Jack is still a student, and Christian is his teacher, and he saves the patient and Jack’s cool by helping the situation. Then he tells him what a great job he did, and Jack berates him for giving him a “time out” and embarrassing him in front of his friends. Christian wonders aloud if he’s the one who doesn’t believe in Jack. Good question: it’s not necessarily everyone else who thinks Jack is getting special treatment, but Jack thinking he should get it.
• The girl playing young Rachel looks a lot like older Rachel.
• I love the idea of Hurley’s curse being a blessing in disguise.
• Not-Locke tells Richard that he thinks he’s just making up the rules as he goes along. Is he? Who was on the island first, Richard or the other guy?
• Miles once again speaks for the fans, suggesting something fans have speculated about for weeks, that maybe Jack causes the incident, rather than stops it.
• Juliet quotes Jack’s “Live together, die alone,” but it has a different meaning coming from her. She leaves out the extra parts, “if we don’t live together, we’ll die alone,” and instead insinuates, “We lived together, now we’ll [I’ll] die alone.”
• Man, there are a LOT of shootout scenes at the end of season 5!!
• Miles tells Chang to get as far away from here as he can, which is what Chang told his wife to get her off the island.
• I guess we now know why Marvin Candle has a prosthetic arm!
• Juliet’s fall was heartbreaking, and something I didn’t see coming at ALL. And I think that’s the first time we’ve seen Sawyer sob. It was a lot like when Buffy jumped from the tower at the end of season 5. I didn’t start crying until I saw Spike fall apart. Similarly, it really hit me when Sawyer started crying.
• Ilana asks Richard what lies in shadow of the statue. He answers, “Ille qui nos omnes servabit,” which means “He who will protect (or save) us all.” Does this mean Ben just killed their saviour?
• This is the second season that ended with a big revelation of Locke lying dead in a box. I love that only one season ago we went, “OMG, Locke is dead!” and now a year later we’re going, “OMG, Locke is dead!!” Only on Lost.
• The pit of fire that Locke throws Jacob into was glowing at the beginning of the episode, as if this one fire has been going from the beginning.
• On Jacob’s tapestry, you can see people worshipping the sun, and presumably the Sun God, who is Ra. RA = Richard Alpert?
• At the end of the episode, it’s like Ben is returned to being a little boy again. Jacob’s simple reply, “What about you” is shocking in the moment. Just as Ben says, he’s always done what Jacob asked of him, and Jacob showed him no regard at all. If Jacob really IS the good guy, then Ben has just been tempted by Satan to kill God, in a sense.

Hurley’s numbers:
On Dan’s notes on how to remove the plutonium core, there appears to be a 23B marking on the side of the diagram. (Or 23-8.)

So Many Questions...
• Damon, will you marry me?
• Jacob clearly called The Black Rock to the island. So how did it end up in the middle? Did he will it there? Does he have that kind of power?
• What happened to the rest of the statue if it was intact in the late 19th century?
• Who is Jacob’s nemesis?
• What did Bram mean when he asked if Frank was a candidate?
• Not-Locke seems very interested when Ben tells him about Alex telling him to do whatever John Locke says. Is it possible that Jacob represents only certain things on the island, while Smokey and other evil apparitions belong to Angry Man in Black?
• Who broke the line of ash that surrounded Jacob’s cabin?
• What happened to Ilana? Why was she in a hospital completely covered in bandages? Did Jacob heal her with his touch? Does Ilana know who he is when he arrives? How? This would suggest this group is a third rogue unit, as we suspected a few weeks ago, and they’re with Jacob, not with Widmore or Ben.
• Jacob appears to bring Locke back to life with his touch, and tells him, “I’m sorry this happened to you” in what sounds like a genuine sentiment. Is it possible he’s really the good guy?
• Do all of Juliet’s man troubles stem from the fact that her mother told her that even if you love someone you don’t necessarily belong together?
• Oh Radzinsky. How happy am I knowing that you will eventually end up with a bullet in your brain?
• One of Hurley’s personal belongings is a Fruit Roll-Up. He was eating a Fruit Roll-Up when Walt came to visit him in the institution.
• So... did Juliet just kill everyone? Restart the clock? I’m furious with the writers, and thrilled with them all at the same time. Oh you horrible, horrible people. How I love you.

Next week: Loneliness. Depression. A giant hole in my Wednesday night viewing schedule. Taking the week off to work on my season 5 book. I want to thank all of you for coming here week after week to read my musings and join in the discussion in the comments, offering such diverse and brilliant opinions. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m not sure what upsets me more: no more Lost episodes, or no more Thursday discussions with all of you.

I threw this out there earlier, and I’ll devote a single post to it in a few weeks, but we’ve been discussing on the blog a viewing party, watching seasons 1-5, 2 or 3 episodes a week starting in the summer right through to the beginning of season 6, and I hope all of you will be willing to join in. I’ll post notices in as many places as I can to see how many people we can recruit to come and discuss the earlier seasons in light of what we now know, and I think it’ll be a lot of fun!

And in the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog posts enough to order my season 4 book, available here at Amazon, and my upcoming season 5 book, now taking preorders (and available in late October). And if you have a copy already, get another one for a friend! Haha! (OK, there's a method to my shamelessness: At the end of every season, bookstores have a nasty habit of starting to return my books because they figure no one is interested in Lost anymore... I’m hoping if there’s a sudden demand for buying them, they’ll keep them in the stores a little longer, rather than return them, only to reorder them and make my publisher have to pay the freight both ways, which is sadly the case. Also, the more backorders on the season 5 book, the more are printed. Please help a gal out!)

And please keep coming back throughout the coming months. We’ll have a LOT of Lost talk on here, and I can’t wait to keep chatting about Lost with y’all!