Thoughts on Lost - The Incident

FINALLY!!!

I really do apologize for the delay on this...combination of being a little intimidated by trying to recap such a mind-blowing episode along with vacation and a pretty heavy load at work.

Also, I usually try not to read other recaps before writing mine in order to avoid accidentally mixing other people's thoughts with my own and not giving credit. That is not the case this time, so I apologize in advance to Erika, Doc Jensen, Vozzek, Cindy, and Jacob only knows who else that I may be pilfering from unintentionally (or maybe intentionally, who knows?).

And, fair warning...I'm going to be asking a LOT more questions than I answer in this one. I believe this is the most befuddled I've been by this show since Charlie asked us all: "Guys...where ARE we?"

On with the show!!!

- We open with a youngish looking guy, who I'm proud to say I pegged as Jacob almost immediately (just like most of you), surrounded by enough Greek and Egyptian imagery to keep us all busy doing research until next season. There's the Eye of Horus with about 18 arms coming out of it, there's Isis, there's a bunch of Greek and Egyptian writing...I'm not going to get into all of the connotations and possible clues or anything, I'm just going to stick with the obvious. This stuff is old.

I will say that the tapestry-weaving is probably important...we'll get back to that one later.

- Everyone is assuming that the approaching ship is The Black Rock, and it probably is, but...I have always thought that the Black Rock did not arrive on the Island via conventional means...like it "fell" through one of the vile vortices that we have talked about before and landed on the Island, similar to what happened to the Nigerian drug plane, and Flight 815, for that matter. But if this IS the Black Rock, I'm curious as to how in the world it ended up in the jungle in the MIDDLE of the Island, which is where the Losties found it way back in season 1? In fact, according to the transcript, they found it a couple of MILES inland. Interesting.

Quick aside...what kind of name is Black Rock for a ship, anyway? Not exactly the imagery I want on a vessel that I would really prefer not sink.

- Could it be that the conversation between Jacob and the Other Guy (who I'm going to call Esau because I'm not very creative) is the most important conversation we have EVER seen on this show?

• How does Jacob "bring" people to the Island? He didn't bother arguing when Esau said that's how the folks on the ship found it, so I think it's safe to assume that is in fact how they got there.


• What does Jacob think Esau is "wrong" about? Obviously, Jacob has done this in the past, and according to Esau, it always ends the same...death, destruction, and corruption. So is this an argument about human nature? Power? How are the groups "corrupted?" Does it happen naturally, or are they influenced, perhaps by the Island itself, or maybe Esau? We'll probably touch on some of this later, I think, but in case I forget...Jacob says Esau has come "because" the ship is coming. If we assume, based on what we learn later on, that Esau is Smokey, then he also came to the Flight 815 castaways almost immediately after their arrival (they heard the Monster in the jungle on the very first night). So is it ESAU that is actually manipulating people after they arrive, causing them to turn to corruption, destruction, and death? And Jacob is trying to break that cycle somehow, maybe by choosing the "right" group to bring to the Island?


• Esau wants to kill Jacob, but there are obviously some sort of rules governing these two so he has to find a "loophole." So...A) why does he want to kill him? Did Jacob perhaps take something from Esau that he felt was rightfully his, much like Jacob in the Bible stole Esau's birthright (yes, I know that we don't know that this guy's name is Esau, but I think the name Jacob might still refer to the Biblical Jacob)? And...B) what are the rules, and who or what enforces them? Esau obviously can't just kill Jacob himself, but why? Who says?


• Think there's any significance to Esau's use of My Friend? "One of these days, sooner or later... I'm going to find a loophole, my friend. " That's now at least three times we've heard this used, the first two by Caesar and then Bram (the dude in the van who kidnapped Miles). Are all of these guys connected somehow? Based on what we learn about Bram later, I don't think he's on Esau's team NOW, but that doesn't mean that they don't have some sort of connection. Or maybe the writing staff just kind of fell in love with that phrase, the way I do "Actually" or "Due to the fact" or "basically."


• Love Jacob's response: "Well, when you do, I'll be right here." Don't sing it...BRING IT.

So...which of these is the good guy, and which is the bad guy? Lots of interweb speculation on this one, but I'm sticking with Jacob as the good guy until proven otherwise. There's been too much black/white imagery on this show for us to ignore it now, and Jacob is the guy in white while Esau is the man in black. You have to keep SOME of the stuff on this show simple or you'll drive yourself crazy.

And then the camera pulls back to show that Jacob is actually LIVING...in the FOUR TOED STATUE. Awesome. I love this show so much.

And, the statue is confirmed to be of Tawaret, who is the Egyptian goddess of birth and rebirth, according to Lostpedia. Some obvious connotations there...the problems with fertility on the Island (birth) and the fact that there are people brought back to life running around ((maybe)Christian and (presumably) Locke).

- OK, I've now covered the first two minutes or so of a two hour episode...are you beginning to see why I kept putting this one off? :-)

- Kudos to the casting department in the casting of young Kate...even before we saw the infamous toy airplane or heard the always-present-in-Kate-flashbacks Patsy Cline music on the store PA, it was obvious that we were seeing a very young Kate Austen.

- Funny...Kate never struck me as a NKOTB fan. Maybe she was really stealing it for Tom. Most of the males who liked New Kids were ashamed to admit it in public.

- So...did Jacob simply save Kate from getting in trouble, or did he help her to avoid consequences, therefore guiding her down the path of delinquency that would ultimately lead her to being arrested and handcuffed on Flight 815? I'm going to go ahead and say now that I have NO idea. We'll touch on this later, but I am basically at a loss as to what the visits by Jacob really mean, because there is no real pattern that they follow. At the end, we'll look at all of them together and I'll see if I can't piece something together.

- One thing that I think we WERE supposed to notice...Jacob physically touches everybody he visits. Here, he boops Kate on the nose...which, knowing Kate the way we do now, I'm surprised didn't result in a solid kick to the shin.

So, what do these "touches" mean? Umm...let me get back to you on that.

Really, a boop on the nose? Who DOES that?

- Meanwhile, on the Awkward Submarine....Kate is doing her best not to look at Juliet while she tries to convince Sawyer to help her stop Jack from blowing up the Island. Since this whole storyline really got on my nerves for much of this episode, please excuse me if I blow past the scenes that don't have a whole lot of action. Like this one.

- OK, so Sayid says that Faraday left "detailed instructions" on how to remove Jughead's core and detonate it. Almost like he knew that he wouldn't be the one moving it himself. Hmm....

- Cut to the drill site, where Radzinsky continues to cause me to REALLY hope that we get to see how his brains ended up all over the ceiling of the Swan station. Dude is annoying. I understand that he feels his work is important (and nice little continuity with what we know of the DI from The Lost Experience game in that they were brought there to help "save the world"), but why is he so dead set against stopping the drilling for, like, ten minutes?

- Our first "Michael Emerson Rulz" moment of the night:

SUN: Who's Jacob?
BEN: He's in charge of this Island.
SUN: You said John was in charge.
BEN: No, I said he was the leader, a title that I've discovered is incredibly temporary.

- Another mindblowing conversation, this one between Locke and Richard:

LOCKE: You've been staring for the last ten minutes, Richard. Is there something you'd like to ask me?
RICHARD: Ben told me that he strangled you.
LOCKE: That is my recollection, yes.
RICHARD: He said he was sure you were dead. That he saw your coffin loaded onto that plane that you came back on. How are you alive?
LOCKE: Well, 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.
RICHARD: I - I have been here a long time, John. And I have seen things on this Island that I could barely describe, but I've never seem someone come back to life.
LOCKE: And I've never seen anyone who doesn't age. Doesn't mean it can't happen.
RICHARD: I'm this way because of Jacob. And if I had to guess, he's the reason you're not in that coffin anymore.
LOCKE: I agree completely, Richard. That's why I'm doing this. So I can thank him.

I believe this is the first time anybody has actually confronted Richard on the whole "you don't age" thing, right? He is this way because of Jacob...interesting. Maybe Jacob granted him eternal life in exchange for his agreeing to be the "advisor" to whomever was the current leader. Or maybe it's not a gift, but a punishment.

Richard has seen things he can "barely describe"...my first thought was, "Man, I hope we get to see some of those things." Then I started thinking about the "things" he has seen: Smokey...men appearing, announcing that they are from the future, and then disappearing, only to show up again 3o years later...people showing up in 1977, detonating a nuclear bomb, and then showing up again 27 years later...crippled people made whole...yeah, I think we've probably seen a lot of the same indescribable things that Richard has.

- LOCKE: Once I've done that, we're gonna need to deal with the rest of the passengers from the Ajira flight that brought me here.
RICHARD: What do you mean, 'deal with them'?
LOCKE: You know what I mean.
[Richard looks at Locke, shocked.]
LOCKE: Let's go!

You guys? I am starting to think there is something REALLY strange about Locke....

- Now we cut to Bram and Ilana and their group carrying the crate...this group continues to confound me. They are obviously part of some clandestine group...Bram says of Frank "Why is he important? He didn't even know the answer to the question!", which kind of reminded me of Desmond's "Snowman" question he used to test whether his visitors were friend or foe. And Frank may be a "Candidate"? A candidate for what? I have no clue.

- When Frank looked in the box, I thought from his reaction that it was most likely either a body or Jughead's detonators. Still didn't guess what it actually turned out to be.

- Another Jacob visit, this one to young Sawyer. Pretty cool to watch him writing the infamous "Sawyer letter," and the whole funeral scene was heartbreaking.

- Old Uncle Doug must not have any kids of his own:"You promise you're not going to write any more of this letter? OK, here's your pen and paper back."

DUH.

- Another Sawyer/Kate/Juliet scene, notable only for two things: One, Juliet is adamant that they can't let Jack set off the bomb, because it's not right to just let him kill everybody on the Island. REMEMBER THAT LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC FOR LATER. Second, we get to watch Juliet kick the crap out of the guy bringing them their little sedative cocktail...that was fun.

- Did anybody else find it strange that there just HAPPENED to be a backpack in these ancient tunnels that was just big enough to store a nuclear detonator in? Almost like somebody knew that it would be needed someday. Hmm....

- RICHARD: Over, uh, twenty years ago, a man named John Locke, he walked right into our camp. And he told me that he was going to be our leader. Now I've gone off the Island three times, to visit him. But he never seemed particularly special to me.
JACK: You said you had a question.
RICHARD: You know him? Locke?
JACK: [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah, I know him. And if I were you, I wouldn't give up on him.

Man, after seeing the end of this episode, this dialogue seems really depressing, for reasons we'll get to later. Unless it's the writers' way of telling US not to give up on Locke? I hope that's it...

- "Michael Emerson Rulz", Part 2:

LOCKE: Richard. Why haven't you told him about my plans for Jacob?
BEN: If by plans you mean murdering him, John, I assumed you'd want to keep that a secret.

- OK, here is where I'm confused (and I know I'm talking about things we haven't gotten to yet, but I can't help it here): "Locke" seems genuinely surprised to hear that Ben received a visit from Smokey Alex. The general consensus (which I share, by the way), is that Smokey is a manifestation of Esau, as is Locke at this point, as was Alex in the Temple. So, with that in mind, is he just playing Ben here? If so, he's an even better manipulator than old Mr. Linus himself, because I was certainly convinced that this knowledge was news to him.

- Another visit from Jacob, this time distracting Sayid long enough for his beloved Nadia to wander out into the street and stop long enough to get flattened.

Couple of notes about this...Ben told Sayid that it was Widmore's goons who killed Nadia. So was Widmore actually gunning for Sayid? If so, why? Why would Widmore want to kill any of the O6, for that matter? I would think that he would instead want them alive, if he really wants to get back to the Island so badly.

Or, of course, Ben was lying...always a good fallback plan.

I don't know that Jacob was trying to make sure Nadia was flattened, as I've seen some suppose, or if he was just trying to make sure that Sayid stayed three-dimensional so that he could go back to the Island. Like I said, I'm still pretty in the dark concerning Jacob's off-Island motives.

- Yeah, Eloise...we know that you won't hesitate to put a bullet in somebody. We watched you shoot your son in the back.

- How did Jack become such a gunslinger? He was firing off shots like Clint Eastwood, instead of like a spinal surgeon.

- And, once again, Hurley shows up in the Dharma van to save the day. Nice continuity.

- VINCENT!!!!!!!

- Maybe my favorite exchange of the night (sorry for the language, but this is a direct quote):

SAWYER: Vincent! Come here! Hey! Hey! How you doin', boy? Haven't seen you since the flamin' arrows three years ago!
JULIET: Hey! How'd you survive alone out here?
[Suddenly, a woman's voice is heard.]
ROSE: Oh, hell no. Bernard!
[Bernard runs out of the jungle, bearded and carrying a staff.]
ROSE: They found us.
BERNARD: Son of a bitch.

Maybe my favorite part is how clueless Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet are as to why Rose and Bernard are NOT happy to see them. They are RETIRED. As Rose puts it, "We traveled back 30 years in time, and you're still trying to find ways to shoot each other?" They are so over the whole thing. It's great.

- A lot of people are remarking on two aspects of this scene: First, Bernard seems to make a special effort to get Juliet to stay behind, almost like he knows what's in store for her. Second, Juliet has her hand on her stomach in the classic "I'm Pregnant" TV pose. I don't know what to make of either of those things, but both did in fact happen. Maybe Juliet actually was pregnant, and it is her death (oops...SPOILER!!!) that causes the fertility problems later? I would certainly be in awe of the irony, considering that she is so determined in her efforts to SOLVE those same fertility problems.

- Oh, and of course, I can't forget...Sawyer looks at Kate in this scene. I know, it doesn't seem like much, but it becomes inexplicably crucial later on.

- Back to Frank and The Crate People. Bram continues in the great Lost tradition by telling Frank that they are the "good guys." Frank, however, has been watching this show from the beginning: "In my experience, the people who go out of their way to tell you that the good guys are the bad guys." Well played, Lapidus.

- OK, another Jacob visit, this one to Ilana. We better get some backstory on this one...these two obviously know each other already, and Ilana is covered in bandages and is apparently in some sort of Russian medical center (the staff are speaking Russian, according to Lostpedia).

One interesting thing...Jacob is wearing gloves for this meeting, so no "touching" is involved.

- So Jacob hasn't been using that cabin for "a long time," according to Ilana. My guess is that everybody we have seen in that cabin...the shadowy figure from "Man Behind The Curtain," Christian, Claire...they have all been manifestations of Esau.

- Frank has a seemingly throwaway line..."pretty good way to torch the whole jungle, don't you think?" I think we will find out that it is not so throwaway at some point. Just a hunch.

- Another Jacob sighting...this time he's calmly reading a book (here, do your own research) while Locke is shoved out of an 8 story window by his father. Anybody else think that Locke is not just unconscious before Jacob goes over and grabs his shoulder? Looked to me like Locke was not breathing until being "revived" by Jacob.

- Back at the old camp:

LOCKE: Home sweet home. [to all] Alright, everyone! Richard tells me we should get to where we're going by nightfall. So why don't you all take this opportunity to rest up and catch your breath. Considering what I have planned for you, you're gonna need it.

Ummm...what does he have planned for them? I actually didn't catch that until just now. As far as we know, his only plans are to go find Jacob so that Ben can kill him. What does he have planned for everybody else?

- I started to copy/paste some of my favorite lines from the Locke/Ben conversation on the beach, but it's all just too good. Here is the link to the transcript of the episode if you want to relive it.

What I found interesting is that this UnLocke (oops....SPOILER!!! again) seems to share the memories of the actual Locke. This is one of the reasons I believe him to be a manifestation of Smokey...remember, Locke was "scanned" by Smokey very early on, and it appears that the monster is reading people's memories when those scans are done.

- OK, fine...here is the whole conversation. It's too good to leave out. I'll just bold my favorite parts:

BEN: I was enjoying some alone time.
LOCKE: You see what's behind you?
[Ben turns to see the hatch door embedded in the sand.]
BEN: It's a door. How about that?
LOCKE: Not just a door, Ben. It's the door to the hatch. Where you and I first met. [Ben looks at him, then looks away.] Do you mind if I ask you a question?
BEN: I'm a Pisces. [ed. - Another Ben lie...he was born in December. :-)]
LOCKE: What happened that day at the cabin? When you first took me to meet Jacob?
BEN: Well, you clearly already know that I was talking to an empty chair, John. That I was pretending. Which is not to say that I wasn't as surprised as you were when things started flying around the room.
LOCKE: But why would go to all the trouble to make something like that up?
BEN: 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: Alright, then.
BEN: Why do you want me to kill Jacob, John?
LOCKE: 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. And your reward for those sacrifices? You were banished. And you did all this in the name of a man you'd never even met. So the question is, Ben, why the hell wouldn't you want to kill Jacob?

Awesome stuff. Great writing, delivered by maybe the two best actors currently on television.

- The Jacob visits are coming fast and furious...now he is at Jin and Sun's wedding, touching them both on the shoulder, and encouraging them never to take each other for granted, in perfect Korean.

- Was it me, or was Sayid almost giddy when he told Jack, "You can't stop the bleeding." I think Sayid truly has a death wish at this point. Probably has for a while, actually.

- My favorite random line of the night:

LOCKE: Well, it's a wonderful foot, Richard, but what does it have to do with Jacob?

Again, we know now that UnLocke should know EXACTLY where they are...so I guess this is all just an act for Richard's sake? It's still pretty funny, though.

- Also cool to see the famous "Five Second" surgery that Jack told Kate about way back in the Pilot episode. Interesting that in the re-telling, he left out the part about his dad being the one who got him through it.

Not that Jack is grateful for his help, of course...I was really irritated by his response to his Dad. Hey, Super-Doc...if your father wasn't there, your patient would probably be paralyzed because YOU froze in the middle of surgery. You're worried about how your team looks at you? How would they look at you if you had paralyzed a little girl?

And, Jacob is there...to hand him a candy bar. OK.

I mean, I'm sure the dialogue there is meaningful (I guess it just needed a little push). But on the surface, it doesn't seem like Jacob really had much influence here.

- OK, and the next scene is maybe the first time I've been really angry at the writing on this show.

Seriously, Jack? You're willing to blow up a nuclear bomb, perhaps killing everybody on the Island...because of KATE? Like Sawyer says...she's right over there, moron!

I've had several people try to justify this writing choice to me...don't bother. I hate it...I've dealt with it, and I've moved on, but I hate it.

I was so mad that I didn't even hold it against Sawyer when he gained the upper hand in the fight by kicking Jack in the Jimmy.

- Oh...OH!!! and then Juliet shows up. And she's changed her mind. Now she's ready to blow everybody up, too. More on that in a minute.

- Juliet's parents got divorced.

Scene.

- Yeah, Juliet is ready to blow up the entire Island, completely contradicting everything she has said up to this point in the episode...because Sawyer picked an inopportune moment to look at Kate.

Yep.

Dumb, dumb, DUMB.

Only thing that ALMOST saves it is that it was beautifully acted by both Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway.

- And then, just to make my point for me, there is the scene with Jack and Kate in the jungle, where Kate is quite obviously trying to show Jack that she still cares about him, she's still with him...and yet, although we're supposed to believe that all Jack wants is to be with Kate, he doesn't act on that, and instead seems to almost use it as added motivation to carry on with the whole "Blow Everybody Up" plan. I just don't get it.

- Next Jacob visit is to Hurley...great dialogue between the two, as Jacob has to convince Hurley that he's not crazy.

So now we know why Hurley showed up for Flight 316...but we'll have to wait on what is in the guitar case. I'm betting it's not JUST any old guitar, if it's a guitar at all.

- Sayid: Nothing can save me.

Hope he's not right...in every way.

- MILES: Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually gonna cause the thing he says he's trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke is the incident? So maybe the best thing to do... is nothing?
[]
MILES: I'm glad you all thought this through.

I love Miles. And I agree with him. More on that later.

- I had to pause it as the next scene unfolded...I wanted to let it sink in that LOCKE and BEN were on their way into the FOUR TOED STATUE to find JACOB so that BEN could KILL JACOB on LOCKE'S ORDERS. Could there be a more pivotal point in the mythology of this show?

- INTENSE scene back at the drill site...between the shootout, and then the incredible tension of the moment when Jack drops the detonator down the shaft, I was barely breathing. That's why that little moment of levity when everybody looks around and sees that nothing happened was such a welcome relief.

- Glad to see Phil got his, but am I wrong to wish that, A) it had been more gruesome, and B) that Sawyer could have been the one to kill him? Maybe we have come too far in Sawyer's "Redemption" arc to have him still killing people, but I certainly would have made an exception here.

- Ugh, the scene with Juliet getting pulled into the shaft was just heart-wrenching. FANTASTIC job by Holloway and Mitchell. ALMOST made up for the earlier scene in the jungle.

- Back at Tawaret...Ilana knows Richard as "Ricardus", which was probably his name when Jacob met him, further proof that Ilana and Jacob have known each other for a while.

- Most of you have probably already heard/read this by now, but the answer to Ilana's question is: "He (or That) who will protect (or save) us all." He answers in Latin, which we know from earlier episodes is the language of The Others.

- And then Locke's body falls out of the crate (why didn't they leave him in the coffin? To keep it a secret that they were carrying a body, I guess). After my initial shock (and I really was shocked...I didn't see that coming), I was very sad. As many of you know, Locke is probably my favorite TV character of all time. I was digging the fact that he was somewhat vindicated by his Island resurrection, that he really was "special" like he thought. But now, unless something changes, it appears that he really was just an easily manipulated fool who died a broken and defeated man at the hands of that weasel Benjamin Linus. That sucks. And, hopefully, Jack's earlier words to Richard are true, and there's still hope for him.

- I still totally thought that once they got into the statue, "Locke" was going to reveal himself to be Jacob. So I was surprised to see Jacob hanging out waiting on them.

And now we see that the tapestry is almost finished...I definitely believe this is a picture of the way Jacob has been "weaving" all of these threads together now for perhaps hundreds of years, and he is now approaching the finished product.

- JACOB: Well, you found your loophole.
"LOCKE": Indeed I did. And you have no idea what I've gone through to be here.

SCOTT: WHAT?!?!? HOLY CRAP!!!!!

Yeah, this was the moment when my brain broke. I still can't talk or think about it for very long without getting facial tics.

So, Esau somehow took the identity of Locke (not his body, though, since that was in Ilana's crate). I have no idea how, or why this was the "loophole" he was looking for. Maybe BEN was the loophole, and Esau figured out that Locke was the best way to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob? Oh, the delicious irony that it is LOCKE (or at least an image of Locke) who is now manipulating BEN.

So, is Christian also Esau? Yeah, I think so, even though I still don't know where Christian's body is in that case. I also think that Esau was Smokey, which is why Locke and Smokey were never seen together when Ben went to the Temple.

So, in that case, what about Claire? After all, she was in the cabin WITH Christian. So can Smokey be two people at once? I don't think so (see above reference to Locke at the Temple)...so I have no idea whether Claire is alive, dead, or in-between at this point.

Suffice to say that I am going to need a LOT of explaining in Season 6 as to how this whole "loophole" thing worked. Good news is that I expect we will get that explanation.

- Great stuff (again) from Emerson:

BEN: Oh... so now, after all this time, you've decided to stop ignoring me. 35 years I lived on this island, and all I ever heard was your name over and over. Richard would bring me your instructions--all those slips of paper, all those lists--and I never questioned anything. I did as I was told. But when I dared to ask to see you myself, I was told, "Tou have to wait. You have to be patient." But when he asked to see you? He gets marched straight up here as if was Moses. So... why him? Hmm? What was it that was so wrong with me? What about me?!

How is it that Ben...little lying, weaseling, Locke-murdering Benjamin Linus....can still make me feel actual SYMPATHY? Oh, that's right. Because Michael Emerson RULZ.

- OK, is it just me (again), or did Jacob seem to WELCOME Ben's knife? He did not attempt to protect himself at all. Maybe he just didn't really think Ben would do it? Or was he sacrificing himself for some greater good?

- "They're Coming." I think that's our Season 5 equivalent of "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!"

- So who is coming? Ilana's group? Maybe, but I think it's the Losties currently stuck in 1977. I think the "touch" that Jacob gave them has something to do with preparing them for whatever it is that they have to do next. I have NO idea what that is, so don't ask.

- And then Juliet blows the whole frakking thing up.

Good grief, that whole last 45 minutes or so was some of the most intense television I've ever seen.

Before my feeble attempts at predicting what comes next, let's look at Jacob's visits: He visits Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Jin, Sun, and Locke BEFORE Flight 815, but he visits Sayid and Hurley POST 815, but BEFORE Flight 316. I think that he was making sure all of them got to the Island somehow (although I'm at a loss as to how his visits to Jack and Jin/Sun did that). He was "course correcting" them, and Sayid and Hurley didn't need any correcting to get them on to 815, but they did need the extra "push" to make sure they were on 316. (Maybe...I wouldn't be surprised to find that Jacob was behind some of the "luck" involved in making sure Hurley barely made it onto 815). I'm not sure what all of the "touches" mean...hopefully we'll find that out next season.

OK, so what does it all mean? My early and tentative theory is that Miles is right. The Swan is going to be built right there, where it always was, Desmond is going to go press the button and save the world, Flight 815 is gonna crash, etc. Whatever happened, happened.

Juliet just blew all of the 1977 Losties (except for her...good luck on "V", Elizabeth!) into 2008 on the Island. They are going to be there to take part in the "war" that Widmore told Locke was coming. Season 6 will be a combination of showing us the "war" and all of its ramifications (which I think involve Widmore, Hanso/Dharma, Desmond, Aaron, Walt, etc), maybe showing more of how all of these folks share a connection (possibly through Jacob), and also filling us in on the back story of Jacob and Esau, whose centuries-long ongoing struggle will ultimately turn out to be the underlying story behind the whole series.

Wow. I freaking love this show.

Thanks for joining me this season. It's been a blast, and I appreciate all of you who read these and have let me know that you are reading and that you get something out of it, even if you never comment.

Everybody, please feel free to comment, let me know your thoughts, theories, etc...

Namaste.