So.

Things in the Sideways World are set to converge at David Shephard’s concert, part of the grand opening ceremonies for the new paleontology wing at Pierre Chang’s museum, funded by and named after Hurley.

I did not see that particular scenario coming.

Interesting, though, that this gathering almost mirrors the benefit thrown by the Widmores — we haven’t seen Daniel or Eloise since that episode, and just as Widmore snuffs it here, it’s like that particular narrative layer has folded up. (Maybe.)

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It felt as though the story was truly and finally settling in for a sit around the campfire to tell us everything we need to know. (Not necessarily WANT to know. But need.)

It was an excellent blend of quiet scenes, weighted with the full force of previous seasons, and explosive violent scenes. I loved the scene between Jack and Locke in the Sideways world, as I have tended to love all of their scenes together. Loved that Locke echoed his own words from Season 1: What if all this is happening for a reason? And loved that Jack replied with another Lostian echo: Don’t mistake coincidence for fate.

Loved Ben’s scenes with Alex and Danielle, particularly that they happen after Desmond forcibly shows Ben the world that should be, so that Ben must have gotten flashes of Alex as his daughter on the island as he watched her study. And that knowing look that passes between Ben and Danielle — I’m chalking that up to “I remember you” and not any sort of romantic moment. Because the latter is a little too much for me to handle right now.

(Sidenote: I think I’m going to institute coq au vin night.)

And Ben tells Locke that Desmond was there to help Locke “let go.” It didn’t occur to me before that letting go is something both Lockes would benefit from — Sideways Locke needs to let go of his guilt and martyrdom so that he can have the chance to walk again; Smokey Locke needs to let it all go — his rage, his vengeance, his plan to kill everyone, his plan to destroy the island. Seriously. Dude. Just let it go.

Which makes me wonder whether Ben’s apparent 180 (or 360, as it were) is his plan to get Smokey to let go. Because I’m 97% sure that Ben is playing Smokey, either for self-preservation (which is completely in keeping with his character) and/or to save the island (ditto). He needs Smokey to believe that he’s on his side, so he gives up Widmore (I have to believe that revenge was always at the forefront of Ben’s mind as well, especially after Miles and Richard bring up Alex). And in using Smokey to kill Widmore, Ben appears to, possibly, once again have the upper hand as he has always had with Locke, up until the point at which Smokey/Locke convinced him to kill Jacob.

Which is not to say that Ben wasn’t absolutely, completely CHILL-MAKING in these scenes. Sinister Ben, I have missed you. But please don’t be evil.

Can’t say I’m sorry to see Widmore go, either. Much better to have the fate of the island rest in the hands of the characters we really got to know over the last six seasons.

But oh, Richard. The minute he said “I’m going to go talk to him” I knew it would go wrong because one of the things we know for sure is that you do NOT let Smokey talk to you if you want to stop him. But I wasn’t prepared for Smokey to hurl Richard so violently into a tree. Can Smokey kill Richard as he couldn’t kill Jacob? I don’t see anyone coming back from that, immortal or not. And if Richard’s indeed dead, he got an even rawer deal than Ilana and all the people on the sub. (Although it might have been better that way, as I don’t think I could take another drawn-out death scene.)

And Jack stepped up to become the next Jacob. OK, first of all, the scene around the fire made me recant what I said last week, that perhaps the whole of “Across the Sea” could have been reduced to a couple of flashbacks within another episode. Had that been done, I don’t think Jacob’s words to Kate, Sawyer, Jack, and Hurley would have been as impressive or powerful. Second, I am fully on board with Jack’s choice. He made that choice from an understanding that it was his destiny — this is why he was brought to the island; this is why he was brought to the lighthouse. These are the answers he’s wanted. He made his choice as Season 6 Jack, not as Season 1 Jack, who would’ve stepped up out of a compulsion to have to be the one in charge, in control, at all times. Both Season 1 and Season 6 Jack are still powered by their need to fix things, but their motivations for wanting to do so are different.

What I didn’t buy so much was Hurley’s “At least it wasn’t me.” I may be saying so out of a slight sense of my own disappointment, but I caught in Jorge Garcia’s delivery more than a touch of regret that he didn’t step up before Jack did.

Other things:

Jack’s neck started bleeding — something he first noticed on the flight back from Sydney, still as mysterious as ever. A literal bleeding in of the original timeline into the sideways timeline?

We get teased with the prospect of finally seeing who David’s mom is. Any guesses?

Who let Desmond out of the well?

I liked the breakout scene, featuring Ana Lucia as a shady bribe-taking cop.

Strange men keep giving Kate dresses.

Speaking of Kate, what did you think about Jacob’s explanation for why her name was crossed out?

Finally, as we look toward the finale (!!), what do you most want to see happen? What’s left unanswered for you?

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Lost – “Dr. Linus”
2. Thoughts on Lost – “The Substitute”
3. Thoughts on Lost – Recon

The Mother says as much to Jacob and He Who Has Yet to Be Smokey: You came from me, I came from my mother, she came from hers, and so on and so on. Every question I answer will lead to another question. [Audience: Gee, ya think?]

But . . . she’s NOT their biological mother. She’s LYING to them. From the beginning, she’s lying to them. How do we know that anything she says to them is the truth? She could be making all of it up. And really — we don’t know how she came to the island and we don’t know how long she’s been there, but isn’t it possible that these were stories she told herself to make sense of her life, stuck on this place without any chance of getting off? I mean, wouldn’t you? If you knew you were going to be there for the rest of your life, wouldn’t you make up a story to make your fate seem a little less helpless, a little more noble, a little more Grand? I’m not helpless, I am protecting the world!

I may be alone in this, but I love that the Man in Black has no name. That he is, ultimately, Unknowable. And since the Mother is also unnamed, I’m starting to wonder whether the Man in Black is actually the Mother’s true successor. What if the Mother was, in fact, the First Smoke Monster? And she was playing the brothers against each other from the very beginning, immediately after they were born? She wanted Boy Smokey to find the game. SHE took Claudia’s form and led him to the truth. And — the Man in Black kills her before she has a chance to say anything to him (this has been mentioned before — Dogen tells Sayid he has to strike Fake Locke before he has the chance to speak, or the opportunity is lost). And maybe, in setting Jacob up as the island’s protector, she’s ensured that this game between light and dark will continue for an extremely long time. Centuries, even. Also: at one point she tells the boys the same exact thing that the Man in Black says to Jacob in the finale of Season 5: “They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.”

It was clear, wasn’t it, that what we watched unfold last night took place a long, long time ago? Way before the statue. (See, now I wanna know who built the statue, and whether it was to Jacob’s own specifications. Is Tawaret supposed to be some homage to his two mothers?) Claudia and The Mother speak to each other in Latin, at least I think it’s Latin. It makes sense that it would be Latin, since we know that’s the language of the Others — Jacob’s people.

And speaking of the Others, here’s another theory: Smokey brought the DHARMA Initiative to the island. I don’t know how, but it was established that he’s attracted to the people who know things, who can manipulate the island’s special properties, and help him get off the island. Help him rebuild the donkey wheel. And then it would make sense that Jacob’s people would want the DHARMA folks annihilated, just as that first group of villagers was.

What I don’t get: So — the Man in Black is actually dead. I do like the implication now that that scene at the beginning of the Season 5 finale was a conversation between Jacob and a ghost. But I don’t understand why he’s still trying to get off the island. What’s the point? Just to prove that he can? How is it possible that Jacob can leave, after the Mother told him he couldn’t, not ever?

What I did not like — what I actually hate with a passion, now that I’ve had some time to think about it — was the WHOLLY UNNECESSARY flash to Jack and Kate and Locke in the caves, discovering “Adam and Eve.” C’mon. I know it was a long time ago, but still. Did you think we would not recognize the caves? The game pieces? That we would not remember that Lindelof and Cuse promised we’d find out who those people were? And the cuts back and forth from “House of the Rising Sun” looked sloppy (one minute Jack’s shirtless, the next his shirt is on, because the cuts were made from different moments in the original episode) and completely detracted from the emotional moment wherein Jacob says goodbye to his family, and you can still see on his face, “Mom always did like you best.” If I’d been in charge of this, I might’ve agreed to a fade from that scene to those from “House of the Rising Sun,” just in case people out there weren’t seeing the connection, but the back and forth did not work for me at all. Still — when Jack and Kate find the corpses in the cave, Jack says that the decomp is what you’d expect after 20-30 years, and now we know that he’s missing a few zeros at the end of those numbers.

I am sure that this episode will be polarizing. I bet a lot of you just HATED it, just as a lot of you totally dug it. I totally dug it, even though I think it was flawed. I liked that it keeps the question of morality and good/evil afloat, because this is something the show has always done. I liked that it showed us who Jacob and the Man in Black were as people, before they became these . . . well, deities. I liked that it implied certain answers to long-standing questions. I loved the explanation for how the Man in Black became the Smoke Monster (really, out of all the questions, that one’s pretty key). I LOVED Allison Janney and thought she did a wonderful job as the prototype for all the crazy moms that followed (and honestly, when a show has Allison Janney on it, how bad can it be?).

But I’m not entirely sure that all this backstory needed a separate episode, though I will admit that I am impressed by how bold a move that was, and ultimately there might be a good reason for taking this sharp left turn with only three and a half hours of storytelling left. In its execution, however, this episode leaves a lot to be desired. In moving from character drama to myth, much of the dialogue became clunky and heavy, and all the people on Twitter that made references to the Star Wars prequels aren’t half wrong. It’s especially hard to avoid them when the light at the center of the island is referred to as “The Force.” I mean, REALLY?

There’s a lot that I haven’t mentioned, but I’m at 1200 words here and it’s time to move on to the rest of my day. So what did you think, and what questions do you have?

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Lost – Ab Aeterno
2. Thoughts on Lost – “Dr. Linus”
3. Thoughts on Lost – “Lighthouse”

When God gave [Man] reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing . . . Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? They are not skilful considerers of human things who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin . . .

Suppose we could expel sin by this means [i.e., censorship]; look how much we thus expel of virtue: for the matter of them both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he command us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us, even to a profuseness, all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means which books freely permitted are, both to the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth?

I was of two minds watching this episode: one, it was exactly the sort of answer-driven, mythology-heavy episode we’ve been expecting and patiently (or not) waiting for; two, it didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know or strongly suspect. On one hand, Nestor Carbonell was wonderful and heartbreaking to watch — the brief scenes between Richard and Isabella were more than sufficient to make me believe in their eternal love, like on a Desmond + Penny level. On the other hand, the pacing of the script was a little uneven and while Richard’s backstory was interesting, we didn’t need so much time spent on it. The Black Rock scenes went on for far too long.

I do think we were treated to some depth, however, and I don’t see anything wrong with confirmations and clarifications. I think when we say “WE WANT ANSWERS” we mean “WE WANT SHOCKING REVEALS” and that’s not necessarily what this show does when it delves into the backstories of the characters.

We find out that Ilana was tasked with protecting the six candidates — which I think had already been discussed or hinted at before. I have more questions about that, and I’m curious to know whether the concept of candidates for replacing Jacob didn’t occur to him until the events of this episode transpired — that is, once he knew that the Man in Black had found a way to kill him, thereby creating the need for someone new to keep the cork in in the bottle.

We find out that Richard came from Tenerife in the Canary Islands and, like so many of the other people on the island, is responsible (however accidentally) for taking another person’s life. And, like so many of the other people on the island, feels responsible for the death of a loved one. We find out that, as we’d pretty much known already, Richard came to the island as a slave on the Black Rock — but a convict slave, which is an interesting touch.

If Jacob and the Man in Black are playing this game of how corruptible humans are, then why does the Man in Black kill so many of the castaways on the ship? Wouldn’t he want to keep them around to see if he can bring them to his side and prove his point? Unless one of the rules they have is that they can only play with the people Jacob decides to bring, and this time it was just Richard.

I was not expecting the Man in Black to show up first and release Richard from the chains, but of course it makes perfect sense — and it was a nice callback to Fake Locke’s words to Richard after Jacob’s death: “Good to see you out of those chains” woudl be the one thing Fake Locke could say to Richard that would tell Richard who he was really dealing with. The one defense I can see of the drawn-out scenes of Richard in chains is that by the time the Main in Black finally shows up, Richard is completely broken and at his most vulnerable, ready to agree to anything just to be freed. He’s the perfect candidate for corruption.

And we get a reiteration of the Man in Black’s desire to escape, which can only be done once Jacob is dead (soooooo why hasn’t he left yet? Does he need to get rid of all the candidates as well?). The Man in Black tells Richard exactly what Dogen tells Sayid back in “Sundown” — that he has to strike first; if “the devil” speaks first then it is already too late. (I believe, but am not sure and do not have the time to check right now, that it was the same knife as well.)

I was not expecting Jacob to be so forceful and hardcore in defending himself against Richard’s murder attempt. Might this be the first time that an attempt had been made on his life, and he wasn’t expecting it, whereas he could see it coming with Ben (even though he didn’t think Ben would actually go through with it) because perhaps there had been many more attempts in the interim?

We know now that Richard is like a priest of Jacob, an intermediary, whose purpose is to guide people into choosing the right path. And he is immortal because he asked to be. That was a nice touch, his asking for immortality not because he wanted whatever power comes with it, but because he didn’t want to go to hell. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought that Richard was going to die at the end, when Isabella tells him that he has suffered enough. What I also found interesting was the way Richard’s backstory throws the other episodes he’s figured in this season into relief, particularly his waffling between these two sides. He tells Sawyer not to trust a thing Fake Locke says, that Fake Locke wants to kill everyone, but at the same time he is tetherless and once again vulnerable and wanting to latch on to the only other entity he’s known since he arrived on the island.

Jacob explains to Richard what, again, we pretty much knew already from last season’s finale — that Jacob and the Man in Black hold different ideas about people and are playing a metaphysical game with everyone who comes to the island (and even though we knew, I still liked Jacob saying it explicitly — the same way I already knew that Claire is Jack’s sister and Cooper was the Sawyer from Sawyer’s childhood but still liked that moment of revelation in the show, liked watching the characters process the information). The Man in Black believes that people are easily corruptible because it’s in their very natures, while Jacob . . . well, Jacob doesn’t necessarily disagree that it is in people’s nature to sin, but he clearly believes that people will generally choose good over evil. This again recalls Areopagitica: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary . . . That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue.” And that’s why Jacob doesn’t intervene in people’s choices once they get to the island — they need to have full knowledge of what they’re about to choose, in order to make their choices. The Man in Black will tempt them with promises of being with their loved ones again (which, if they believe in any sort of an afterlife, will happen, only they’ll be really dead) or with other primal desires, while Jacob stands back and trusts that they know in their heart of hearts what is right.

And maybe, ultimately, that is his only plan: to guide people towards the good. Over and over again. To keep the cork in the wine bottle. And so the Richard from a couple episodes ago, the Richard who wanted to put an end to his immortality because he didn’t think he had any of the answers and now believed that his whole life was meaningless, that Richard is kind of like us Losties, railing against the show for not giving us small complicated details when the big picture is really pretty simple and clear.

However.

Jacob is the one who brings them to the island pretty much against their will. I’m having a hard time with that right now.

I also think we only got half the story last night, because I’m still curious about Alvar Hanso and DHARMA and the island’s physics-defying properties. We got the faith story last night — now it’s time for the science story.

My favorite moments of this episode:

– Richard’s crazed “Bitch, PLEASE” giggle when Ilana asks him what they’re supposed to do next.

– Hurley’s translation of “magnificent” to “awesome.”

– The Man in Black smashing the wine bottle. It was a little heavy-handed to be sure, but it did call back to the “loophole” he and Jacob mention at the end of last season. The cork doesn’t matter if the whole bottle breaks.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Lost – Across the Sea
2. Thoughts on Lost – “Dr. Linus”
3. Thoughts on Lost – “The Substitute”

I say the first is wrong, the second is a matter of opinion, and the third I wholeheartedly agree with. I don’t think it’s going to be possible for me to say this season is good or bad until it’s over. Individual episodes so far have been decent, “The Substitute” was excellent, this week’s was better than “What Kate Does” but not as good as the premiere or “The Substitute.” In terms of story I think it’s fine. Did it answer anything? Not concretely. Am I bothered by this? No. I don’t think any of us should be watching this show with a checklist — I mean, I have a checklist, but if I’m watching each episode WAITING for something I think they should address, then I’m not paying attention to what they’re actually DOING.

There. I’m done with the whole “they’re not answering anything” bit, at least for a few weeks. But I definitely agree that the show works better when the group is together — if not physically, then at least within the parameters of a single episode. I miss Ben and Sun and Frank already, even though we saw them last week. I am eager for more of Ilana and her mission. I can’t wait for the timelines to reconcile.

Other things I want: Richard’s story, Desmond’s return (not necessarily to the island), the explanation for what/how/why Christian is.

OK. This episode.

You know, for a Jack ep I quite liked it, and I think that’s because it follows the course laid out last season, where Jack is not really in charge of anything. Here he’s following Hurley through the jungle (just as Sawyer follows Smokey) without knowing why, and when he tries to assert himself in bringing Kate along with them, both Kate and Hurley say no — not part of either’s agenda.

And I liked Sideways Jack as well — also not all that in control, but dealing with it. Doesn’t remember having his appendix out. In the original timeline, it was Juliet who took it out (Season 4, “Something Nice Back Home”). In the sideways timeline it apparently happened when Jack was a kid. his inability to recall this major event, in addition to Claire being named in Christian’s will — which I think would’ve been the first time Sideways Jack hears her name — points to the two timelines drawing closer together.

Sideways Jack has a son named David (who’s the mother? Don’t care. Could be Sarah, could be some random woman we don’t know, hell, it could be Juliet. David’s mom doesn’t seem all that important to the story at this point, so I’m not going to worry about it) who has just as tangled a relationship to Jack as Jack had to his dad, and as Walt had with Michael. Because really — they only see each other once a month? Horrible custody settlement, but maybe that’s because, you know, Jack didn’t have his shit together during the divorce proceedings (his mother’s “good for you” after he refuses a drink was telling). And the other parallel between Jack/Michael and David/Walt was, of course, Dogen telling Jack that David has a gift. It also hearkens back to what a number of people have told Locke over the course of his life.

Connections: David’s reading Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, which Jack had read to Aaron; the sign at David’s audition for the Williams Conservatory said “Welcome all Candidates.” (Ha.)

Dogen: he and Jack have a nice moment at the Temple, echoed in the Sideways world, but it brings up the question of why/how Dogen is off island. Additionally, something I didn’t think of at the time but someone else raised via Twitter, how is Ben off the island in the Sideways world? Two possibilities that I can think of: 1) again, these anomalies (they should’ve gone down with the island — provided, of course, that the island DID blow up and what we saw at the bottom of the ocean was real and not another fake) point to the two timelines drawing closer to reconciliation; 2) if we follow the trajectory of the original timeline, then if the plane never crashes then Ben never gets shot and never gets taken to the Temple . . . and now I’m in Back to the Future mode where it’s better just not to think about this too much.

I’ll get to Hurley/the lighthouse in a second. Want to talk about Claire first. Claire makes me really uncomfortable now, as she’s supposed to, but still — that fake baby? CREEPY. Her face when she tells Jin that Smokey is her friend? So creepy. She doesn’t seem to recognize that Aaron would be three years old now, which is interesting. She also has rewritten history it seems, implying that her friends just left her on the island, when what did happen is that she left Aaron to follow Christian into the jungle — AND she told Locke later that it would be better if he didn’t tell anyone that he saw her. That she distinguishes between “my father” and “my friend” is intriguing and confusing. That she axed the Other was predictable, but I did like how it showed Jin that this is not the Claire he knew, and so he lies to her in order to bring her to people he thinks will be able to help her. Of course Smokey’s along for the ride now, and this is the bad thing that Jacob tells Hurley is coming.

OK. The one thing I did not like about this episode was the shoddy writing given to Hurley. He’s always been the audience stand-in, and the pop culture nerd with the Star Wars references and whatnot, but last night it seemed that all Hurley really did was string along a bunch of Hurleyisms, and that’s not fair, especially when it seems as though Hurley is poised to be the next Island Guy. (Jackie raised a good point last night about the numbers: that their assignation to the other Losties explains why Hurley is drawn to them. As far as I’m concerned, this is the only explanation for the numbers that I need.)

Though I did like his line at the cave, asking whether THEY are Adam and Eve. It reminded me of very early in Season 1, when he’s convinced that the monster is a dinosaur. Both of these explanations are things the television audience had thought as well, and I think the Adam and Eve line is just an acknowledgement of that.

And the Lighthouse. I am sure Jeff Jensen is going to have something to say about Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which if memory serves has a lot to do with simply watching people, but it’s been a very long time since I last read the book (I should reread. It’s damn good). At the lighthouse we get the List again, and I saw more names this time: Dawson, Linus, Rousseau, and Austen, listed at 51, and not crossed off. This screencap, when clicked to embiggen, shows Radzinsky crossed off at 106 and I think Faraday crossed off at 101. (OK, I just like looking for the names.) And at 108, the degree to which Jacob told Hurley the lighthouse should be set, is someone named Wallace, but the name is crossed off. (My first thought: “Marcellus?”)

Lighthouse vs. cave: light vs. dark. Got it.

I’m not sure Jacob knew that Jack was going to smash the mirrors. And I’m also not sure that anyone is coming to the island now, or was ever going to, because the two points of the trip were 1) to get Hurley and Jack away from the temple, and 2) to get Jack to see why he’s important, and give him something to think about as he stares into the ocean. Jacob’s shrug that whoever it is will find another way to the island indicates that he’s not worried, and he might not be worried because he just made it all up in order for Hurley and Jack’s trip to have some sort of meaning for them.

But if someone is coming to the island, then my money’s on Desmond. Wishful thinking perhaps, but if 108 is still a significant number even if the name attached to it on the compass (?) isn’t, then he’s the one most closely associated with it, having pushed that button every 108 seconds for three years.

What were your thoughts?

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Lost – What They Died For
2. Thoughts on Lost – What Kate Does
3. Thoughts on Lost – Everybody Loves Hugo