Today’s post filler comes from Milton’s Areopagitica, which was written in 1644 in support of “the liberty of unlicensed printing” — in other words, against censorship or book banning. I quote it for reasons which should become clear.
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.
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