Lost 16+17x05 - The Incident

... I'm not going to bother with spoiler tags. Pretty much if you haven't watched the finale of season 5, GFTO.

What an abso-fucking-lutely amazing episode. Yes, that did require tmesis. In terms of overally mythos reveal, storytelling from technical AND narratological perspective, and character developments, this definitely sits near the top on my all time favourite Lost episodes. Now onto the actual episodic breakdown ...

Actually, before that, a note on how I analyse episodes. It should be clear now that I think people who can only extrapolate from the elements of the show and dismiss anything that does anything extra are idiots. Up until this point, anyway, TPTB withheld important mythological factors for the sake of good storytelling. And as such, any theories that JUST use what's in the episodes will never hit the mark. The mythos = empirical details + hidden details. And since they're hidden, we can only guess them.

And the way I approach guessing them is to think how I would personally answer things, as that is ultimately going to be the best. It doesn't matter if I'm wrong - since we have no actual hints as to these hidden things, any guess is as valid as the other. What sets one theory above another is that it feels right. For instance, before Deathly Hallows, I was absolutely convinced that Dumbledore would be revealed to be evil. I had a long, spiralling and in depth theory as to how Voldemort was the only person alive who knew Dumbledore's secret (where he got his power by dark magic with Grindelwald). There were really no clues that led me to think that, it was a theory that answered hanging plot points.

In reality, I wasn't too far off. I mean, I correctly guessed Jo would de-throne Dumbledore from his pedastal and that he had a much deeper relationship with Grindelwald than just defeating him. The manner in which this happened was obviously very misled.

Did the hydrogen bomb explode?
Probably the most pressing thing and the thing TPTB wanted us to focus our attentions to. I mean one only has to think it through. We are led to believe that the bomb went off - the sound effects and the white flash. So first episode season 6 ... However they start it off, they HAVE to address the issue - if we see them on the Island, nothing changed, and if anything else then they changed things.

If they DIDN'T change things, that is whatever happened happened, they are going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to not make it a disappointment. As the season cliffhanger, if they resolve it as a dud pretty much straight away people will hate it. Just think of all the shows out there have leave with season cliffhangers only to resolve it within 2 minutes of the next episode.

It is for this reason that I think it will be necessary for the bomb to have gone off. For that not to have been what always happened. That it isn't the incident. (WAIT! CAVEAT: The only satisfactory answer is if it is what causes the incident - BUT the Losties timetravel to the Ajira time. But even here I think there could be some problems..)

Under the assumption that the bomb explodes and they've erased them ever coming to the Island. One wonders if how that happened is that they destroyed the Island and therefore there is no reason for them to land. Or if the bomb really wasn't as strong as everyone made it out to be such that it lacked its cataclysmic properties and caused minor damage and that the Island was relatively unharmed. OR is the explosion's affect on the universe's self-correction principle that things just reset/alter to one where the Island still exists? I'm thinking it's going to be either of the last two.

Either way - if the show progresses with 815 landing as normally with all the passengers there unaware of all they went through ... Then they're going to waste half the season just trying to remember or even getting back. And as we saw in season 5, that would just feel rushed and uncessary.

Thus we are left with a few options, all involving consciousness travelling. 1) 815 still crashes and the whole cast wakes up from the crash except with all the memories of the Island. Thus they never have to redo anything or try to gain their memories back - it's 2004 and they can get on with whatever main plot season 6 has. 2) 815 lands. Losties consciousness travel directly onto the plane. Thus they will seek each other out and get on with the main plot. 3) 815 lands and zombie losties live their lives out for three years. 2008 roles around, and suddenly they all consciousness travel there, disoriented by the lives their zombie selves lived in the past three years. (That is, Jack buries his father, then stays a doctor, possibly remarrying .. and then waking up in his brand new life).

What will be interesting is which of the Others will also consciousness travel. I think the main players... Ben, Widmore, Richard, Eloise will ... Then again, if I make the rule too loose then I might as well say the entire world will consciousness travel (which could potentially happen, but won't that just be odd? :\).

The only antithetical arguments for things changing is that it doesn't really leave room for the Shadow of the Statue people. If things change, will they remember? And if they're not on the Island and in 2004/8, will they come looking for the losties? But if they all wakeup after 815 crashes .. then they'll need to travel to the Island all over again before they get there.

On the plus side, dead people can come back ... Charlie (hence the Driveshaft ring that Sun finds, left there since season 3 (and assumed to be forgotten/dropped)), Boone, Shannon (!! :D), Alex, Rousseau. And probably most importantly, Jacob.

Jacob and friend
Boy, did I get m theory on Jacob not being Jacob and in fact the actor being cast as The Economist wrong :P Turns out he is Jacob. We learnt many things about Jacob, and funnily in learning these things, more and more mysteries are opened.

Lots of people are clinging to the idea that Jacob believes in the good of people and the ability not to do wrong by the Island, unlike his compatriot, whom I will called X, who thinks it's human nature to defile the Island. I'm almost certain that's what they want us to think, and therefore isn't a valid position to hold.

I refuse to believe that it's all just some "game", what people are subscribing to, either. I definitely think the stakes are high in this.

Also, my running theory right now is that neither Jacob or X have anything to do with the Egyptians. I think Jacob brought them there, similarly to how he brought the Black Rock (most likely) and brought 815. Would that be amazing if the Island wasn't Egyptian at all, but they were only one of the first people to find it? And I say this because they're forcefeeding us all this egyptian stuff - the heiroglypths since season 2, Ben's secret door, the tunnel walls, the wheel chamber, the statue, Smokey's mural. None of it seems like the Egyptians made the Island or have anything to do with its components - it's like they're just an extra layer on top of the already existing core.

So what are Jacob and X? It pains me to have to say this, but I'm leaning towards something I mentioned a few posts back ... Angels. Not the archetypical, wing-sprouting flying beings... But I mean beings who are bound by God's will. So why can't X kill Jacob? I think it has to do with ... one of my favourite phrases from Lost: The Rules.

I think of the most important lines of season 5 comes from The Variable, in which Faraday remarks that "we are the variables". Humans. Free will - that was God's gift to humans, a trait he denied the angels. There are rules, things which the angels must abide. But ultimately, the rules don't apply to humans. God's great experiment.

And this is why X is able to successfully get Ben to kill Jacob, something he couldn't do himself. The loophole bypassing the rules of God. Which is also why Jacob just stands there and takes it from Ben.

Of course this doesn't answer *why* Jacob is bringing humans to the Island. Why he's touching them. Could touching them be giving them free will (likely not unless he's touched Ben...)? Then Desmond isn't as miraculously special as Faraday made out. Or does touching them just mark them special, or naturally bring them to the Island? By what criteria is Jacob picking these people? To what end do they serve?

I was also toying with the idea that Jacob and X were really one person - maybe the soul and the body of the one person. At first I was theorising last week that Jacob was Richard's soul that he trapped in order to stay alive. Like a horcrux type situation... but maybe it's between Jacob and X?

Dead Jacob???
Nope. They're not going to introduce him for only one ep, considering his major role in the story of the past and the future. He will come back (either by the past changing), even if it means his death by Ben was orchestrated.

Could the "Candidate" Bram and Illana discuss mean a possible candidate for Jacob's soul? Alternatively, could his presence at John Locke's fall ... and elongated physical contact, such that it reawakened Locke... could he have ... er... transferred part of him into Locke? And now is waiting for to get up in front of Illana, Bram, Sun, Richard and the Others?

Speaking off...

Lock dead???
Noppe. Again. His story isn't done. Either X's possession of his exterior isn't *just* a facade, I mean he has access to all of Locke's memories and idiosyncrasis. Sure, that could be a power X has. Or Locke's in there somewhere.

Alternatively, maybe John Locke does actually come back to life. Much to the surprise of everyone, especially X and Jacob, whom have never seen it either.

One of the most important things I think all the people on forums are overlooking is that John Locke made himself special. They seem to take this to mean he isn't special at all, that it was all a ruse he made. Alternatively, I look at it from my own humanist perspective. He made himself special. His specialness is much greater than any ordained specialness because it is one he gave himself. So I think there is a real possibility he will come back and ultimately be what causes the end of the entire show.

Christian????
I have no idea what to think of Christian right now. I am and always was certain he was more than Smokey incarnate and that he was special. The question is, of course, what his role is. Whose side is he one? In fact, whose side is Smokey on? Or Widmore.

That's all I can afford to write tonight. *sleep*