Life After "The Incident"

Following my first viewing of "The Incident" back in May, I was very torn. On the one hand, I was completely blown away by the opening scene between Jacob and the MIB (even watching it with Ceddy, Al and Stefan again right after it ended), thoroughly titillated by the Jacob flashbacks, and shocked by the revelation that Locke's really dead. On the other hand, I was annoyed by the motives and capricious attitudes of Jack, Kate, and Juliet, upset about the lack of Des, and frustrated that we were left hanging about the impact of the bomb's detonation.

And at first, the negatives overshadowed the positives in my evaluation of the episode. I couldn't get over the fact that Jack was willing to possibly kill everyone on the Island just for another crack at Kate. He was in full-blown Locke mode, and I was not liking that one bit. I just was hoping he had a stronger motive for taking such a huge risk, like "we need to save all the people who died" or something similarly heroic. Instead, his motives were purely selfish. Add in Kate and Juliet spur-of-the-moment flip-flopping, and the characters came across as silly. The ending was just as bad. Season 5 revolved around the question "can the past be changed?", and I felt like that question needed to be answered in the finale for the season to feel complete.

But last week when I watched "The Incident", I was able to put some those imperfections into a better perspective. Jack's motivations make sense for how his character has developed over the past couple seasons. He's much more maniacal, and his willingness to justify the means with oftentimes self-serving ends has become much more pronounced. Maybe that will affect my feelings and attachment to the character going forward, but at least it didn't cheapen the episode for me anymore. And Kate siding with Jack made plenty of sense; she really has always been with him. Juliet pulling the whole, "I saw the look you gave Kate" still gets under my skin, but having one insane character instead of three is much more bearable.

Sawyer's clearly the only rational one of the bunch. He's just trying to preserve the comfortable life he's settled into with Juliet, and his bewilderment with the decisions of Jack, Kate and Juliet feel the most realistic. As seems to be the trend over the past few seasons, Sawyer's the one with his head on straight, the one thinking clearly, and the one concerned with, to borrow a political phrase "kitchen table" issues, if you will. He tells Jack straight up, "I don't speak destiny". And that's what I love about him and what makes him so relatable. Sawyer's a character who could exist on any show, whereas the other alpha males, Jack and Locke, really could only exist on Lost. That's not a bad thing, but it makes it easier to put yourself in Sawyer's shoes. So I just try to align myself with him when watching those scenes and live vicariously through him as he beats the shit out of Jack.

Becoming more at ease with those parts of "The Incident" has allowed the stronger aspects stand out even more. I mean, it's a freaking Jacob episode! You tell me three years ago that we're going to have a two-hour, Jacob-centric episode and I wouldn't have been able to sleep for weeks! I can't stop using exclamation points! I just love the idea that Jacob has been following around our Losties from the time they were children. It just seems so perfect. Of course these people are special. Of course they have been chosen. A huge mystery like Jacob has enormous potential for letdown, that it would be damn near impossible for any actual answer to rival the feeling of wonderment that accompanies a classic "magic box" mystery (If you don't know what I'm talking about with this "magic box" business, click here - http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2008/01/jj-abrams-mystery-box.html). But it totally fucking did. And that makes me all the more hopeful for season 6 and the dozens of magic boxes that we have yet to open.

So I have come half-circle on "The Incident". It definitely falls within my top 15 episodes of the series, probably even top 10. And I can forgive Damon and Carlton for cutting us off as the bomb explodes (even if I'm still a bit bitter about the fade-to-white rather than the traditional black background, white letters. Hey, I'm a very traditionalist Lost fan), because it has given us 8 months of wild speculation about resets, time loops, "They're coming", and other tasty questions, That's half the fun of the show. So here's some wild speculation for you-

If I have to pick between reset or not, I think there will be a reset. I am not necessarily happy about this - though I trust that the writers won't fuck it up - but I think that they're not likely to make Jack look like a total moron by killing everyone on the Island, especially when the other "hero" - Locke - already met a sad, pathetic ending. And I support this. Both of them can't end up as failures. There will be some sort of caveat, maybe that the people touched by Jacob - Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Jin, Sun, Sayid and Hurley - will all somehow retain their memories from the life we've seen them live over the past five seasons. No way they're wiped clean, tabula rasa-style. That would probably cause a riot, and I'd be leading the charge. But somehow, this reset will allow Jacob to thwart the MIB's plot that resulted in the Magnificent Man's death, saving Locke from his current deceased fate and allowing the Island to return to its rightful state of balance between light and dark.

But honestly I think it will be something we do not see coming. Like, at all. Something totally out of left field. And that's how I like it. Some combination of time travel, resets and alternate time lines perhaps? Who knows. And if you do, don't tell me. I want to be surprised.

Going forward with this blog, I will probably be writing about "big picture" stuff more than observations on episodes since, again, my rewatch has met its natural, if tragic, end. As Ben likes to say, " I have some ideas", and I'll be working on those during this last month of the hiatus. Definitely something that puts the themes of Lost into the perspective of our current cultural climate, a few more character writeups - Locke and Des have been inexplicably absent from most of my posts - and a season six "wish list" that I have already been working on for a couple weeks. I'm very excited about it. Until next time...

Sawyer's No Coward

There's a scene in "Whatever Happened, Happened" where Kate and Cassidy are sitting in the kitchen chatting. Kate had told her old friend - and Sawyer's old flame - the truth about what she and the rest of the passengers of 815 had gone through during those 108 days on the Island. She told her about all the struggles they went through trying to get home. And she told her how Sawyer heroically jumped out of the chopper so the rest of them had a chance to make it home.

But Cassidy is having none of it. She calls Sawyer a coward, says all he was doing abandoning Kate and any commitments he made to her.

Now, Cassidy sure has plenty of reason to hate Sawyer's guts. He stole all her money away and left her with nothing but a bun in the oven. So I can see why she'd despise him more than a fish biscuit for breakfast. But I'm not buying that Sawyer had anything but selfless motives for jumping out of that helicopter. At that point in the series - the season 4 finale - the swashbuckling conman was gone. Enter Jim LaFleur.

We've seen many versions of James Ford. He started off as a selfish, smart alack jackass, nothing more than a thorn in the collective side of the camp. He hoarded supplies, defied Jack at every turn, and kept secrets just for sport - even when he didn't have a secret to keep (See inhalers, Shannon). As he, Michael and Jin pushed off on the raft at the end of season 1, Michael turned to him and said -

"Why does a guy who only cares about himself want to risk his life to save everyone else? The way I see it, there's only 2 choices -- you're either a hero or you want to die." Sawyer coolly responded, "Well, I ain't no hero, Mike".

And he sure wasn't.

But slowly, the rest of the camp's perception of Sawyer - and Sawyer's perception of himself - began to change. He returned from the raft expedition as a person who had put his own well being on the line with a chance at helping the group. Whether intentionally or not, Sawyer became a hero in the eyes of a lot of people, including Kate. She might have hated herself for the way she felt about him - he sure was no Jack - but the feelings he had for her became his saving grace. He fell in love.


Sawyer's affection for Kate became the driving force behind most of his actions. As a prisoner of the Others, he stood up for Kate at the cost of vicious beatings. He waited like a nervous wreck for her to return from her quest to rescue Jack. He pushed her away when she tried to convince him to go back to the beach to ensure that Sayid, Jin and Bernard's surprise assault on the Others had gone as planned, only to propose the same plan himself moments later except with her excluded for her own safety. And finally, in the greatest of all his grand gestures of love and protection, Sawyer leaped from the sputtering helicopter so Kate would have a chance to leave the Island.

This wasn't some Chandler Bing-esque moment of terror when Sawyer realized, "Oh shit, this girl's got me locked down. I better get the hell out of here!". He had already tried to get Kate to stay on the Island with him. When Sawyer jumped out of that helicopter, he wasn't just saving Kate, he was leaving behind his former self, a man consumed by avarice and revenge. As he dove into the ocean, he washed away those old sins. A baptism, if you will. His troubled past was officially behind him.

Redemption. It's one of my favorite themes of the show, and that moment typified redemption for Sawyer more than any other has for any character.

All that and I haven't even accounted for the smattering of selfless, non-Kate acts that would have been entirely foreign to Cassidy's pre-plane crash Sawyer. Dodging bullets with Bugs Bunny-type skill to rescue Claire, protecting Hurley from Locke and Ben, caring for Aaron without hesitation when Claire wandered off in the middle of the night - no way he does these things during the first 50 days on the Island.

Through the first five seasons, Jack as played the role of the typical protagonist. He's the leader. He's concerned with the well-being of the entire group, often saying so explicitly. He's the center of attention. The narrative frames Jack as the hero of this tale. But really, over the past three seasons, Sawyer has been evolving into one of the greatest forces of leadership and protection among the 815ers. He protects his friends for what appear to be entirely altruistic reasons. He doesn't do it to feed his ego or to mask his insecurities. Sawyer does these things because they need to be done and because he feels genuine affection for his friends. Those instincts made him a loving partner to Juliet and successful as the DI's head of security. His thoughtful approach in that position stood in stark contrast to Jack's reactionary and hardheaded mania. I'd have hard time believing many of the characters would elect Jack over Sawyer as leader of the group if a vote were held today (or, I guess more accurately, 1977).

This is exactly why I so desperately hope that the Jughead explosion does not result in a reset. Jack wants redemption (or at least a second chance) the easy way; he does not want to fix himself. It's hard work to take a look at yourself, flaws and all, and make the necessary adjustments. Well, Sawyer put in that hard work, and I could not bear to see it all wiped away by someone else's selfishness. For once, just let Sawyer be happy that "what's done is done".

Perfect Timing

It's approaching 1:30 in the morning. I'm in Jacob's secret lair at the base of the statue. Locke (version MIB) has Ben on the brink of killing the magnificent man. We know he's an impostor. It's tense. It's dark. And then, pvvt. Power gone. TV out. Jacob and his weave, Ben and his knife, Locke and his scowl, they all just vanish into the darkness. Let the obscenities fly! And I am stuck with only 10 minutes of battery life to tell this story. I thought Jack, Sawyer and Locke had it rough...this takes the cake.

Destiny Question

If it was Daniel Faraday's destiny to go back to the Island, why did Ms. Hawking have to work so hard to guide him there? Shouldn't this have happened on its own? This calls into question the whole idea of destiny. If there really was only one possible outcome - that Daniel goes to the Island to be killed by his mother - then she shouldn't have cared whether he spent his time playing the piano, mackin' on Theresa, or solving ridiculously complex physics problems. Same goes for her encounter with Desmond. Whether he bought that ring for Penny that day or not, she should have known that he would end up on the Island regardless.

I think Ms. Hawking didn't really believe in destiny at all, hence why she felt the need to push her son onto a path that led to the Island. And at the same time, she wanted him to develop an expertise in physics so that he could crack the straitjacket of time that binds people into "whatever happened, happened". As a dutiful Other (Or was she? We haven't seen her on the Island in 30 years. Maybe she was banished? That's a topic for another time), she would follow her destiny as she knew it to be, but all the while holding out hope that her son could figure out a way to erase her terrible act. Whether it worked or not, we'll find out in a few weeks.

My faith in the "whatever happened, happened" theory has been waning of late. Since the finale, I've been firmly in the camp that Jughead always explode, that was indeed the incident, and there was nothing Jack could do to reset everything back to September 22, 2004. Now I'm not so sure. I'm still confident that we're not going to start Season 6 with 815 coasting into LAX, nor will the plane crash again with slightly different circumstances or anything like that. But how could an atomic bomb go off in such close proximity to characters like Chang and Radzinsky - two characters whose futures we have seen in the form of orientation videos and blood splatters - without them being killed? It's impossible. The Jughead explosion was not part of the original timeline. I just can't figure out what timeline it will create.

"You're not ready to go to the Island"

"What kind of name is Bram anyway?" That's the only thing running through my head whenever I see that totally generic dude who drags Miles into the van, costing him a fish taco in "Some Like it Hoth", and who later ends up lugging the corpse of John Locke around the Island in "The Incident". It really gets in the way of good Lost thinking.

But I managed to push that nagging question out of mind at least temporarily to to a little theorizing. Using the transitive property, it appears that Bram is working with Jacob, since Jacob called on Ilana for help and Ilana's buddies with Bram. And Bram is very anti-Widmore, as demonstrated by his courtship of Miles. Does that mean Widmore and Jacob are enemies? And because the MIB is clearly Jacob's enemy, is Widmore in cahoots with the MIB? I've stated as much before, but this little chain of connections certainly lends more evidence to the claim.

Bram asks Miles the "What did one snowman say to the other?" question of season 5 - "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" Miles offers a snarky remark, and Bram answers with "Then you're not ready to go to the Island". What? Is this just a throwaway line, or is there something more here? Was Miles not "supposed" to go to the Island on the freighter, somehow causing the entire time-traveling fiasco? If you subscribe to the "whatever happened, happened" ideology, the answer is no; Sawyer, Jack and crew always ended up in 1977.

But at the same time, a couple tidbits suggest that the path our characters traveled was not their only possible path. The most significant one involves a miraculously special person - Desmond. Brotha Des saw visions of the future, but on four different occasions, he prevented the future from happening. This directly led to Charlie turning off the jammer switch in the Looking Glass station, allowing the freighter people to come to the Island, leading Ben to turn the Donkey Wheel, and causing everyone to skip through time. It's easy to see how the first intended future - Charlie dying after being struck by lightening - would have prevented the rest of the dominoes from falling in place.

So what's my point? I don't think I have one. But if I do, here it is - Bram was trying to prevent all the time-skipping from taking place under orders from Jacob. Jacob is trying to undermine the established timeline of events - the one that Faraday wrote in his journal and Eloise Hawking has used as her playbook for the past 30 years. Something that always happens needs to be prevented, and preventing Miles from getting on the freighter stops it from happening. But why only Miles then? Did Bram also approach Daniel and Charlotte? He didn't seem to think much of the candidacy of Frank. I think I've dug myself too deep.

My brain hurts. Until next time.

Two Half-Baked Ideas

I like to watch Lost late at night. My typical ritual involves waiting for everyone to fall asleep, turning off all the lights, turning on all the analytical parts of my brain and diving into the next episode of my rewatch. I feel like I can do my best thinking at this time of night; it's just me, the show and, recently, a little notepad to jot down any interesting thoughts I may have. Little possibility for distraction. No glare on the TV. It's just me and the show. Then again, since this is all going down at ungodly hours of the night, I'm prone to get a little groggy.

Last night, the rewatch took me to "Whatever Happened, Happened" and "Dead is Dead". I wrote two things down on my trusty notepad as I struggled to keep my eyes open -

1) "Something w/ temple & smokey makes you next leader of Others"

2) "Island kills babies cuz Ben wouldn't kill alex "what Jacob wants?"

I'll tackle these two brilliant, articulate insights one at a time:

1) How do the Others determine who becomes their leader? In "Cabin Fever", we saw Richard give Locke the Dalai Lama test, but they can't just go around giving this test to every kid who lands on the Island. Or do they? Maybe that's why they take children. In between his questions about Vincent, Walt did say they made him take tests. Farfetched, but possible. But the thought that passed through my head yesterday evolved from Richard taking Ben into the temple to heal him. I don't think they test everyone with knives, compasses and the Book of Laws. Maybe something in that temple makes them different, makes them "lose their innocence", as Richard (creepily) put it. We already know the smoke monster conducts business in there, so maybe it brands them in a way that will forever change them. I don't know. That's why it's a half-baked idea.

2) We see in "Dead is Dead" that Charles Widmore ordered Ben to kill Rousseau and baby Alex under the almighty reason of "protecting the Island". Well, this time on the receiving end of this common rationale, Ben refuses, shooting back "Is killing this baby what Jacob wants?" I sure as hell don't know the answer to that question. But it got me thinking, what if this act of defiance toward the wishes of Jacob caused the fertility problems the Others experience under the Linus administration? We know that babies could be born on the island 1977, meaning any problem must have begun afterward. Maybe the fertility problems are a sort of psychosomatic symptom, but instead of the body suffering from problems of the mind, the Island suffers in a way that coincides with the transgressions of it's leader. I think I might be on to something here...

One more thought - At one point, Locke (version MIB) says to Ben that his relocation of the Others into Dharmaville "doesn't seem like something the Island would have wanted". If Smokey can speak for the Island - which I'm guessing, to a certain extent, he can - that's not a good sign for Ben. Killing Jacob and defying the best wishes of the Island as the leader of the Other's does not seem like a good combo to have on your resume.

Random Thoughts

Just finished "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". A few random thoughts through the unofficial first half of season 5 -

• Where does Kate get off unloading on Locke like she does in "Jeremy Bentham"? Locke never really did anything to her like he did with Charlie, Jack or Sayid. So why would she feel compelled to throw his angry, lonely existence back in his face like that?
• Why does Walt dream of Locke back on the island with a group of people around him trying to kill him? We've seen a group of people stand around Locke's dead body ("The Incident"), but that's not the same thing. Does that mean Locke somehow really is resurrected? Or is Walt dreaming about Locke, version MIB? I hope they get back to this next season.
• I cannot watch the first part of "316" without getting an overwhelming urge to jam pencils into my ears. I just cannot stand Ms. Hawking. I can't stand her. I don't know if it's her acting, or the way she gets a little two scientific with the details of how the island moves or how they need to get back (couldn't they have just said everybody needs to go back, have a few subtle parallels like Locke in Christian's place, Hurley with the guitar case, etc, and left it at that?), but I get more irritated by her than any other aspect in the series. The last half is great (Ben's "Doubting Thomas" speech, the flight back to the island), but I have a hard time getting past the first few scenes.
• Since last year's finale, I've theorized that Charles Widmore has been in cahoots with the MIB. This is pretty much based on the idea that Widmore and the MIB have a similar agenda; they both want Locke back on the island, they both tell him he's special (I'm assuming the MIB did a lot of the on-island things that broght him to this conclusion originally), and they both generally seem evil. Anyway, in "Jeremy Bentham", some of what Charles tells Locke in that "hospital" in Africa made me question my assumptions. Charles insists that Jack, Kate and the rest return to the island with Locke. But since "The Incident" paints a picture suggesting that Jack and the others have been somehow "chosen" by Jacob and that "they're coming" to help him, maybe Widmore's not so bad.
• I just love the scene in "Jughead" where Des charges into Widmore's office, lays down the law, gets what he needs, and slams the door behind him. So long, Des the coward. I'd say he got his honor back.

That's all for now. I've noticed this blog is sorely lacking in Locke discussion. That needs to change.

Hurley's Fatness

Hurley's weight has fluctuated over the years. Here's how I break it down on a system of 1 to 10, 1 being fat, 5 being Mongo, and 10 being Jumbotron.

Season 1 - He's pretty fat. Not outrageously so, but your wouldn't think he'd be crossing any old, tattered rope bridges. But he does, so that earns him a 4.

Season 2 - He's not turning any heads, but he dropped a few belt sizes. And Libby cute enough that she isn't going after the fattest of the fat. All that running on the beach gets him a 2.

Season 3 - Hurley really starts ballooning. Both Charlie and Sawyer decline his help on critical missions. We don't see him eating any peanut butter off leaves or chugging ranch dressing like a hungover college kid drinking water, but I suspect he's doing both. That earns him a 7.

Season 4 - All the time in New Otherton gave him plenty of opportunities to graze on Apollo bars. Also, he doesn't have to trek through the jungle nearly as much. It shows. 8.

Season 5 - It might be his unfortunate wardrobe, but Hurley never looks fatter than he does in this season. That Dharma jumpsuit just doesn't look as good on him as it does, say Roger Workman. And four last words: I Heart My Shih-Tzu. 10.

Lifted Material

I realize I've been on Jack overload lately, but indulge me on one last note (at least until I get to 316).

Jack likes to portray himself as a product of his own Herculean efforts, with everyone else often only playing supporting roles. One of my favorite examples of this is the 5-second story he tells Kate in the very first episode. After he made the wrong cut in one of his first surgeries, he was scared. But instead of letting the fear overwhelm him, he counts to five, puts the fear aside, and fixes his mistake. It's the ultimate instance of mind over matter, a perfect microcosm of Jack's belief in his ability to control any situation. I love that story.

But in "The Incident", we find out that his father, Christian was the one who told him to take those five seconds. Not only that, Jack resents his father for, what he says, embarrassed him in front of his team. So, what Jack later turns into one of his greatest triumphs of determination and mental toughness was really an instance of his father - a person wiser and more experienced than he - helping him succeed in a way he could not on his own. And all he could do was pout.

This revelation suggests that although Jack blames his father (either explicitly or subconsciously) for most of his insecurities, in reality, he owes him what little faith he has in himself. Not that Christian Shephard was perfect - the first time we saw him, he was telling Jack he just doesn't have what it takes to handle it when he fails - but Jack's lack of self-confidence led him to take every helping hand as a personal slight. Grow up Peter Pan, Count Chocula. You have to learn to trust yourself and trust others. Otherwise, you will go through life angry and regretful. Oh wait, that's what you've done.

In "There's No Place Like Home", Jack borrows the idea for The Lie from another one of his supposed adversaries - John Locke. This case illustrates that somewhere inside him, he knows that Locke is right, that they crashed there for a a reason, that all roads led there. It's the first sign of Jack as a man of faith. In a way, he's evolving. By the time he's sucking down pills and growing terrible beards, he completely believes Locke. He trusts him. How that leads to blowing up an atomic bomb, that's a whole other story.

My next post will be about something else. I promise.

Something Nice Back Home

"Do you really think I'm good at this?"

"I'm the one who saved you."

"Who in the world am I?"

One of my favorite flashbacks/flashforwards of the entire series has some of the most telling quotes from our fearless leader, Jack Shephard. These three capture the mindset of post-island Jack; they encapsulate his uncertainty, insecurity, and hero complex that will drive him to the depths of despair and eventually lead him back to the island.

The scene that really stuck out to me the most this time through was when Jack wakes Kate up in the middle of the night to propose. First, he asks her if she really thinks he's good at this, at being a loving father and stable mate, two things about which Jack holds tremendous doubt. The former comes from his father (who appropriately haunts him in this very episode), the latter from his failed marriage with Sarah. When Kate says she does, he proposes. She happily accepts.

The expression on Jack's face as he hugs Kate is not only one of joy, but one of accomplishment, like he finally has the woman he's been after since she stitched him up on the beach. It's a lot like the look on his face as defiantly he calls the freighter in Through the Looking Glass. He's on top of the world. But is that really what you should feel when you get engaged? Happiness, yes, but is it really the same as achieving a goal? Is he trying to prove something here? Of course he is. Jack is always trying to prove something, where it's to his father, Ben, Sawyer, Kate, or himself. Kate has always looked to Jack as a hero, someone good. Jack knows this. When she accepts his engagement, Jack sees it as an affirmation from Kate of everything he did as a leader of the survivors. He rescued her from the island and he has earned her respect as a father. It satisfies his hero complex, and for a brief moment it looks like Jack might have put his demons to rest.

It all quickly crumbles when he sees his father in the lobby of the hospital. Not only does he think he's going crazy, but it's a symbol that his insecurities stemming from his relationship with his father are not dead and buried. Jack never thinks he can live up to his father's expectations for him, and seeing him in at the hospital reminds him of that and the island where his body is supposed to be. The question remains - how the hell is Christian Shephard appearing to Jack at all? Is it Jacob? Is it the Man in Black? Is it something else entirely? Either way, it's clear Jack takes this as the first sign that leaving the island might not have been the right thing thing to do.

When Jack comes home to Kate talking on the phone late at night, his trust issues begin to emerge as well. An under-discussed part of Jack's character is his issue with trust, and it's twice as bad with women he cares for than anyone else (see Tale of Two Cities). And Kate, who has undermined that trust on several occasions, is especially vulnerable to incurring his distrustful wrath. Coupled with his visions of his father, and there's a recipe for disaster. Now bad Jack starts pouring out. The drinking. The suspicions. The chest-thumping. He's jealous of Sawyer even though they're separated by 30 years and thousands of miles. After all this, his relationship with Kate is never the same. Somehow this leads to him blowing up an atomic bomb, but that's a little ways off still.

Jack's encounters with his father and with Hurley start to sow the seeds of doubt about whether leaving the island was really the right thing to do. How can his father be walking around if his dead body should be somewhere on that island? How is Charlie talking to Hurley, and actually giving him poignant advice? The transition to a man of faith begins in this episode. He just doesn't know it yet.

Jack Shephard - Killer?

In "Man of Science, Man of Faith", Jack tells his future wife that he hurt his ankle running all the stairs in a stadium. When she asks him why he would do that, he answers, "I'm intense." That's as much of an understatement as Ben saying "I lie to people" or Kate saying "I'm a two-timing ho." That second one might not be fair, but you get the idea. Especially after watching "Through the Looking Glass" and "The Beginning of the End," intensity hardly describes Jack Shephard; it's more like insanity.

After Ben tricks him into thinking that Tom just shot Jin, Sayid and Bernard, Jack delivers one of the most savage beatings of the entire series, capped off with a nice "I'm gonna kill ya" to the supposed murderer on the other end of the walkie-talkie. He then tells Kate that once he gets everyone rescued and rubs his success in Ben's face (with a expression that horrifies Kate), he's going to kill him too. After pulling the trigger of a gun pointed at Locke's face, Jack seems to turn into a completely different person - a person ready and willing to kill anyone who gets in his way of getting off the island.

My question is, since when is Jack a killer? This is the same guy who wouldn't torture Henry Gale, and now he's Billy the Kid. After his gun jammed when he tries to shoot Locke (which I'm certain was the island's doing, not the result of an unloaded gun like Locke says), I remember feeling that the Jack Shephard that I knew and loved was gone. To some extent, that might be true. He's a completely different man. His one-track mind at this point in the series (late S3-S4) focuses relentlessly on getting off the island; his old morals and values do not matter.

The one thing that made Jack such an appealing character early in the series was his strong moral compass. He treated decisions of great consequence like the deserved to be treated. Now he's blowing up atomic bombs just to get another crack at a life with Kate. He's still my favorite character, and I admire his unparalleled sense of self-efficacy, but I miss the guy who was more concerned with constantly proving himself and less consumed with guilt and regret.

I have a hard time writing posts about Jack. I've thought a lot about him, but he's such a complex character with such an expansive story that it's hard to capture it all in one post without it turning into War and Peace. I mean, we're dealing with over 100 episodes and about 10 flashbacks/flashforwards. His issues are so inter-related - his inability to let go, his guilt, his desire to prove himself, his insecurities about his father - that discussing one inevitably leads to another, and then you've got yourself about 50 tangents and too many paragraphs. I will work on this. His character deserves it. And if this blog is going to be worth anything to my future self as a documentation of my thoughts and feelings while going through my favorite show of all time, I have to find a way to make it work.

The Man Behind the Curtain

No episode has changed as much as this one in terms of it's meaning to the overall mythology of Lost. After it first aired (and really up until The Incident), this was our only glimpse of Jacob. Various characters had dropped his name here and there, and Hurley and Locke saw the cabin in season 4, but as far as we new, Jacob was not involved in either of those instances. That's what made it such a seminal episode. All we knew (or thought we knew) was that Jacob was a guy who lived in a cabin, was very old-fashioned, could speak to people telepathically, cause violent turmoil, and choose to whether or not to be visible. We assumed Ben took orders from him, that Richard never spoke to him. Now we know some of that is wrong. We have no clue what to make of that scene in the cabin. And after season 6, it will take on an entirely different meaning once we get some answers about the Jacob/Man in Black struggle.

After The Incident, what are we supposed to take away from The Man Behind the Curtain? If Ben has never spoken to Jacob, who was in that chair? Was it the Man in Black? Was it nobody at all? And why did Ben choose to take Locke there if he didn't even know where Jacob was? Had he gone to that cabin previously for instructions? And if so, does that confirm that the Man in Black has been influencing the Others for quite some time? That would certainly suggest that the Man in Black was the one who ordered the Purge, given how nicely that would parallel the flashbacks of the episode.

I have all the confidence in the world that we will get these questions answered in season 6. And when we do, then we will be able to put The Man Behind the Curtain and all it's craziness into perspective.

Hardcore Rewatch

Hopefully this post will be better than my last...god those are some bad picks.

Season 5 DVDs come out next Tuesday. I need to be through seasons 1-4 by then, so I'm hitting the rewatch hard. Zipped through season 3, disc 3 Sunday, plugged through disc 4 yesterday. Next up, one of the strongest stretches of the series to close out season 3, then season 4, which might be my favorite season of all. This coming week is going to be great.

No groundbreaking revelations, but a few scattered thoughts -

• Expose is an awesome episode. Hilarious. Dramatic. Incredibly self-aware. That was one of the biggest strengths of The X-Files; it knew exactly what it was and could poke fun at itself in sharp, clever way. D & C really took advantage of Nikki and Paulo to do the same thing here.
• Claire is annoying. She's pretentious. She's whiny. I didn't realize how much I haven't missed her this last year. Hopefully all this time trouncing around the jungle has led to a serious attitude adjustment.
• Jack's time in captivity with the Others flips the switch that begins his relentless efforts to get off the island. Seeing Kate with Sawyer, Locke blowing up the sub, the loss of control, it all turns him from merely a driven commit-o-phile to borderline psychopath hell-bent on leaving the island at all costs. Hopefully more on this soon.
  
• Stranger in a Strange Land - It pisses me off when they introduce characters on-island that you never see again (like Harper in The Other Woman). They did this here with the old woman who is supposedly the "sheriff". What the hell? Wouldn't the sheriff of the Others be a pretty important character? And if not, why introduce her at all? Couldn't Ben just have decoded Jack's tatoos? And how does "He walks among us but is not one of us" fit into the larger Jack picture? Too many questions, and not the kind that tickle your brain.
• I want to know what the Magic Box is. I am convinced that it's not just a mind game Ben was playing with Locke. The easy answer would be the Monster. I like this one better - the Temple. There's some weird stuff going on in that Temple. After Sayid shot Ben, Richard brought him there to save his life. Then again, the Monster appeared from a vent in the Temple to "judge" Ben in Dead is Dead, so it could be a mix of both. Either way, I guarantee we get an answer to this at some point in season 6.
• Jack spiking the ball at the end of Par Avion is just awesome. The little stutter just adds so much. Tom throwing like a queen is almost as good.
• Season 3 might have the best collection of cliffhangers of any season. There are so many [woah] BOOM moments that it's hard to keep track of them all.
  

Alright, that's plenty for now.