After 5 seasons, we're all still Lost... Last night's episode, "The Incident", was full of some interesting new revelations. Although, revelations might be too strong a word for it, maybe simply new information might be more accurate.
Beginning with a scene of two men, one of whom we find out is Jacob, both witnessing an older ship off shore (possibly the Black Rock). Then we also see the full statue, which to this point we had only seen it's foot. Jacob, like Richard, doesn't appear to age. Throughout the episode we witness him traveling to quite a number of time periods. Including Kate and Sawyer's childhood and the not so distant past with Hurley the day before returning to the island, among others. One must wonder if Jacob was aware of the events that were to pan out some 30 years later when he visited Kate and Sawyer or if he had actually managed to either A.) time travel to visit them or B.) shift through space and manifest himself there, while not actually being there "permanently". Without knowing exactly what Jacob is will leave these questions unanswered.
Jay Glatfelter had some interesting insight into who Jacob and his partner are here:
We open to a scene introducing the simple life with Jacob. We are also introduced to what seems to be an adversary/friend. He remains nameless but the striking divide between the two is one is wearing white (Jacob) the other black (Anti-Jacob?).On the note of time travel, if the prevailing theory coming into this episode regarding time travel is true (as I believe it is), then nothing that the Losties do will change anything. Unless all of the theories that the Lost writers have composed regarding the time space continuum were just theoretical mumbo-jumbo, if the bomb were to go off they would all just die... That be it. Buh-bye. At least according the the preeminent theory held by many that it is impossible to change the past because you are merely arriving at a point in time that you "already arrived at", just not as your present self... At that point it was actually your future self. Now that you're there as your present self you can only do what you already did. This seems quite complex, but really isn't. There is only one contingent. The understanding that there is only ONE present. If there is only one present, then nothing in the past can change because it has all already happened. When you take your present self back in time when you arrive there you are not changing history, you are setting history up for what already happened. As Mile's said, "You just haven't experienced it yet."
I am already getting theories that this Anti-Jacob is named Esau after the Genesis tale of Jacob and his brother Esau (Ee-Saw). It is a tale of the elder son Esau starving, selling his birthrights to his younger twin brother Jacob for a bowl of red lentil soup. Jacob also tricks his father Isaac (son of Abraham the founding patriarch to the Jew's, Christians, Muslims, and founder of monotheism) to give his deathbed blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. Esau told Jacob that he wanted to kill him, for what he did. Jacob went on to be renamed Israel by God and founded the Israelites tribe. Esau formed his own tribe of people the Edomites, they became associated with Romans/Europe by Jewish history.
So is Esau (I'm going to call the Anti-Jacob Esau this just because its nice to give him a name) evil? This episode pegged Jacob as the "Good Guy." I'm just not sure. The "good guy-bad guy" lines have been thrown so many ways. I'm just not sure who to trust. Also, we found out that the self-assured re-born Locke doesn't seem to be re-born at all.
If, as we are to believe, Juliet has detonated the bomb then all of their present time characters would simply die. They would not revert to their past selves, they would simply be dead. However, I'm not sure that Juliet has actually detonated the bomb. I think that the electromagnetic energy was released and much like we saw during season 3 when the hatch "blew up" there was a release of energy that caused penetrating light and sound. I am uncertain what happens if this energy is released. If you remember, Desmond was in the same spot as Juliet is (more or less) and all it did to him was blow his clothes off and give him the ability to see Charlie's inevitable death (in several different scenarios).
There are still quite a number of unanswered questions. Here are a couple that I have.
- Did the explosion at the end of the episode destroy the statue and the island's inhabitants?
- Is "Esau" manifesting himself as Locke to convince Ben to kill Jacob? (As well as all the other manifestations of dead people we have seen....)
- Who was Jacob refering to when he said, "They're coming"?
- Who really is Jacob? And what's up with Richard? (I know, still, right?)
- What's up with all the Egyptian references?
- Was Daniel's first or second theory on time travel correct?
Good writing, Jesse. I automatically thought "yes" to #2, that Locke has been dead the whole season and the guy who promised to find a loophole is not Locke. Too bad for Locke fans. The rest of your questions are very good, and I thought of those, too. I was also very very happy to see the whole statue (cheered at the screen) and the brief scene with Rose & Bernard. Is one of the Eqyptian symbols on of fertility or life? And I was annoyed that the people who brought Locke's body were so slow to go inside the statue to "help" Jacob. Here are a few more:
ReplyDelete7. Who is worse, Ben or Whitmore?
8. Who was shooting at the time-travelers when they were in the boats?
9. What is up with Christian & Claire's time travel/causing other people to hallucinate? Also, the group with Locke said Jacob wasn't in that hut for a while. (Christian & Claire were for a scene.) But Christian's been there. And is Christian a ghost or dead? (Remember the empty coffin in season 1.) Ok. So that was a big question.