(For a recap of last night's Lost, go here.)
We've got one more season-- just 17 episodes!-- of Lost to go, and last night's episode seemed to bring up more questions than it answered. But with the introduction of just one character, Jacob's old rival from the beach in the first scene, we seem to finally have been given all the pieces of the Lost chess game. Quite literally, really, since this battle seems to have boiled down to black vs. white, Jacob in the white shirt vs. other guy in the black shirt, good vs. evil. OK, maybe it's a backgammon game instead. But the metaphor still stands.
So what do we know for sure now? Five things, so far as I can tell, though as we all know these things may change with one word from the producers. But I think last night's episode, for all its uncertainties, sent us in a specific direction for the coming season, along with giving us a lot of theories, Biblical references and not to mention hunks to chew over in the off-season.
(Screencaps courtesy of these guys)
1. It's no longer all about Jacob. And who knows if it ever really was. This new guy, who sat on the beach with Jacob many many years ago and has apparently spent the last few centuries trying to figure out a way to kill him, is now calling the shots via Locke, and will probably be the Ultimate Big Bad that drives the rest of the season. Widmore, Ben, Richard and the Others were red herrings, and this guy, who no one seems to know how to control, is what we've needed to fight all along. That doesn't mean that Jacob is necessarily dead-- hard to imagine that a few flames could kill a guy who's been around this long. A white smoke monster might pop up soon enough. Oh, and about that...
2. New Locke = Smoke Monster = Christian Shepard = Ghost Alex = that guy from the black shirt in the first scene. The black and white symbolism from the first scene seems a tad obvious, but reflects back on a lot of the imagery from the first season, including Locke's game of backgammon with Walt that we all figured would come back eventually. Now I have no idea how a very old man who was around in the time of a giant monster statue would be able to turn himself into a smoke monster, but there are enough hints to jump to that conclusion-- Ilana saying that Jacob hasn't been in the shack in a long time, and someone else has been living there; Black Shirt Guy's ability to transform himself using Locke's dead body, which likely explains the presence of Christian Shepard and Alex's ghost. And this might be a stretch, but think about the general rage felt from the Smoke Monster, the frustrated desire to get at somebody and tear up the jungle in the process. Again, no clue how the guy would turn himself into an amorphous smoke blob, but stranger things have been explained.
3. Everything we thought we knew about Jacob was wrong. He wasn't living in the shack. He wasn't an old guy in a beard (as was suggested in this silhouette). He doesn't seem to care a bit about Ben or, really, anything happening on the island, but he takes the time to visit many of our friends at pivotal points in their off-island lives. It's still possible that Richard has been interacting with Jacob, but it's just as likely that it's the Black Shirt Guy who was giving the instructions all this time. And Jacob was out there selecting the people who would land on his island-- just like he caused the Black Rock to crash centuries ago. Even if he wasn't the one calling the shots, he might the reason our Losties got involved in this mess-- not the numbers, not fate.
4. Everything we thought we knew about Locke's destiny might be wrong. All along Locke has believed he was led by a higher power, by the island, by someone who needed him for a specific reason. When he rose from the dead on the beach, he seemed to have found that purpose-- but it turns out he was just the vehicle by which the Smoke Monster could get revenge on this old friend (or maybe even his brother? The Bible is useful here.) I'm holding out hope that there's still a little Locke left in this new, smoky version, and that the writers will allow this beloved character some measure of salvation after everything he's been through. Then again, Ben was given the brush-off by the man he's supposedly been serving all along. No one is sacred.
5. The Incident happened the way it always did. Sure, it's possible that the bomb really did go off, and next season will show them having reset things after all. But all the little things that happened-- Pierre Chang's arm getting smashed, Radzinsky somehow surviving-- suggest that everything is happening just the way it always did. We don't even know if the bomb actually went off-- the cut to white is just as easily the original Incident, same as the one that sent Desmond flying off into time and eventually landing naked in the jungle. It's even possible that Juliet is alive, and will arrive at some unspecified point in time with the others, albeit pretty banged up.
So where do we go from here?
I think next season will happen on the island. I think the Incident, which Jack caused rather than prevented, will send the 1977 Losties to 2007, for no reason other than it finally reunites the cast. I think Black Shirt Guy, or Esau, or whatever you want to call him, will be who we're fighting from now on, and everyone from Widmore to Ben to Ilana will be on the side of the good guys. I don't think Jacob is really dead, or at least, I don't think his presence will no longer be felt. I don't think Black Shirt Guy will have the corporeal form of Locke for very long, because he's too interesting a character to entirely lose as a vehicle for the villain. I think if Jack wanted Kate so badly, he can probably have her-- Sawyer seems far too destroyed to mess with the love triangle again. I think Rose and Bernard are done on the show, maybe appearing one more time as the corpses Adam and Eve. I think Sayid is still alive, but Juliet is dead. I think it'll be pretty sweet for the Smoke Monster to turn out to have been the bad guy the whole time.
