Halfway through the sixth and final season of Lost, one can tell that the writers are enjoying themselves. The little things like Hurley’s supposition that the Adam and Eve skeletons are time travelling Losties and Richard Alpert’s frustration-induced assertion that the island is Hell, are teases to the audience, as well as none-too-subtle reminders that there’s still a lot left to learn.

So let’s examine the season six developments so far. What, if anything, new have we learned? Who are the new players, and who’s been taken down a notch? And just where the heck is Desmond anyway? Read on.

4 – The Sideways Universe

In one of Lost’s more controversial storytelling decisions (and that’s really saying something), the season premiere, “LA X”, gave birth to the Sideways Universe, or Safe-Landing Universe (SLU) if you like. But what is the significance of this deviant reality?

First, this isn’t just a universe where everyone onboard Oceanic 815 landed safe and sound at Los Angeles International Airport on September 22^nd, 2004. Hurley, perennially cursed by The Numbers, counts himself as the luckiest man alive and seems to be a successful (and pro-active) businessman. Jack has a teenage son who’s a burgeoning piano prodigy. Sayid’s true love Nadia still lives. Kate… is still running from the cops.

But the Losties aren’t the only ones with new lives. Locke finds his true calling as a substitute high school teacher and ends up making the acquaintance of history teacher Ben Linus. And Ethan Rom is a pleasant OB-GYN working in an L.A. hospital.

Even the Freighter Folk get new lives. That is unless you’re Martin Keamey, in which case you’re shot dead after trying to shake down Sayid for his brother’s debt and threatening his family. But that certainly was Charlotte Staples Lewis all glammed up on a date with James “Sawyer” Ford, who in the SLU is on the right side of “Cops and Robbers” and is partnered with none other than his Dharmaville Deputy, Miles Straum. As for the Island, it’s somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific.

But what precisely is the SLU? A dream? The afterlife? Some have postulated that the SLU is a fulfilment of the various promises made by The Smoke Monster/Man in Black to those that follow him. But typical of deals with the Devil, the result is never exactly what you wanted or expected. You may be reunited with your lost love, but she could be married to your brother. You may be free from the grief of losing your love, but you’re forever searching for that person that made you complete.

And then there’s Juliet’s cryptic after death words to Sawyer via psychic medium Miles, “It worked.” Could that mean the detonation of the Jughead bomb created the SLU, and maybe one only becomes aware of it after death? Time will tell.

8 – The Candidates

4-Locke, 8-Reyes, 15-Ford, 16-Jarrah, 23-Shephard, 42-Kwon

If you played Lost: The Experience (or can access Wikipedia), then you’ll already know that the supposedly cursed set of numbers – 4,8,15,16,23,42 – represent factors in the Valenzetti Equation, which accurately predicts when humanity will be extinguished.

But in “The Substitute,” The Smoke Monster, now in the visage of John Locke, shows Sawyer a cave where dozens of names were written in chalk on the walls but had since been crossed out. Only six names remained visible, and they each corresponded to one of the numbers. The names, says Locke, are candidates to replace Jacob as protector of the island. Not that it needs protecting, he adds, because “it’s just a damn island.” As for the numbers, it doesn’t matter. “Jacob had a thing for numbers,” is all Locke had to say.

Not quite true because as we learn in the next episode, Jacob had a lighthouse with a magic mirror, and along the dial of the mirror were names corresponding to a degree along the dial that the mirror could be turned to. So at 23 degrees, Jack Shephard sees his name, and in the mirror he sees a vision of his childhood home. (Other scenes in the mirror showed the chapel where Sawyer’s parent’s funerals were held and the Korean temple where Sun and Jin wed, but Jack wouldn’t get the significance.) Jack’s reaction? Well, does seven years bad luck give you an idea?

So it appears that Jacob kept a watchful eye on his candidates for a long time. Rousseau, Juliet, Charlotte, Daniel, Michael, even Mr. Friendly were all referenced on the cave wall or the lighthouse dial, and all had their names crossed out. Mysteriously though, one name is on the dial, neither crossed out or counted amongst the final six candidates for Jacob’s gig as the person in the four-toed statue foot: Kate Austen, who can be found at 51 on your lighthouse dial.

It is interesting the fact of Kate’s exclusion as a candidate, while at the same time her name remains un-crossed per Jacob’s thorough process of elimination. Perhaps Kate’s destiny isn’t to protect the island, but act as the intermediary between the one who does and the next wave of visitors to arrive at the shores of Isle de Cork Stop. After all, wasn’t Jacob’s intermediary, one Ricardo aka: Richard Alpert, a convicted murder that killed to save a loved one, caught and dragged across the ocean in chains only to crash land on the island? Sound like anyone we know on Oceanic 815?

As for the Candidate himself (or herself), there are technically now only five to choose from. Sayid, somehow, I doubt is in any position to be the new island master. Sawyer as well for that matter. Then you have to think that Kwon is 42, and his time is short. So that just leaves Jack and Hurley. Jack would be the obvious choice. He was the appointed leader of the 815 survivors and it seems Jacob had special interest in him by having Hurley lead him to the lighthouse in the first place. And how perfect would it be if Jack and Locke continued their eternal man of science/man of faith dichotomy as the new Jacob and Man in Black respectively?

But maybe that’s a red herring. Since returning to the year 2007, Hurley seems to have taken a more prominent leadership role. He led the castaways to the temple, he saved Richard Alpert from turning sides, and, most importantly, he can commune with dead Jacob. Hurley’s also been front and centre as a recipient of some of the island’s greater degrees of weirdness (like seeing the cabin), but he’s yet to become obsessed with its power. Perhaps Hurley’s three-piece suit success in the SLU is a sign that on the island, our friend Hugo Reyes is meant to fill the biggest shoes of all.

15 – School House Locke

By far, the most compelling answers of the season have come from the man walking around in the John Locke suit, aka: The Man in Black, aka: The Smoke Monster. From Jacob’s cave to the inside joke of the white rock to the massacre at the temple to the coy implication of SLU awareness, the one thing long time Lost fans know about Smokey-Locke is that he delivers the goods. (And by goods, we mean answers.)

Since the beginning of Lost we have wondered why the smoke monster haunted the island, and it’s because he can’t leave. Apparently doomed to scour the island for eternity, Smokey would psychically scan the odd castaways he’d encounter and determine their potential to serve him. Those that could be bent to his will were left alive (Locke, Richard, Ben), those that couldn’t were killed (815 pilot Seth Norris, Mr. Eko). The cat’s paws that the Man in Black influenced could do the one thing he couldn’t, kill his prison warden Jacob. And once Jacob was dead, the Man in Black would be free to go home. Where ever that is.

Some fans have wondered when the Monster became such a power broker. Didn’t Danielle Rousseau call it a “security system?” Wasn’t it at Ben’s beck and call when the mercs from the freighter wanted The Others leader’s head? The security system line Rousseau cribbed from her lover Robert when she accused him of being “infected” by the smoke. Peshaw, he said, it’s merely a security system. As for Ben bossing Smokey around, that’s a little trickier. Maybe Smokey just liked Ben’s style, happy to do the occasional hatchet job for The Others while biding his time.

That leads to another lingering mystery: The Cabin, the house that Horace Goodspeed built as a getaway for him and the missus. Way back in season 3’s “The Man Behind the Curtain,” Ben takes Locke there saying it’s where Jacob lives. Be now we know that Jacob lived in the foot. So who was in the cabin? The fact that it was surrounded by a ring of ash says the cabin was Smoke Monster’s base, but was it there to keep him out or keep him in?

Along similar lines, the question needs to be asked as to what side the spirit of Christian Shephard is on? Is he really Jacob’s emissary as he says? Is he another of Smokey’s disguises? Or is Christian an intermediary between Jacob and the Man in Black, a freelancer for hire that can help move pawns like Jack, Claire, Sun or Locke into positions where they’re needed?

Finally, is it the Man in Black’s intention to lead his recruits to post-island freedom, or is he using them to achieve his own ends? He said that Jacob was the one keeping him there, which is why he had to have Jacob killed. But Jacob’s gone now, what else does he need to get off the island?

16 – The Cork in the Wine Bottle

“Think of this wine as what you keep calling ‘hell.’ There's many other names for it as well, ‘malevolence,’ ‘evil,’ ‘darkness.’ And here it is, swirling around in this bottle unable to get out because if it did, it would spread. The cork is this island. And it's the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs.” – Jacob, “Ab Aeterno”

There you have it. Six years of noodle-scratching quandaries summed up in a ridiculously simple metaphor. Yet it doesn’t full explain what this home the Man in Black wants to go to is, or who the crazy mother that ruined his life was/is.

As for Man In Black being, for all intents and purposes, The Devil, it’s a revelation of no real surprise. He’s been moving about the island since the beginning of the season and making promises of wish fulfillment in exchange for their allegiance, even if that promise is not to kill you (See: the surviving Others).

Jacob: “That man that sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptible because it’s in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong. And when they get here, their past doesn’t matter.”

Ricardis: Before you brought my ship, there were others?

Jacob: Yes. Many.

Richard: What happened to them?

Jacob: They’re all dead.

Richard: But if you brought them here, why didn’t you help them?

Jacob: Because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It’s all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?

In terms of confusion-inducing Lost philosophizing, Jacob appears to be a student of deism. That is the notion that God created the universe, but takes no active hand in shaping the affairs of humanity. Of course, this philosophy makes it easy for other individuals to spread their influence unchecked, which is why when Jacob asked “Why should I step in?” Richard replied “Because if you don’t, he will,” meaning The Man in Black.

Still, Jacob’s philosophical basis remains sound, Is doing something really, morally right if you have to be told as much? Shouldn’t redemption be given to those who seek it and not those just looking to avoid the consequences of their wrong doing? It’s how morally compromised characters like Kate, Sayid and Sawyer can emerge as heroes on the island, but it’s also how unscrupulous power brokers like Charles Widmore and Ben Linus turn the island into their own personal game of Risk.

On the bright side though, it seems that Jacob’s belief that people can find the light on their own appears to have some currency. Remember his words to The Man in Black back at the opening of “The Incident.”

“It only has to happen once, anything before that is just progress.”

So far it seems that Ben’s been redeemed (or has he?), but is there still hope for Sawyer, Sayid or Claire?

23 – No Country for Old Ben

Poor Ben. He used to be the man with the plan. He was large and in charge, but not anymore. In the aftermath of “The Incident” Ben was flummoxed. The man he built up so much resent for, Jacob, simply let himself be killed by Ben. Then he learns the truth, the John Locke he’s been following is not Locke at all, but the new face of The Smoke Monster. Caught between serving Locke or getting killed by Ilana if she learns the extent of his role in Jacob’s death, the master manipulator found himself like a leaf in the wind.

No, this is not the Ben we know and loathe, although his terse eulogy for Locke will certainly make the highlight reel. (“John Locke was a believer. He was a man of faith. He was...a much better man than I could ever hope to be. And I'm sorry I murdered him.”) But this Ben knows fear. Whether he’s freaked out by Sayid’s massacre indifference or digging his own grave at gun point, Ben has no compass. He’s at the mercy of the other castaways, his island knowledge is out-of-date, and his years of secret keeping and scheming have caught up to him. But it seems that Benjamin Linus can still be redeemed.

In a heartbreaking confession to Ilana, Ben admits he wanted to kill Jacob because he was devoted to his never-before-seen boss and believed in the plan to the point that it cost him the one true thing that was precious to him, his daughter Alex. So, Ben said, he will go to the only person that will take him, Locke. Miles tells Ben that Jacob’s last thoughts were that he had hoped he was wrong about Ben. Meaning that he had hoped Ben could be redeemed. One can suppose then, that in a weird way, that killing Jacob and taking responsibility for it, as well as his nefarious life of Machiavellian scheming, Ben might just be redeemed.

So what next for our bug-eyed antihero? Perhaps in letting go of his obsession to hold on to island power, Ben will be granted new power in return by taking Jacob’s place. Because if the point is to stop The Smoke Monster, the one that was Jacob’s nemesis for years, perhaps the replacement Jacob will need a new player to act as their opposite. And for Ben, there could be no better antagonist then the man that just got back to the island after his own long exile…

42 – The Return of the King?

Out in the ocean, a periscope broke the surface and looked at the shoreline ahead. Down below a man reports, “Sir, there are people on the beach. Should we stop?” No, says the familiar British drawl of Charles Widmore, “We proceed as planned.” While the episode “Dr. Linus” gave us the presumptive redemption of The Others’ last leader, the man he replaced made a rather ominous return to the paradise he was wrongly (in his opinion) cast out of.

So who will Widmore side with in the battle for the island? As already seen at his headquarters on Hydra Island, Widmore’s got some pylons set-up, which will presumably establish a similar sonic fence to the one that protected the Dharma barracks. But is his intention to beat Smokey because he’s playing for Team Jacob, or is he simply looking to eliminate the island’s most powerful player before completing his conquest?

Suffice to say that whatever Charles Widmore is after, it’s probably no good to our friends on the island. Sure, when Sawyer identified Widmore as “the fella that sent a freighter to the island full of guys to kill us all,” Widmore retorts, “It’s sad really, how little you actually know.” But come on, is anyone convinced that Widmore’s a victim of mistaken intention?

Nope, he told Ben straight up in “The Shape of Things to Come” that the island’s his, always has been, always will be. We also learned that he’s governed by certain rules, rules that say he can’t outright attack another leader of The Others, just as Ben couldn’t revenge against him for the murder of Ben’s daughter Alex.

That leads to an interesting allegory. For Ben and Widmore, like Jacob and The Man in Black, are incapable of attacking each other based on a preordained set of rules. With Jacob and Man In Black gone in the end, then perhaps it’d make sense that these two titans, Ben and Widmore, to take their place and continue acting out this universal game of backgammon for another few hundred years. They both want the island and it’s power, the both want to prove to the other that they’ve won and they both want to kill each other but can’t. Sound like anyone to you?

One final note on Widmore is the emphasis put on the locked door in his submarine, the one that was none of Sawyer’s business. An elaborate guessing game has erupted as to who or what’s in there. But if one were to venture a guess, then the good money would be on Desmond Hume.

Desmond’s been conspicuous by his absence despite the fact that the actor playing him, Henry Ian Cusick, is still listed in the credits every week. Why Desmond? Well, the normal rules don’t seem to apply to the Scottish rogue who spent three years in a Dharma hatch before being freed by the Oceanic survivors, only to be later struck with the ability to see the future and let his mind time travel. Like how the smoke monster needed Ben to do his dirty work, maybe Widmore needs someone to help carry out his plan for island conquest. And remember the last words to Desmond by Others physicist (and Charles Widmore’s ex) Eloise Hawking, “The island’s not done with you yet.” Fans can most likely take that as a guarantee.

108 – Things Left Unanswered (and What’s to Come)

So now that we know where Richard Alpert came from and why, there’s still nine hours left open to get various other questions answered. Note, I didn’t say all the questions answered because how can they all be answered in the time that’s left and more importantly, does it matter?

Some have said that there’s no way that the writers and producers can give satisfactory answers to all the lingering plot threads in just nine episodes, which comes as consequence when the showrunners are making it up as they go. True, if certain key questions aren’t answered, a degree of disappointment will be felt, but as a viewer, can you remember the last time a series so enraptured you in itself? Can you name another series that you and your friends could discuss ad infinitum? Is there another TV show that you’ve scoured the internet to find spoilers for, only to kick yourself for ruining the next episode?

As for what’s coming, let’s look at the titles for future episodes. Episode 13 brings us “The Last Recruit,” while the following episode will apparently reveal “The Candidate.” In episode 16 we will supposedly learn “What They Died For”, which is the episode that leads in to the two part series finale called simply, “The End.” Of course, that will be followed promptly by the complaining about the series finale at 11:01 pm on Tuesday May 23^rd.

Written by :

Adam

 

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