"I Hope You're Happy Now, Jacob"--The LOST Season 5 Thread

"Throw the Juliet Down the Well"

and your island can explode

These videos are a nice little refresher on some of the key stuff:

I like that Jacob--though we assume he is good, because he wears white--is not all that benevolent. He doesn't attempt to save Nadia, he gives young Sawyer a pen so he can complete his letter and go forward into a life of conning and vengeance. He won't bother explaining himself to Ben, even when his life is on the line.

I expect Juliet to show up in the SSN 6 finale as a Dr. Manhattan figure.

Writers really should have given us a name for the Man in Black--since we'll be calling him Titus or Esau for the next 9 months. Lostpedia has the casting notice for the role though: "Samuel. Any ethnicity, 40s-60s. A corporate raider looking to take over his next company. Powerful, devious and obtuse. He has a cunning intellect and a strong sense of danger. May lead to recurring. Looking for someone very interesting and very special for this role..."

devious and obtuse and cunning, you say...

Oh yeah--it was great that it turned out Jack's "count to five" story went down a bit different than it did in the story he told Kate in the pilot.

Juliet death scene was fairly unemotional for me, just because I couldn't help thinking "it's your own fucking fault!". She could've been safely away in the sub if she hadn't been stupidly and unrealistically indecisive.

Miles points out to everyone that maybe blowing up the bomb is the wrong thing to do...but then within 3 minutes he's shooting dharmites and helping Jack?

Lots else wrong with this ep, but it's mostly been covered already upthread. Worst finale yet.

It's easier to get into it if you think solely about Jacob/Esau/Smokey/statue.

When Esau and Ben went into the statue i really wanted Jacob to say, 'You can't win, if you strike me down now i shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine'.

NAMELESS: They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
JACOB: It can only end once. Everything before that is progress.

So this happens with the Black Rock, the others, the Dharma people, the 815ers, and the Ajira people. The only two sitting outside this so far are Rose and Bernard, who are probably island Adam and Eve, who not only gave up on violence, but gave up on any groups. There are so many points in the show where people could let their worldly concerns go -- getting off the island, staying on the island, who owns the island, relationship strife, every other damn thing -- but no one ever really just lives their life. Sawyer and Juliet get close, but they're still with Dharma and get pulled back into everything by the second wave of '77ers.

Maybe the point of it all is you have to just accept the world as it is and not keep fucking with the island.

i dunno, i think you could probably find plenty examples in the show's history of people who were just trying to get by and live and let be, and ended up getting kidnapped or murdered or pulled into some crazy shit they would've never chosen to involve themselves in. there are some drama queens who chase the problems, sure, but not everybody.

you're saying the point of the show isn't "don't be a big drama queen"?

The Locke scenes in the second half of the season are amazing knowing that Locke is really the Adversary or whatever. If you haven't rewatched them, do it, it's awesome.

Is it important (what am I talking about, everything's important it appears) that both child-Kate and child-Sawyer specifically break the promises they make in their scene with Jacob - not to steal again and not to finish the letter?

little Sawyer promised not to write the letter to his uncle/family friend, not to Jacob. Jacob gave him the pen for him to continue.

I wonder if there's a significant reason for Jacob meeting some of them (Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Jin & Sun etc) pre-plane crash, and others (Hurley, Sayid) after they'd returned from the island. The biggest hint to me that Sayid will still be around next year is that the scene with Jacob was a pretty straightforward "the island won't let you die" moment. And also Sayid spent most of the episode going "okay I'm really fucked now".

Also if and when Hurley and Miles come across Locke (or Locke's corpse) it's probably going to fuck with their minds a bit.

Back when Richard and Sun were talking about the Namaste photo, he mentioned watching them all die in 1977 and that hasn't occurred yet. So either they'll still be in 77 next year, or Richard was lying, which is perfectly possible.

Actually I think the worst thing about this series has been Ben's transition from uber-calculating one-step-ahead-of-the-game Machiavel to whiny little bitch.

rule of tv drama, always destroy the most badass character by giving them FEELINGS

It's what they did with sawyer!

yeah and he'd better not continue to whine about how life on dharma-ville was perfect before the O6 came back next season. besides sawyer was just a regular selfish dick before he was all ;_; whereas ben's badassness came from the fact that you were never entirely sure whether he was just looking out for himself or for the good of everyone else.

Actually it's only just occurred to me that Ben could go seriously fucking psycho after finding out that he wasted 35 years of his life and watched his daughter get gunned down for no reason. More psycho than before, I mean.

I'm thinking that Miles was probably right and the bomb blast was meant to have happened all along. Otherwise, what would be the point of Ellie focusing so hard on ensuring that her son became a doctor and went out to the island?

From the opening scene I thought this was a great finale. Mainly spoiled by Miles/Juliet/Kate's flip flopping over something as minor as nuking the island. All the shootouts are looking a bit 'token' by now too, although I always love all the metal stuff flying around. From about halfway through it was looking obvious that the episode would end with the bomb going off somehow or other, so bit disappointed that it was that predictable.

I liked Jacob's interactions with the characters back in time, although I don't get them. To start with it looked like he was going to jolt them onto the path (or off the path in Kate's case?) that would lead them to the island. But he didn't do much to Jack and didn't appear in Juliet's most rubbish of all flashbacks.
Need to re-watch this, I think.

juliet wasn't chosen by jacob i think - she was brought to the island in the hopes that she could heal whatever was causing unborn babies to die in the third trimester. i'm guessing this happens soon after the incident with eloise having to leave the island in order to give birth to daniel.

That dude vozzek has some interesting theories:

http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2009/05/things-i-noticed-incident-by-vozzek69.html

I liked Jacob's interactions with the characters back in time, although I don't get them.

I like how he was just bein a pal helpin with the little stuff. "I see u need a pen, here u go." "Here buddy, have this tasty candy bar, I'm the Good Vibes Man. Bye."

I can't believe we were all wrong about the bomb going off. Still think in spite of their intentions it's not gonna change the fact that they landed on the island, but...man...kablooey huh.

gotta say, jacob is a pretty snappy dresser.

Thinking about this ep more, is the whole "it only ends once, anything that happens before that is just progress" line meant to mean that Jacob/Esau have seen this entire eternity of events (perhaps ending with the incident/explosion) happen over and over and over, and Jacob (like Faraday) thinks you can change the future but Esau thinks you can't, that people will fuck it up regardless.

Also seems fairly likely the bomb will actually change events and perhaps stop Jacob dying.

If Jacob was able to steer these people to the island (which seems to have been his original plan, which i hate right now) then when they left why couldn't he just go and retrieve them all in much more direct obvious ways instead of using Locke, Ben, Ilana and whoever else... MEH

I liked Bram freaked out by the ash gap. But how can this have been Jacob's prison at all? And what DID cause all the freaky cabin shit, this Esau dude? (and was this Jacob's rival/enemy saying "help me" to Locke instead then?)

first time since the first season finale that the final scene was on-island (i was hoping for some disconnected off-island thing but don't know what). i enjoyed all this until the anti-climactic end (going from 'is the bomb going to go off?' just to 'did the bomb go off?' is shit)

It was Esau's prison, not Jacob's. Entire cabin was Esau I think.

cool

so did Ben actually know that himself?

"you turned me into a cabin...I got better"

living under a statue right on the sea does not seem very practical. i want to see more of the it's terrifying face. also the idea that it was still standing when after Ben's arrival is surprising.

i guess we all shared Ben's weariness at Sun's questions.

Jacob is a lizard underneath.

yeah sun so pointless, that scene with richard "got any alcohol", "no lol whoever you are, i wish i did, we'd all have a pint!!!"

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Jacob%27s_enemy#Rename

look at what these people are arguing about

so when Ilana was first talking to Locke on the Hydra, she knew what he really was/wasn't?

Seeing more of the statue was awesome. Curious about speculations from people who know their Egyptian mythology as to who the statue is supposed to represent. Looks like a weird mash-up of maybe Sobek and Tawaret. Though if all this is just supposed to make us go 'oooh, cool, mystical Egyptian shit' and has no real significance I'm gonna be real sad.

look at what these people are arguing about

Sweeeeet jesus. Every so often, when I think people on ILX can be frustrating, all I have to do is lurk around other boards a minute to remind myself why I don't fuck w most of the internet.

i really hope the loophole is just "a knife"

Interesting point from the comment on that DarkUFO blog:
Now we know the signifigance of Miles and Hurley's abilities. They speak, hear, and commune with the dead, any "doppelganger" possessed by Jacob's nemesis, he can onl possess or take on the form of a dead person, will be known quickly to them that it's a fake.

Also some discussion about how Kate's Jacob-flashback was different in that he seemed to be trying to prevent her from getting to the island (although this could be reverse psychology, and surely there would be a more direct way at a later point in time to stop her... )

Thinking back to last season's finale... we saw the island disappear... but that was never properly explained was it? (Apart from, oh the island can move in space and time, now shut up and get on the plane). I had been anticipating more round-the-world ass-kicking and general moving in space as well as time. Granted, that might have been way too much to cope with with everything else going on, but looking back it kinda seems like they just disappeared the island to have a cool S4 finale effect then never really did anything with it.

I may have gotten this all wrong and there is some explanation about how it can't be seen when it's flipping in time, but I can't hold the salient facts in my head for more than 10 seconds with these latest eps...

Now we know the significance of Miles and Hurley's abilities. They speak, hear, and commune with the dead, any "doppelganger" possessed by Jacob's nemesis, he can only possess or take on the form of a dead person, will be known quickly to them that it's a fake.

This got me thinking about Miles acting weird around Claire last season. Sawyer thought he was being pervy but I think it was more that Miles couldn't figure out what she was - alive but not quite? He saw Christian too iirc.

I'm not sure the point of Jacob's meetings were to guide them one way or another - the "touching" bit seemed more important to me. Seemed like the castaways were "marked" when he touched them.

I was a little disappointed that neither Claire or Christian showed up again. Dunno if it's true but I heard somewhere that the actress who plays Claire is pregnant, so that would make sense the writers would have to avoid the two, but still, grumble etc. (I suppose Esau's done appearing as Christian, tho)

Also, Jacob's remark to Ben, "What about you?"--did he just not really have anything to do with Ben? Did he not really know him? Were all the lists Ben was talking about come from the cabin (and therefore Esau/Facob)? Orr...was taking Locke to the cabin just a fake-out, did he mistakenly think the cabin was of no real significance, just a creepy cabin?

I wonder if we're ever going to see Walt again or if they're going to leave all that hanging.

(I suppose Esau's done appearing as Christian, tho)

surely not. if Jack never actually ends up seeing Christian on the island then this show can go fuck itself because they've only been teasing this idea since the beginning.

the 'this has all happened before' overtones make me fearful too, after BSG. tho i like what Jacob said about there only being one end and everything before that is progress (hard to believe with this show sometimes lolamirite).

are we gonna see Widmore himself return to the island (present day) next? now that Jacob is "dead" perhaps this is "allowed". what would've happened if Widmore had tried to board the Ajira flight (he must've been able to find this info out from Eloise).

Weird that the Ben v Widmore political stuff that seemed so important at the end of last season has been revealed to be relatively insignificant now - two bald men fighting over a comb.

A friend of mine makes the case for the Esau nickname (or maybe steals it off the internet, who knows):

Gen. 27:41 "And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob."

Jacob offered the guy food at the beginning and he said no because he just ate..... birthright for a bowl of soup. Locke/Esau also walked into camp with a boar, and Esau was the hunter.

Esau found his "loophole" by possessing the body of dead ppl brought to the island. Jacob has the power of healing/life. eg. Returned Locke to consciousness after his fall, and gave Richard immortality.

Also, it appears as though in each of the flashbacks Jacob visits and most importantly TOUCHES each of the main characters. Jacob however did not present himself in Juliet's flashback and she ended up dying. Coincidence?

the way Jacob said "what about you?" to ben made me think he might have been goading ben to kill him, that this is maybe what he planned for all along. damn this show's ambiguous line delivery!

well if she is dead then it's only because of the bomb which would kill everyone else too.

xxpost the episode where Richard visits Locke as a child - Richard was unhappy that Locke chose the knife. Maybe because the hunting knife represented Esau i.e. the knife that would eventually kill Jacob?

clicking around has revealed that henry ian cusick/desmond has a son named Esau heh